You’d already given me everything I’d ever need just letting me sit at your dinner table with your family.
He felt his jaw get tight.
She hadn’t been lying.
He knew by the wounded look in her big hazel eyes, Amy said those words and she hadn’t been lying.
His gaze dropped and through the dark he saw the light of one of Cill’s Frisbees lying in the backyard.
The Calway Petroleum heiress lived right next door and she spent her days with an old lady who thought she was a Nazi and came over to his house, ran around the backyard and played Frisbee with his kids.
Rhiannon had not pulled her shit together enough to bring her son a present.
Amy had hustled her ass to a store she probably had no clue existed until she had to find it so she could rain goodness down on his boy.
Before he kicked her out, Mickey had not had sex with his wife for eight months because at night she’d be passed out before he could try, and he didn’t have the stomach to touch her any other time just remembering that shit.
He’d kissed Amy once and she’d been so hot for him, he knew he could have yanked up the skirt of that amazing dress, yanked down her panties, fucked her against the wall and they both would have got off on it.
Huge.
And something was up with his girl and when he’d phoned Rhiannon months ago to see if she’d noticed anything or could find a time to sit down and talk to her, Rhiannon had told him she had no idea what he was talking about. And when Mickey pushed it and his ex made a lame attempt to see if there was anything there, she’d reported to Mickey that all was fine and they had nothing to worry about.
Amy studied Ash in a way Mickey knew she saw it too; it just wasn’t her place to do anything about it.
“Fucking shit, I fucked that up,” he murmured.
Mickey had no idea why Amy didn’t have her kids.
But he knew not having them was bringing a slow death and she was fighting with all she had to stay alive and kicking.
And she was into him; she’d made that clear from almost the start.
And fuck, he was into her. Those eyes, Jesus, they said everything. He could look into them for hours and know every thought that crossed her brain and better than that, the woman she was, he’d be interested in it.
And going head to head with her surprisingly did not suck. It got his blood pumping. It pissed him off. It made him feel.
He’d been going through the motions of life for so fucking long—covering Rhiannon’s ass, getting shot of her, doing what he could to look out for his kids—he forgot what it was like. He forgot how it felt to be so into a woman, when she was quiet and sweet, he had to fight the urge to pull her in his arms and kiss her. When he saw her in pain, he had to fight the urge to curl her close and do what he could to take it away. And when she was stubborn and a pain in the ass, he had to fight the urge to shove her against the wall and fuck her senseless.
Not to mention Amy’s tits, that ass, those legs.
But his head was so far up his own ass because the woman was fucking loaded and he’d been burned so bad, he’d protected himself by putting her off then lost control and backed her against a wall in a hall when she was on a date, for Christ’s sakes, then demanded she get shot of his ass.
And she did.
For him.
For a shot at them.
Then she’d gone all out for his son and he’d walked over there and kicked her in the teeth.
“Fucking shit, I fucked that up,” he bit out.
You’d already given me everything I’d ever need just letting me sit at your dinner table with your family.
She hadn’t lied.
That was all Amelia Hathaway needed.
“Fucking shit,” he whispered to the trees. “I fucked that shit up.”
He downed the rest of his beer, walked into his house, slid the sliding glass door shut, locked it, put the pole in the tracks, dumped his bottle in the recycling bin and walked through the dark house to his empty bed.
Chapter Thirteen
Wreck You
I walked toward the security door at Dove House, hand in my purse, looking for my phone.
“Amelia.”
I looked left and saw Mr. Dennison in an armchair, hand up, finger crooked to me.
I pinned a smile on my face and headed his way.
“Need something?” I asked.
“Closer,” he answered when I stopped at his side.
I crouched so he could look down and I was looking up, something he couldn’t do often considering he was stooped and further, had to walk with a Zimmer frame.
“Everything okay?” I asked.
He studied me with his fading blue eyes.
“Mr. Dennison,” I called. “Can I get you something?”
Finally, he focused on me. “You ever need to talk, love, my ears are old, but they can still hear.”
Well, that answered that. I was not hiding the fact that I was still bleeding from that scene with Mickey last night even if I’d finally pulled myself together enough to call Robin back, tell her all about it through silent crying hiccups and listen to her ranting about how men were all jerks and I was better off knowing sooner rather than later, like I’d learned with Conrad.
She was not wrong.
But somehow, what happened with Mickey hurt more than Conrad’s betrayal, even when recent news could make it fresh.
I had no idea how this could be. Except for a shining twenty-four hours that held the promise of him, he and I never were.
It still destroyed me.
But this time, older, wiser, maybe stronger, but definitely tired of this crap, I thought I was letting it do it quietly.
Mr. Dennison didn’t agree.
I grabbed his hand and gave it a squeeze. “Maybe we’ll have a gab over a cup of tea when I’m back.”
“You bring some bourbon, you’re on,” he told me.
I didn’t need to bring bourbon. He had a stash his son augmented every week when he came to visit.
I smiled at him and gave his hand another squeeze. “See you later, honey.”
He squeezed me back. “Later, love.”
I walked to the security door, punched in the code, pushed on the bar, walked through but stopped in the vacant reception area to pull out my phone.
I activated it and scrolled through the notifications.
Bad news: another call from Boston Stone.
Good news: my attorney in California had called me back.
Unbelievably great news: Pippa had texted me.
Flowers are pretty. Thanks.
I was grinning like a fool (inside, outside, after the Mickey thing, I still couldn’t do it), as I poked at the screen and sent a text back to my daughter.
Glad you got them. Chin up, kiddo. Hope you know how much your mother loves you.
I sent that, poked the screen again and put the phone to my ear. I listened to it ring, got his secretary, and considering my last name, she put me right through to my attorney.
Only then did I again start walking.
“I got the message, Amelia,” Preston Middleton said in my ear. “Are you sure about this information?”