There was nothing and no one that could’ve stopped me from opening the door then. Wide. So fucking wide because all I wanted her to see was me. And she did.
Her perfectly manicured face fractured as I filled the doorway, easily wedging myself slightly in front of Daisy so there was no mistaking my position here.
“I’m sorry, Mary. Did you say my name?” I dared her to repeat herself to my face.
“Max.” Her pointed nose wrinkled like she could smell a traitor. “Good to see you. I’m glad you’re here,” she said with a tight smile, and already I knew where she was going with this. “I know you think you’ve been helping Todd by allowing Daisy to stay…here.” Her barely controlled disdain was almost comical. She wanted me to side with her, but even that couldn’t stop her from insulting me. “However, that’s just not the case. Daisy needs to return to the house we set up for her and Todd and continue to go to her doctor appointments at the birthing center we chose. This is Todd’s baby she’s carrying. She can’t just?—”
“I’m pretty sure it’s her own baby she’s carrying, Mary.”
The look on her face was part fury and another part disgust. Ironically, she had the same look the first time Daisy had gone to their house for dinner. Todd had asked me to come along too, and Daisy had used her dinner fork for her salad by accident.
“She can’t stay here, Max. It’s…unseemly,” she hissed and then stamped her foot. “And if you can’t see that, if you want to betray your best friend in this way, then so be it. I’m not hereto talk to you about your misguided choices, so if you can’t help, then please excuse yourself so I can speak to the woman carrying my grandchild in private.”
My teeth locked down. Not Daisy. Not themotherof her grandchild.The woman.Like Daisy was nothing more than a vessel for the precious McCormick genes. I didn’t care what she said about me. I didn’t care that she insulted my decades-long friendship with her only son—a friendship that had saved his ass far more than it had ever benefited mine. The only thing I cared about was Daisy.
“How dare you?” Daisy put her hand on my arm. “This is my child, Mrs. McCormick. You have no right to any of my decisions regarding my baby or my body, and you have no right to be here.”
“I have a right to ensure the welfare of my grandchild, and if you refuse, I will have our lawyers step in to protect it. I can’t imagine CPS will look too kindly on you living in a flower shop.”
“I’m going to have to stop you there?—”
“This has nothing to do with you, Mr. Hamilton,” she was now shrieking. “This is between me and the woman carrying my grandchild.”
And there was that fury again.That brutal rage.
“It has everything to do with me, Mary, because the woman you arethreateningis my wife.” It wasn’t until the words boomed from my chest that I realized I’d barricaded my hands on either side of the doorframe, putting myself directly between the two women like a wild bull, nostrils flaring and ready to charge.
“Threat—your wife?”She spat the word with almost as much vitriol as she had when Todd told them he and Daisy were getting married.
“And the property you are standing on is mine, so I’m going to have to politely ask you to leave.”
“What do you mean,she’s your wife?” Mary’s head whipped back and forth like a windshield wiper trying to clear up her confusion.
“What I mean is that this conversation is over, and my polite request is about to become not so polite.”
“Absolutely not. I will not leave until you explain this very minute what you are talking about.”
I stepped through the doorway now, forcing her to take a step back. It finally hit her then that she wasn’t in control. Her money and power and my relationship with her son had no bearing on what I was willing to do to keep her away from Daisy.
“Either you’re going to leave or I’m going to call the police, and unlike in Portland, Mary, the police here aremyfriends. So unlesstrespassingis what you want your next call to your lawyer to be about, I suggest you get back in your car, and you don’t come back here to my business or to our home because you won’t get this warning a second time.”
She huffed several times like she didn’t know how to breathe in a world where someone didn’t instantly bend to her will. Or worse, where someone stood up to her.
“I’ll be in touch.” She levied us with her final words, but they rang as hollow as her heels on the sidewalk as she charged back to her waiting car.
Pushing away from the door, I followed her to her glistening black Mercedes, not taking my eyes from her as she climbed into the back seat and slammed the door. And then I stood at the curb until the driver pulled away, watching the car and memorizing the license plate until it disappeared from sight.
Only then did I turn back to Daisy, prepared to face whatever it was she felt for my intervention.And for revealing we were married to probably the last people on earth she wanted to know.
Chapter 17
Daisy
“Daisy?” His hands on my shoulders were like a palm over a spinning coin, flattening all my whirling thoughts to the man standing in front of me.
My husband.
And now the world would know it.
