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This had to be some kind of record, a complete one eighty in less than five minutes. Only here in this house.
“Mac, maybe we should just…calm down for a moment.” Becca froze when he glared at her.
“You should be the one freaking the hell out, Becs. You live here now. You live here now because you married a man who is just like Ben, a man who beat you and put you in the hospital.”
He turned back to his mother. “Is he coming back here? Are you really going to let that bastard back into this house with Becca and Liam here?”
His mother seemed to have gathered herself together, because no longer was her bottom lip trembling. No longer was her voice shrill. Nope. She was back to the even-keel woman he’d known his entire life. She was lost in a sea of denial. “This is his home, Mackenzie. What am I supposed to do?”
“Tell him to stay the hell away. Tell him that this time you’re choosing Becca. Tell him that this time you’re choosing your grandchild.” God, why couldn’t she see? “For Christ’s sake, Mom, why don’t you try being a mother for once instead of a goddamn doormat?”
Lila Draper’s face whitened, and she took a step back. She reached for the cobbler on the table and set it on the counter, her back to Mackenzie as she started to foil the top.
“You’re going to be late for Liam’s ball practice,” she said.
Christ, this was typical.
“So that’s it? There’s no discussion? You’re just going to let him walk right back into this house?”
His mother stilled, her shoulders hunched forward in a way that begged him to go to her, but Mac’s feet felt like they were encased in cement. His chest was so goddamn tight he could barely breathe.
His sister stood in front of him, tugging on his arm in an effort to get him to leave, and wasn’t that a joke. He was trying to help her, and she wanted him gone.
“You don’t live here anymore, Mackenzie. There’s nothing to discuss. I think you should leave,” Lila said.
That thing inside him broke apart. It shattered into a thousand pieces and left him shaking from the force of it.
It was a hundred parts rage. A hundred parts disbelief. And a hundred parts sorrow.
r /> He turned around and left without a backward glance.
Chapter 25
Lily woke up to rain.
She’d gone to bed listening to the rain—alone—and she’d lain there for hours waiting for Mac to join her, but he never came. She lost count of how many times she’d grabbed her cell phone, hoping for a text, hoping for some kind of word from him, telling her that he was okay.
But there was nothing.
And now it was still raining and she felt like shit. Her stomach wasn’t exactly stable and a headache poked the corners of her mind.
With a groan, she slid from her bed and padded into the kitchen, on the hunt for coffee. After brewing a small pot, she added cream and sugar, and wandered into the living room, her eyes on the easel in front of the window. It boasted a blank canvas, one she’d been excited to fill only the day before.
But now?
She dragged her eyes away and took a sip of coffee.
Now she didn’t feel like doing anything.
So she didn’t. She perched on the edge of the sofa and stared out into the rain. The sky was dark and the gray clouds bulbous. From what she could tell, the rain was on for the entire day and that was annoying, and it sure as hell would do nothing to improve her black mood.
She stared at her cell, her thumb rolling over the touch screen. Dammit, Mackenzie, why the hell did you bail on me last night? With a curse, she tossed the cell onto the table and tried to forget about it. She would not be that pathetic girl waiting for a phone call.
She just wouldn’t.
Two cups of coffee later, Lily was trying to decide whether she would get dressed or not when the doorbell rang. For a few seconds, she considered not getting it—she knew it wasn’t Mackenzie because he would just walk in—but when the bell sounded again, it was joined by someone shouting her name.
Jake!
