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“Well, you’d better believe it.” She swiped the phone and offered it to him again. He kept his hands firmly on his lap. “There are more,” she said. “I have this from a source very close to the situation—the guy’s girlfriend. She did what any woman would do and made sure her friends knew what Faith was.”
Nausea threatened to overwhelm him. “You’re telling me these photographs were shared around among the girls in her year while Faith was still in high school?” What kind of person would do such a thing to a vulnerable teenage girl? “That’s disgusting.”
“Yes, I know,” Diana said with a sneer. “Mason Delphine thought so too. That’s why he confessed everything when his girlfriend found the picture.”
Mason. As in, the ex from the wedding? The one who’d been trying to get her alone and had cornered her in the mini-mart? No wonder she was so uncomfortable with him. All of a sudden, Shane wished he’d tried to beat the crap out of the asshole. Most probably, he’d have failed, but he’d have felt better about it in the present moment. Something else occurred to him. Why would Faith introduce him as an ex if, as Diana was saying, they’d never been together? The story didn’t add up.
“Your new lover is inappropriate and a bad influence on my sons. If you stay with her, I’ll have to sue for custody.” She shrugged lightly. “I’ll have no choice.”
Goddamn. He’d never been so tempted to wring her neck. Not even when he’d finally tracked her down after she’d hidden from him for a year.
“Are you seriously going to use a young girl’s trauma against her?”
Diana scoffed. “Trauma? The only one traumatized in this story was my new friend when she found the photos in her boyfriend’s phone.”
Shane rubbed his temples. “If that’s what you think, then you’re even more ruthless than I believed. You’re being petty, vindictive, and mean. You go ahead and file for custody. I’ve already spoken to my lawyer, and we don’t believe there’s a court in the country that would grant custody to a woman who abandoned her children for years and hasn’t paid a cent of child support when she clearly earns enough to go around.”
Diana had the nerve to be outraged. “I paid for Dylan’s phone.”
“Yes, without discussing it with me first.”
“I wanted him to be able to contact me.”
Shane leapt to his feet and smashed his fist on top of the dresser. “You weren’t worried about that when you left a seven-year-old boy to wonder where his mother had gone. Do you know how hard it was to explain that Mummy left him behind? I had to report you missing. As far as we knew, you might have been abducted and forced to leave a note. But you were selfish then, and you’re selfish now. Any judge will see that.”
Mouth agape, she crossed her arms defensively. “I have a prominent stature, and I can afford the best legal team.”
“None of that will do you any good around here. Not when I have the entire community, including the police, prepared to testify on my behalf.” His gaze fell to the phone in her hand. God only knew why anyone had kept that photograph all these years, but it wouldn’t be beyond Diana to spread it around, along with a spiteful rumor, just to get back at him. “If you show that to anyone, or hurt Faith in any way, I’ll do everything in my power to make life difficult for you.” He held out a hand. “Give me the phone. I’m deleting them.”
She raised her chin. “No.”
“Do it,” he ground out. “Or I’ll forbid you from seeing Dylan, and I’ll make sure he knows you had a choice about it.”
Reluctantly, she passed him the phone. “It doesn’t matter, anyway. Gigi forwarded them from her email archive, so they’ll still be out there on the internet somewhere.”
He deleted the picture and thumbed through, deleting two more, then gave it back. “At least you won’t have them. Now get out of my house.”
“But what about—?”
“Out.”
Grumbling, Diana turned on her heel and left. He followed her to the front door and closed it behind her. Then he made a call. He needed to warn Faith.
After spendingall day at The Shack, Faith returned home to a mountain of housework. Her chores had been sorely neglected, and she still needed to tidy up after her guests. She was hanging laundry when her phone rang. Seeing it was Shane, she smiled, and her heart sped up.
“Hey, handsome. Or should I say, hi, boyfriend?”
He didn’t laugh. “Faith.” His voice was strained. “There’s something you need to know.” Uh-oh. She didn’t like the sound of that. “You should sit down.”
She really didn’t like the sound of that. Was he planning to break up with her after only one full day as a couple? That had to be the shortest relationship in the history of the bay.
She hung the last towel over the drying rack. “Hang on a sec.” She headed for the sofa. “I’m sitting. What’s up? Are you and the boys okay?”
“We’re fine.” He sounded stilted. Awkward. “Diana came by.”
She stiffened. “Oh?”
“She brought a picture with her on her phone. A photograph.”
