I stepped back as she walked into my house as if she owned it, her heels clicking on the hardwood floor. And behind her, a man followed. Tall. Mid-forties. Expensive suit that screamed money and power. He had the kind of face that belonged in boardrooms and country clubs—sharp features, calculating eyes, a smile that didn’t reach past his teeth.
“Gabriel,” Tonya said, turning to gesture at her companion. “This is Richard Castellano. My husband and attorney.”
Husband? Attorney?
The words hit like a punch to the gut.
“Your attorney,” I repeated slowly.
“Yes.” She settled onto my couch—mycouch—like she was posing for a photoshoot. Richard sat beside her, pulling a leather portfolio from his briefcase.
That was when I heard it.
The water in the kitchen had stopped running.
Cate had heard voices.
Fuck.
“What are you doing here, Tonya?” I kept my voice leveled and controlled, even though every instinct was screaming at me to throw them both out. “I have sole custody. You forfeited visitations when you never showed up.”
She smiled. The same smile she’d used when she wanted something. When she was about to make my life complicated.
“I’m here about my daughter,” she said simply. “I want custody.”
The world tilted. Everything—the past week with Cate, the happiness I’d been feeling, the future I’d been starting to imagine—all of it crashed into this single moment.
“Custody,” I said, my voice dangerously quiet.
“Joint custody, to start.” Richard, the husband and attorney, opened his portfolio, pulling out papers. “My wife has realized she made a mistake. She wants to be part of her daughter’s life again.”
“Over my dead body.” My hands clenched into fists at my sides. “You abandoned her.”
“I didn’t abandon her,” Tonya said, and had the audacity to look hurt. “I was going through something. I needed time to—”
“You left.” Each word came out sharp and precise. “You walked out onmydaughter and didn’t look back.”
“Gabriel.”
“No,” I took a step forward. “You don’t get to do this. You don’t get to show up after all this time with a lawyer and act like you have a right to my daughter.”
“But I do have every right.” Her voice hardened. “I’m her mother.”
“She doesn’t know you!”
Movement in my peripheral vision.
Cate stood in the kitchen doorway, a dish towel in her hands, her eyes wide. She looked between me and Tonya and Richard, and I saw the exact moment she understood what was happening. Saw the exact moment everything got infinitely more complicated.
Tonya’s gaze followed mine, landing on Cate. Her expression shifted—that calculating look I remembered too well. The one that meant she’d found a weakness to exploit. “Oh,” she said, her voice dripping with false sweetness. “Is this the nanny?”
Cate didn’t move. Didn’t speak.
“How... quaint.” Tonya’s eyes raked over Cate, slow and deliberate. “Though I have to say, Gabriel, I’m surprised. I didn’t think you’d go for the... full-figured type. Especially after—”
“Don’t.” My word came out like a gunshot.
But Tonya wasn’t done. She never was.
