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“Why would he care? He has Lucas now.”
“So what? He still asks about you! He’s known you since he was born.” I’m trying my best not to raise my voice, but no one else is here, so my whisper-yell is all I can manage right now. “I never made you into a father figure since he’s not your responsibility, but you’ve always been important to him. From the beginning, you made it clear you wanted to be part of this. You can’t just come in and out of his life and not expect him to notice.” I try to step back from him, but his fingers dig deeper into my arms.
“Ted,” I warn him, “let go, you’re hurting me.” The look in his eyes is scaring me.
“You’ll see, Allie. Lucas might play the nice guy now, but that’s not who he is. He’ll leave you all alone in the end while he and Kat have their perfect little family with a big, fancy house on the lake. You’ll remember this conversation when you’re raising the kid all alone in your dad’s house. You’ll be just another bitter, irresponsible mom that made stupid decisions and threw away the best opportunity of escaping her misery because of Lucas-fucking-Kennedy.”
He releases my arm and my hand goes to where his nails dug into the skin. My breathing is coming out fast and dizziness has me reaching for anything to steady myself. My cheeks feel wet and I think I’m crying, but... is this shock?
“I’ll be waiting, Allie, but not for long.”
He turns on his heel and stalks toward the door out of the office when Lucas steps into the doorway.
Ted stops.
Lucas stands still with his arms crossed over his chest, blocking the way out.
I can’t breathe.
“Don’t you ever go near her or my son again. This is your only warning.”
Ted shoves past Lucas, slamming his shoulder into Lucas’ bad one without a backward glance at me.
Chapter34
Lucas
It was supposed to be a good day for her and instead, I walked in on that.
“Allie?” Ignoring the stabbing pain in my shoulder, I approach this as delicately as possible.
Every tear streaming down her cheeks guts me, and my trembling hands would love nothing more than to rearrange his face.
“I have to go—”
“Allie, wait!” I reach for her hand just when she turns around. The only way out is through the door he just walked out of, and she’s not going anywhere near him.
She stills and her shoulders go stiff, and I let her go immediately. I wouldn’t do what he just did, but she may not be thinking about that right now.
The little crescent indents from his nails and his actual handprints are on her arm with bits of red and pink skin around. If she wasn’t here right now, Ted would be a dead man.
She still has her back to me.
What the fuck else has he done? I didn’t hear the entire conversation, but I heard enough to know he was being an asshole.
Allie clears her throat, and her voice dips so low that I barely hear her. “Why haven’t you left her, Lucas?”
This isn’t the time to go into Kat. I need to know if he did anything else to her. “Allie…”
“You said you were leaving her, and that you wanted this. You made it seem like you wanted to make this into something, but you’re still with her, Lucas.”
“I—”
“Is it because she has money? Because she’s pretty?” She turns to me with red, puffy eyes. Her quivering lip pins me to my spot, and I don’t even know what to say to her.
Against the ache in my chest, I try to reason. “I’m—”
“I don’t want an excuse, Lucas. I want something real. I don’t know what I was thinking, but I can’t be someone’s toy or whatever this is to you.”
