Page 90 of Never Bargain with the Boss
I grind my teeth, my eyes unstaring at the wall across the room. “He’s done this before?”
“Notthis,” she corrects. “Mostly, he shows up wanting money and tries to manipulate me into giving it to him with sob stories about the foster kids in his care. But even if I gave him every penny I have, those kids would never see any of it. It’s not about the money, not really. It’s the power he wants… power over me, power to take all the things that bring me joy away from me so that I’m just as miserable as he is because he wants me to remember that I don’t matter to anyone.”
“Have you seen him lately?”
He’s been out there, stalking her for nearly ten years, and she didn’t say a word. But I want to know. Did she know this could happen? That he was here, this close to her? This close to Grace.
“I saw him at the grocery store the other day. It was nothing. He didn’t even ask for money. He was just letting me know that he’d found me. I figured that’d be it for a while, especially with how far away he lives. Obviously, I was wrong.” She shivers like a cold chill is going through her.
“You saw him and didn’t say anything? To me? To Cole?”
Because I haven’t forgotten that Cole knew all this too. It wasn’t just Riley hiding this from me.
She shakes her head. “I was figuring it out. I always have before, and Cole’s been checking on the kids for me since I got here. That was why I called him in the first place. I needed his help to make sure they were okay. I can handle Austin.” She sighs and then whispers, “I thought I could handle him.”
The truth in that statement is heavy. She tried to do this on her own, the way she apparently has always done. And it could’ve destroyed everything.
“This is what you were talking about when you pinky promised that you were safe and that Grace was safe with you, isn’t it? And the whole time, you knew this could happen.” My voice is hard, the words sharp.
Her breath stutters. “Cameron?—”
“You. Knew!” I roar, standing up. I’m looming over her, and she shrinks into the couch, into the blanket, hiding behind her tea. But I can’t care.
I could’ve lost Grace. And it would’ve been Riley’s fault.
No. It would’ve beenmyfault for letting Riley in. I knew better. I shouldn’t distract my focus from Grace. She’s it. Singularly, the most important thing in my world, and yet, I brought in the biggest danger she’s ever known… not Austin. Riley.
“I never thought he would do something like this,” she shouts back. “Who would’ve thought…” She waves her hand toward the formal living room, or maybe the front door. “That?”
“What if you’d been out with Grace? What if she’d been at the grocery store with you? What if she’d been the one to answer the door today?”
That question stops time for both of us, and we stare at one another, panting and angry and wild-eyed.
I’ve been replaying the doorbell video in my mind, over and over. But every time I do, Riley’s determined face is replacedwith Grace’s scared one. And then her voice on the phone echoes in my head.
“Cameron, I’m sorry. I should’ve told you,” she says, her voice filled with pain.
“Yes, you should’ve, right from the beginning. If I’d known, I never would’ve hired you. I never would’ve risked…” I slide my jaw right and left, fighting the tension there so I can say this, even though the rest of my body is coiled tight. “Grace.”
That’s not what I want to say. What I want to say is that I wouldn’t have risked my heart. But in the big scheme of things, my heart is unimportant, unlike Grace. My heart has been broken before, shattered and shredded, and I lived on. Grace, though? I’ve spent her whole life protecting her so that she would never know that pain, that fear, and yet, here we are.
The most important thing in my life was almost stolen from me, the same way Michelle was—by someone else’s mistake.
“I told you up-front that she is my priority, has always been, and will always be first for me.” My voice cracks, and I clear my throat. “I choose her. Her well-being, her happiness, and most of all, her safety. So I’m sorry, but you need to leave.” I stare past her, unable to meet her eyes as I say the words.
She surges to standing, the blanket that had puddled in her lap now falling to the floor, and she drops the tea mug to the table with a clatter. “You’re firing me?”
This is so much more than that.
A firing. A break-up. A death of a sort. It sure as fuck feels like I’m dying. Like someone is ripping my heart right out of my chest.
“Riley—”
“No, I’m not leaving. That’s what I told Austin, and I meant it. No more running away. I’m not leaving you, and I’m not leaving Grace. We’re a family.”
I can see the determination on her face, and in so many ways, I’m proud of her for fighting the hold her past has on her and being willing to dream of a future now. But I can’t. I’m stuck in the moment… the one where she lied… where she willingly and knowingly endangered the most precious thing I have, Grace.
I thought I could do this thing with Riley. Hell, I thought I was doing it… moving on, living life again, feeling hope. Falling in love. But not like this. Not at the expense of my daughter.