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He lunges forward a step, making me flinch and poor Isla scream as she throws her arms around my waist. Donna really starts barking now.
“Dad!” Isla shrieks. “I’m serious! Stop it! Colby is lovely, and you shouldn’t say such awful things about him.”
He gives her a simpering smile that makes me feel sick. “Princess, he’s a bad man. You need to get away from him this instant.”
“This is why I never want to go round your house,” Isla shouts back. “I don’t care what some stupid judge said. You’re mean!”
She’s crying, and I can’t say I blame her. I hug her to my side. I’m shaking so badly and my throat is clamped up, but I can at least comfort her like that. Donna barks again, making Gregory wince.
“Can’t youshutthat thing up? Look, princess,” he tries again, but then a slim young woman in a skin-tight, plunging red dress appears behind him, shivering with her arms folded.
“Greg, what are you doing?” she demands. “The taxi wants to know how much longer he has to wait, and so do I.”
“I’m just getting my girls,” Gregory says through gritted teeth. The woman rolls her eyes, and Isla hugs me tighter. “Come on, princess. Go get your sister and your things. It’s not safe for you here.”
“Stop calling me princess!” Isla yells.
The woman huffs and glares at Isla. “She doesn’t want to come, Greg. We were supposed to pick them up tomorrow anyway. Let’s just go to the party. Come on.”
“Not without my—” Gregory starts.
But he doesn’t get to finish.
“YOU!” a voice bellows from behind me. I turn to see Nai Nai struggling down the hallway with fire in her eyes and her finger pointed like a loaded gun.
I run to her side to help her walk, but she seems to be powered by pure fury as she storms toward Gregory by the front door.
“You not welcome. Out, OUT!”
“Oh, come back when you finally speak English, old woman,” Gregory slurs with an eye roll. “This little nonce doesn’t need some granny protecting him.” He tilts his head. “Actually, maybe he does. He looks like a stiff breeze would knock him over.”
I want to curl up and die. I can’t bear that I’m causing a scene in Andreas’s family home when they’ve all been so welcoming to me. “I’m so sorry,” I whisper.
Isla’s head snaps toward me, her tears vanishing in an instant. “Don’t you dare apologize! Dad, just take Heather and go, all right?”
The young woman—Heather, I assume—has already wandered outside, clearly fed up with the conversation, the barking, and not to mention she’s probably freezing her arse off.
“You a bad, terrible, ugly man,” Nai Nai spits out. “You leave lovely Colby alone. He a good boy.”
I stare at her, unable to believe how she’s defending me. And Isla, too. I don’t deserve this.
“Hey, what’s going on out here?” a new voice calls from behind. Tianna. “Gregory? We weren’t expecting you until tomorrow.”
“I’m sorry, Nana,” Isla cries. “He saw my Insta. Then he called me saying he was outside and I had to let him in. He’s saying awful things about Uncle Andy and Colby and Jalen.”
Tianna’s face turns to thunder. But behind her, several more people have materialized in time to hear Isla’s words.
Including Andreas and Jalen.
“Baby?” Jalen says as he runs to my side and throws his arms around me. He’s wearing a thigh-length skirt over some thick tights, and I don’t miss the way Gregory’s eyes bug out of his head. “Are you okay?”
“I’m fine. I?—”
“You!” Gregory barks, this time jabbing his finger at Andreas. “I never fucking liked you, and now you’re bringing your pervy, underage boyfriends around my daughters? You should all be arrested!”
“They older than your child bride,” Nai Nai grumbles. “Much more pretty, too.”
“Gregory,” Anisha snaps. “If you want to see your daughters at all this Christmas, I suggest you shut up, leave, and go get sober.”
