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.”

My heart warms.

“In walks your mother.” I can hear the smile in his hoarse words. “Never looked back after that.”

“Aw,” I sigh. “I knew you met at grandpa’s deli, but I’d never heard about Marian.”

“That’s because Marian is irrelevant,” he says. “Life didn’t matter until your mother. She’s my best friend. The girl who stuck by my side despite the fact that I didn’t deserve her. Still don’t deserve her. But thirty-five years later, she’s not going anywhere. You need someone who’ll stick with you when life gets hard. Really hard. Because it will. It always does.”

I nod, knowing he can’t see me. My words are lodged somewhere in my throat.

“Look. I liked Jeremiah. Emphasis on liked. If things got hard and Jeremiah bailed on you, he doesn’t deserve you,” Dad says. “And I wouldn’t be able to live with myself if I knew you were only staying with him because you wanted to make me happy.”

I clutch at my heart, desperately wishing we’d have had this talk weeks ago.

“Thanks, Dad.” A lungful of fresh air reinvigorates me. “I’ve got to get back to work. I’ll see you and Mom in a couple weeks, okay? I’m flying back for Mother’s Day.”

“All right, baby cakes. Love you.”

***

“You’re back.” I linger in Beckham’s office doorway. His cheeks are sunken, his eyes darker than before. He stormed off earlier without saying a word. “You talk to Sophie?”

“Yep.” He glares at the computer screen, punching his keyboard.

“Get everything sorted out?” I shouldn’t pry, but then again, the woman was stalking me, so I have a right to ask.

“She’ll leave you alone from now on.”

That’s all I get?

“What’d she say?” I step into his office. His eyes snap toward me, crawling up me from head to toe as if I’m not welcome in here.

“The details are none of your concern, Odessa.”

“No, it is. She was following me.”

“And I told you she wouldn’t be a problem any longer. What part of that did you not understand?” He slams his keyboard tray back into his desk, slowly rising.

“What the hell is your problem?” My arms lock against my chest, and my hip cocks sideways. “Is any of this about last night?”

It has to be. Nothing else makes sense. Maybe he still loves Sophie and he hates himself for screwing me last night? I’m grasping at straws here but I need to understand what changed.

“Why would any of this be about last night?” A single eyebrow lifts.

My jaw slacks, the words sputtering in my mind. “Maybe you still have feelings for her?”

“Absolutely fucking not.”

“Maybe you’re upset that I’m a bigger part of your life than you ever wanted me to be. Maybe you don’t know how to deal with that emotionally, so you shut down.”