As they filled in the big flowers Alice had sketched, Indi chatted easily about all sorts of things, from her favorite TV show to swings in the park with Karen, so Jess wasn’t prepared when the little girl lobbed her grenade.
“Why don’t you visit me anymore?”
Nick’s head shot around, his gaze flinty with warning. Like the slicing sting of a paper-cut, Jess realized that he and Libby hadn’t told the girls about their brother.
Anger roared, stomping over the new and fragile peace and crushing it into dust. So, Libby thought it was fine to betray her and Leo to the town by revealing the truth about his father, but she hadn’t told his sisters? Had she banked on Lucy not hearing anything at school? Jess supposed that was likely, given Leo wasn’t at school and Indi was too little to understand if anything was said at daycare.
She wanted to hit something. No, someone. Her fury raged like wildfire at Libby and her disregard for Leo when she was clearly protecting her daughters. Indi and Lucy deserved to know they have a half-brother. If Nick and Libby wouldn’t do the job, then she would.
“I wanted to visit you, but—”
“Indi! Nick!” Libby’s emergency-doctor-in-control voice filled the tent. “It’s time to go.”
The chatter in the tent died instantly and the slightly off-key singing drifting from the music stage became loud. Some people kept their heads down but most sat back on their too-small chairs with as much anticipation as a blockbuster movie audience. All that was missing was the popcorn.
“Look, Mommy!” Indi called out. “Jess is here.”
Libby’s eyes glittered with the blue chill of glacial ice. “So I see.”
“And we made wings.”
Libby picked up the wings and held out her hand to her daughter. “It’s time to go.”
Indi stamped her foot. “But Leo got pom-poms. I want pom-poms!”
Alice, who’d been helping another child, shot back to her niece’s side clutching the glue gun. “You can never have too many pom-poms.”
Libby’s gaze roved between her husband, her twin and Jess before settling on Alice. “How could you let this happen?”
Alice winced. “I’m running the craft tent, Libs, not policing it.”
“This wasn’t planned,” Nick said quickly. Leo zoomed around his legs, playing at being a butterfly.
“I don’t believe you.”
“Of course you don’t,” he said wearily. “But it’s the truth.”
Jess read the distance between husband and wife, seeing the wide cracks in the united front that the Hunter-Pirellis had been displaying for months. It was an unexpected gift and it gave her room to maneuver. Despite Nick’s frosty response and his refusal to engage with her, she hadn’t imagined his delight at seeing Leo. Nor Leo’s happy response to Nick. This was her chance for her son.
“Leo has access rights.”
“Not here, Jess,” Nick muttered.
As if sensing tension, Indi protectively grabbed Leo’s hand.
“When then?”
Libby’s lips whitened at the edges. “Never.”
Jess didn’t want to discuss access arrangements in front of an audience of gossips and interested bystanders, but if this was her only opportunity to secure Leo’s rights, then so be it. It wasn’t like she had anything left to lose. “Then we discuss it here.”
“We’ll set up a time,” Nick said hurriedly. “We’ll email you.”
Jess remembered the Mexican standoff over the support payments and the paternity request. No way was she giving away her power again. She looked straight at Libby. “By ten o’clock tonight or I’ll betray you to your daughters like you betrayed Leo to the town.”
“Come on, Nick, we’re leaving.” Libby separated Indi from Leo and gripped her hand hard.
“Ouch, Mommy!” Indi pulled her hand away. “Don’t want to go.”
Nick picked her up and swooped her around like a plane. “Come on, let’s go and find your sister and Nonna.”
“Me! Me!” Leo called out, tears filling his eyes.
“I want Leo to come too,” Indi said.
“Out of the mouths of babes,” Jess said.
“He has to stay with Jess. It’s where he belongs,” Libby said tightly.
“But—”
“Do. What. You’re. Told. Indi.”
“Look, Indi.” Alice held out the wings now heavy with sequins, ribbons and pom-poms. “Your fairy wings are ready just in time for you to dance on stage with the fairy queen.”
Nick threw an appreciative look at his sister-in-law as Indi demanded her wings. She ran happily from the tent, calling for Lucy. Nick and Libby followed their daughter without a backwards glance, leaving Jess and a crying Leo behind.
Jess heard a muttered, “When is that bitch going to realize she has no rights?” She sat down hard before pulling her son onto her lap. “Shh, it’s okay, sweetie. Let’s draw something.”
“You look sad,” Hunter said kindly. “Maybe you should make yourself some wings.”
If Libby thought learning about Leo’s existence was the worst thing to have happened to her, it had nothing on dealing with it.
They only stayed for the Fairy Queen’s concert to avoid Lucy and Indi melting down. Such a scene would have added even more glory to her and Nick’s status of being the bay’s most scrutinized couple. But as Libby watched the performance, instead of seeing Chrissie Templar and her dance students moving around the stage in sequins and tulle, all she saw was the constant replay of Nick smiling and happy and playing with that child. The moment the Fairy Queen and her handmaidens exited the stage, Libby and Nick bundled two excited girls into the car.
Libby was so incandescent with rage she could have powered the bay and the surrounding district. The target of her fury encompassed many. Nick for not walking out of the tent the moment he’d seen that woman. The bitch, who’d not only used her husband as a sperm donor, but was now demanding access rights for the child. That request had brought back every ravaging emotion that had pummeled Libby
