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“She’d like that very much,” Sonya said, and I dug my fingers into her side. My mother wasn’t going to be anywhere near Gabriel. That would be the worst thing possible for me. “I’ll take it to her once you’re finished,” she volunteered, discreetly nudging me.
“Okay.”
The elevator arrived on their floor, and Gabriel said goodbye, Carlos and Holly barely acknowledging us.
“Daddy, can we play soccer now?”
I stumbled back into the corner as though I’d been punched in the gut.
Fuck. Daddy, can we play soccer now?
He hadn’t been talking to me.
“I-I wanted that moment for you so badly—the second you saw your own child for the first time. Maybe you’d understand what it’s like to love something more than yourself. To live for that someone . . .”I’d never have that moment. Mama was right. I’d never have Gabriel say that to me.No child would.
Chapter Thirty-Four
Sonya
Drew punchedthe button for our floor.
I punched the button for his parents’.
When we stopped on ours, I grabbed the back of his shirt. That didn’t deter him from walking. All it did was drag me toward the exit with him.
“We should go to dinner. For your mother.”
He stopped so suddenly, I ran into the back of him. The elevator doors closed in his face, and we ascended.
Grim expressions greeted us when we entered the living room. Loretta was nowhere to be seen, and Drew went straight for her room without uttering a word.
Mr. Carter stood to follow him, but Easton put a hand on his arm and shook his head. The man had aged a decade since the first time I’d seen him. There wasn’t a trace of the power and authority he’d had before.
He looked helpless.
They all did.
No one moved to the dinner table.
“We should try to eat something,” I said, breaking the silence. “She’d want us to.”
Mulaney slowly lifted her gaze to mine. It was icy, unshielded contempt. “You don’t know anything about what Loretta wants.” Easton touched her knee, but it didn’t seem to calm her. “Why are you here?”
“For Drew and Loretta.”
She snorted. “You might have everyone else fooled, but I don’t believe a thing that comes out of your mouth. What kind of person lies to get into an abused women’s shelter?”
“What kind of people treat their own family the way you do Drew?”
She bolted up from the sofa. Easton caught her arm and held her back. “Do you know what he did to us?”
Her shout echoed through the living room. Easton stood and put his hands on her shoulders. I flinched. It was the perfect image of him having her back. I’d never known what that was like, and it stung to see the definition in the flesh.
“You probably deserved it.” So much for making amends.
Her eyes bulged as she lunged toward me. The only thing that kept her from reaching me was Easton’s arms around her waist.
Mr. Carter stared at the floor. “Enough.”
