She blinks innocently. “Apparently, he’s a fan of women blackmailing him.” She wrinkles her nose. “Probably more so if he actually does get sex out of it.”
Bradley whirls around, snarling, “You let a woman blackmail you into fucking her? What the hell is wrong with you?”
“Apparently, she knew about his cheating, and he was still trying to hide it from me. I do have to give him credit, though. At first, he was just funding her and her husband’s lifestyle, and then it graduated to fucking, I guess.”
“Lynley!” Christopher shouts. “Shut up!”
“Don’t you fucking talk to her,” I snarl, and he clamps his mouth shut, his cheeks white. I look at Bradley. “Get your boy on a leash.”
He rubs a hand down his face, looking defeated. “What do you want from us?”
My brows dip together. “I don’t want anything from you.” I scoff. “But you’d do well to remember that Lynley isn’t the only one who holds the evidence of Christopher’s actions. We all know the press will be salivating for the Delcourts’ downfall.” I raise a brow, staring at Bradley until he dips his chin in acceptance. Or defeat. I don’t care, as long as he knows where he stands.
“Christopher has made his choices—many of them. He expected that everyone else would live with the consequences of those choices, much like a teenage boy with no accountability.” Out of the corner of my eye, shame flushes Christopher’s face, and I get a sick, sweet pleasure out of it. “Those consequences are now his to live with, but I will not tolerate him or your family coming after Lynley again.”
There’s a long silence as that implicit threat sinks in, but then Francine is stomping forward, her hands curled into claws at her sides. “You can’t just take the children from their father! It isn’t right!” She throws a disgusted look at Lynley. “If you’d just played your part, like every other wife knows to, none of this would have happened. You obviously drove him to those other women!”
Lynley shakes her head. “And that, right there, is why I’ll never let you around my children.”
“You can’t do that!” Francine yells, her voice verging on a shriek. “You’re just some trollop with no power.”
“For God’s sake, Francine,” Bradley snaps. “Would you shut up before you cost us everything? Don’t you think your son has done enough to our family?”
“My son?” Francine repeats, before laughing manically. “My son? When all he’s done is act just like you!”
There’s a stilted pause, right as the door to the shop opens behind us and heels clack against the pavement. I don’t have to look to know it’s Marjorie, and I feel her curious stare burning into us. Professional as always, her footsteps fade as she heads away, but it’s a signal that this situation needs to be shut down.
“The decision over whether you have a relationship will lie with Mase and Ginny,” Lynley asserts firmly, clearly already on the same page. “Christopher is well aware of where they are and how to contact them, but I will not force them to spend time with a man who threw them away.”
“I didn’t—” Christopher starts, pushing a hand through his hair. “Lynnie, you know that’s not why I did it.”
“I know nothing of the sort,” she retorts acidly. “You were more worried about your image and your parents’ reaction to your indiscretions than your relationships with Mase and Ginny.” Lynley shakes her head. “I will never make excuses for you. Not anymore, and never to them.” Sadness flits through her eyes. “They deserved better from you, and so did I.” She inhales deeply through her nose and turns back to me, wrapping her arm around my waist. “Luckily for me, I found better.”
“Yeah, you did,” I murmur, tipping her chin up and pressing a claiming kiss to her mouth. She makes a sound of amusement against my lips, her eyes knowing when they lock with mine, but I don’t care. I’ll erase that worm from her memory if it’s the last damn thing I do.
Vitriol is still lighting up Francine’s eyes, but Bradley just slumps. “It seems we’ve been acting with only some of the information.” He glares at his son before he tells me, “You have our word it won’t happen again, as long as the,uh…footage”—it’s a question, testing what we actually have, but my expression gives nothing away—“stays out of the media’s hands.”
It takes Bradley a good minute before he realizes that our acquiescence isn’t coming and that there’s nothing he can do about it.
“Come on, Francine,” he mutters. “There’s nothing left to say.”
He turns and walks away, and she looks between him, Christopher, and us before she shakes her head and follows him. Christopher is watching Lynley, a whole lot of realization in his eyes.
“Lynley—”
“How’s the baby?” she cuts him off, her tone impersonal, and he mutters a curse under his breath.
“Please, Lynnie…”
“Okay, let me try again,” she says. “How’s my sister?”
I chuckle darkly, drawing Christopher’s attention. “We’re done here, asshole. Don’t worry. I know how to treat a woman. Lynley will be safer in my hands than she ever was in yours.” I tilt my head, letting him see the absolute honesty in my eyes. “She will never know a bad day with me, and she’ll never doubt her place at my side. I’ll treat her like a queen, and she’ll forget you ever existed.”
He opens and closes his mouth, looking like a lost little boy, but finally, he turns and walks away, following his parents.
Once he’s out of earshot, Lynley spins in my arms, pressing her front to mine and going up on her tiptoes to wind her arms around my neck. “Oh my god,” she whispers as my hands land on her hips. “That was just about the last thing I expected to happen today.”
My lips quirk. “I won’t hold it against you that you married an idiot.”
