“I’m sorry, I have to go. I don’t know what you want with me, but I don’t have anything to do with this.”
“Please, one second.”
“Does Aston know you’re watching him?” I asked, hearing the tension in my own voice.
“No, ma’am.”
“Then hang up the phone and stop, or I’m going to tell him.”
“Please don’t. Mr. Prescott thought the two of you could come to some arrangement. It’s what’s best for Aston.”
“Tell him he tried that once before, and I didn’t bite. I’m not going to this time either.”
“For Piper, even?”
I hit end call before I begged and pleaded for him to never mention her name.
Aston
Fucking Cass.
As expected, I found my hollow shell of an ex-wife laid out on her chaise, with a bottle of expensive vodka hanging from her hand and a glass of wine on the table next to her. Three freaking sheets to the wind, she stumbled over her words and tripped over her feelings.
“I won’t be embarrassed at the school like this. I mean, really? I d-d-don’t deserve that shit. Or at the club either,” she shouted, stuttering.
By embarrassed, she meant the accusations against me, both current and past. Plural. Not only the most recent one.
Ironically, she’d never considered her drinking and pill use to be cause for embarrassment.
“All I ever heard was about you and your wandering eye and cock,” she spat out. “Of c-c-course, your heart always belonged to that poor bitch, and now you’re free to run around sticking your dick in any willing hole. And you still fuck up.”
I didn’t bother to respond. Cass would eventually tap out. Or pass out. Whichever came first.
“I was a catch, came from a good family, the right kind of people. Your dad’s wife handpicked me,” Cass said, her arm thrown over her face, her voice slurred from the alcohol. “You had me and then let me go . . . and for what? A memory? Of a fucking good time on the golf course when you were a freaking kid?”
Against my better judgment, I said, “Cass, don’t talk about shit you don’t know anything about. Especially when you’re drunk.” I couldn’t let her disparage Bexley anymore.
She pulled her arm from her face to glare at me. “And now it comes out that you’re nothing but a coldhearted criminal. Ha!”
I didn’t answer this time. The kids had already packed a bag and were waiting at my car. They saw me as good, and that was all that mattered. I walked out on a half-passed-out Cass and gathered my two kids in my arms and squeezed them tight before depositing them in my SUV.
I’d planned to take them to my dad’s, where Denise would take care of them. She’d raised my half siblings for Nan, and now she was a personal assistant of sorts to Nan, but she adored my kids and took any chance to be with them. Then I hoped to hurry back to Bexley.
Until I walked out of my dad’s house after leaving the kids with Denise and found Doug Pyle waiting outside in his car. As I made my way to my SUV, he got out of his car and approached.
“You can’t go back there,” he said.
“Where?” I played dumb. Who the hell did he think he was, my keeper? I paid people like him to do my bidding.
“You know the fuck where. Aston, you’re playing with fire.”
“Bullshit.” I stared him down, despite him having at least twenty pounds of muscle on me, and then I turned to go.
I was halfway into my SUV when he said, “Your dad knows all about your extracurricular activities. He’s watching you.”
Yeah, I figuring that out for myself, you dipshit.
Doug was a loyal employee of my dad’s, but also a longtime buddy of mine. We’d gone to camp together every summer as kids, until his dad lost everything in the stock market. Doug ended up doing grunt work for my dad after graduating from the police academy. My dad took him in with big promises and ended up exploiting his time and skills. Occasionally, Doug took pity on me.
“So, you know,” Doug said quickly before I could leave, “I called her and made her the same offer your dad did years ago. Maybe even sweetened it up a bit, considering the circumstances, but she didn’t accept.”
Pulling in a deep breath, I tried to tamp down my fury. “She didn’t the last time either. And she’s not going to—”
Fuck this. I didn’t have the time or patience for it. Jumping into the SUV, I cranked the engine and got the hell out of Dodge.
I didn’t make it back to Bexley’s until dusk. Her blinds were drawn, and her car wasn’t out front or in the carport.
I waited an hour, watching for any signs of her.
Nothing.
With my tail between my legs, I went to get my kids and took them home with me, playing both mommy and daddy for the evening instead of reunited lover.
Bexley
I didn’t know what to do, so I ran.
In a matter of hours, I’d regressed from a competent, resilient adult to a needy young woman. I needed perspective and information, and there was only one place to get it.
Bringing my kids home would have only been a Band-Aid to my pain. Instead, I grabbed a box of cheap wine and hightailed it to Tahoe.
“Mike home?” I asked when Milly answered the door, the box under my arm.
“He’s out back with the kids, pretending to watch them, but really checking baseball scores on his phone.”
“Great. I need to ask him some questions.”
I barged inside and made my way to the patio, dramatically throwing open the French doors. It was one of those perfect backyards surrounded by perfect trees to match their perfect life.
Their kids were splashing in the pool, floodlights illuminating the idyllic scene.
“What happened?” Milly chased after me, trying to calm me down. With her hand wrapped around my arm, she tugged me to a stop.
“Take
