“Don’t fucking go there, Sophie.” My shoulders pull tight, fists flexing and clenching.
“I’m sorry, I just can’t picture you as a family man,” she laughs. “Now would that be kismet? Or karma?”
I’d never hit a woman, but it doesn’t stop me from conjuring up an image in my head of my fingers wrapped around Sophie’s porcelain throat, smashing her up against the wall.
“You fucking bitch.”
“I hold you responsible.” She points at me, her smile swapping out for a glare. “You should know that.”
“Still delusional after all these years.”
Her lips twist back into a smirk. “Not delusional. We just remember things differently.”
“No, Sophie. You remember things the way you want to. That way you don’t have to take responsibility for the horrendous choices you made.”
“When you tell your fiancé you think you might be pregnant, and he freaks out and goes on a rampage about how he never wanted children and how he’s not capable of being a father, what’s a girl to do?” Her eyes glass but it’s only temporary. “I didn’t want to lose you, Beckham. I did what I had to do.”
“You don’t go out and get a fucking abortion, Sophie.” The throbbing in my head is only outdone by the painful tensing of my jaw.
She uncrosses her legs, drawing them up on the sofa and reaching for her martini glass.
“You stormed out that night. I didn’t hear from you for a week. I had to fix the problem.” Her words are lined in defense, but her argument is thin. “You came back to me after that, did you not?”
“Like a fucking moron, yes.” My voice is a low growl. “Don’t think a day goes by when I don’t regret it.”
She rolls her eyes. “Men act like they have it so hard. You think it was easy for me to walk into a clinic, a scarf wrapped around my face, and lie on a table and get our baby sucked out of me?”
My stomach balls. “I never asked you to get an abortion, Sophie.”
“You didn’t have to. You made it clear you didn’t want to be a father. I granted your little wish because I fucking loved you. How many women would do that for you, Beckham?”
The searing pain in my chest intensifies when I think of never knowing my innocent child.
“I was scared, Sophie. I needed space. I needed to process everything.”
“You were weak,” she spits her words. “That’s one of the reasons I wanted you. You were weak and I could break you over and over. Mold you into whatever I needed. You were lost when I found you. A tragically handsome, broken soul. Couldn’t let that go to waste. I showed you what it felt like to be desired, and I made you into everything you ever wanted to be.”
It’s true. She showed me desire like I’d never felt before. All along it was desire, not love. It was hard to tell the difference when I’d never felt anything that’d rendered me so powerless.
Sophie knew how to bring me to my knees, offering me the world on a silver platter. She held my heart in her teeth for years, breaking me time and again until I finally snapped.
“I didn’t come here to rehash the past with you.” My arms cross. “Came to tell you to stay the fuck away from me, my family, and Odessa.”
She cocks her head, resting it on her hand and sinking back into her overstuffed sofa. “That’s cute. You’re all protective. Never thought I’d see the day.”
“Tell me, Beckham. I get why you’re protective of the baby, but why the girl?” She takes a swill of her drink. “You afraid I’ll tell her the truth about you? About your past and that sick-as-fuck cult you were raised in and how you were used in those rituals where the church elders would fuck you in the ass?”
Her head tosses back. She’s pure fucking evil in a pale pink twin set.
My face pinches, my chest heaving. I charge at her and see a hint of terror in her blue eyes for the first time.
“You stay away from me and my family. You don’t speak of us. You don’t follow us. You don’t so much as fucking think of us. We don’t exist to you. You’re dead to us.” My face is inches from hers. It’s all I can do not to strangle the psychotic bitch. “If I hear you’re bothering Odessa, if I see you anywhere, I swear to God, Sophie, I’ll go straight to your father and tell him the real reason we ended it.”
Her face pales. She’s frozen.
“You and I both know the substance abuse clause your father put in your trust is ironclad. He’ll disown you and disinherit you if he knows you so much as tried a single fucking illegal drug.” I don’t need to remind her. She’s well aware.
She swallows, and I storm out before I do anything stupid. Sophie fucking Glass is not worth it. My priorities have shifted. My concerns lie elsewhere. I don’t want to fight dirty, but when it comes to protecting the only thing that matters to me, I’ll do what I have to and not think twice.
Chapter Thirty-Six
ODESSA
I find an empty park bench in Central Park and finish my pretzel-and-coffee lunch, composing my thoughts before I call my parents. It’s time to tell them about Jeremiah: that it’s officially over.
For good.
My fingers shake as I dial my father’s cell phone. He deserves to hear everything from me now, not secondhand through Mom.
“Hey, baby cakes!” His voice is a whistle, breathless.
“Hey, Dad.” I can’t help but smile when I hear his voice, though it disappears when I remember I’m seconds away from breaking the poor man’s heart.
“Good to hear from you,” he says. “I was getting worried. Everything okay?”
“Yes,” I say. “I’m doing well. Really happy.”
“I saw Jeremiah’s TV show the other day. You didn’t tell us the season started two weeks ago,” he says. “Trying to play catch up with the reruns. It’s a good show. Your mom made his southern fried chicken last night for dinner.”
“Daddy, you’re not supposed to be eating that kind of stuff.”
“Everybody’s going to die someday, right?”
I hate when he downplays his health. Cracking jokes isn’t going to make his chronic illnesses disappear.
“Your mother told me you and Jeremiah were going through a bit of a cooling off period,” he says. Leave it to my mother to put a delicate spin on some heavy news. Two years ago when my brother and his wife were having marital issues, my father damn near had a heart attack when he heard they’d legally separated. “Everything okay?”
I rake my hand along my leg and reposition myself. Attempting to find comfort on a wooden park bench is pretty much impossible.
“I’m sorry,” I begin. “I know you liked him a lot, but I don’t want to marry him anymore. We ended things. For good.”
My face pinches as I wait for his reaction, fingers crossed that this news doesn’t land him in the hospital.
“You still there?” I ask. The raspy breathing on the other end tells me he is, but I need him to say something. Anything.
“Back in high school,” he says. “I dated this girl. Marian Tisdale. She was incredible. Smile like you wouldn’t believe. Captain of the cheerleading squad. Hottest girl in school. We went off to college together, and I thought I was going to spend my life with this girl. I loved her more than anything.”
I press the phone hard against my ear. My father never speaks of life before my mom, and we all assumed that he didn’t exist until she came into his life.
“Just before the wedding,” he says. “She got cold feet. Said she couldn’t marry me because there were too many other options out there and what if she made the wrong choice? I was the only guy she’d ever loved.”
His tone is laced in melancholy, and my heart breaks for the younger version of my father.
“I’m so sorry.”
“I think my father took it harder than anyone,” he says. “Told me I’d never meet anyone as perfect for me as Marian Tisdale. And for years, I believed him.”
I know how that feels.
“And then one day, I’m working at my father’s deli and he announces that he hired some Bloom girl to pick up some hours on the second shift. A daughter of his buddy’s from the next town over.”