I swear to God, when I married this woman, she didn’t resemble any part of who she is today.
“I came to talk.” My voice is cold and cutting, and it wipes the smile clean from her face, a stony expression materializing in its place.
“Jesus, Emmett.” She blows out a breath. “You are, aren’t you?”
“I’m what?”
“Sleeping with Scott and Freya’s daughter.”
Molars grinding, I’d be in awe of her acting skills if she wasn’t so transparent.
“You mean Billie?” I clarify, determined that she’ll refer to my girlfriend by name and not infantilize a fully grown woman who acts more maturely than my thirty-five-year-old ex-wife. “Cut the crap, Maria,” I scold. “I’m here to find out why you think that you still have some kind of control over my life, including who I do and don’t date.”
When she steps to one side, I go to enter the house that I always hated from the day she insisted that we buy it when a manicured hand lands on my upper arm.
“Have you had sex with her?”
I stare straight down the hallway, freaked out to see portraits of our wedding day lining the walls.
“Did you fuck her?” Maria bites at me again.
Shrugging off her grasp, I step farther inside, and she closes the front door behind her before drawing a deep breath into her lungs.
With her back still to me, Maria punctuates each word of her next statement, not waiting for me to answer her previous question. “You slept with a twenty-one-year-old right after we dissolved our marriage.”
“Turn around, Maria,” I demand, done with the way she’s making this all about her.
Spinning on her heel, she pauses for a second before she dives right for me, slapping her palm across my injured cheek. “YOU FUCKED BILLIE QUINN!”
“I’mdatingBillie Quinn,” I correct her, rocking forward onto the balls of my feet, cheek stinging like a motherfucker. “She’s my girlfriend, and I’m her boyfriend.”
Holy hell, that felt good.
Maria scoffs, rearing back to slap me once again. I catch her forearm before she connects with my face.
“Stop hitting me, or this conversation will go a whole lot further than these four walls.”
Dropping her hand, she knows I’m deadly serious in my threat to report her for assault. Maria’s late father was an absolute bastard to her mother, and too many times have I seen the same traits in my former wife. Although this is the first—and final—time she’s hit me.
“I can’t believe you did this to me,” she whispers, slumping against the wall, a photo of us standing outside a Vegas chapel hung next to her head. “I thought that, in time, you would see reason and come back to me.”
“Why, Maria?” I ask. “It sure as shit isn’t because you want me. We were through a very long time ago.”
I can tell she agrees, even if her body language denies it.
“How can you choose someone so young and immature over me?”
“That’s where you’re wrong,” I counter, taking the opportunity to put some distance between us. “Billie is …” I struggle to find the words to describe my incredible girl. “She’s fucking amazing and everything I want.”
Tears fill Maria’s eyes. Before today, I’d have felt genuine empathy for her. But not after what she did this morning.
“Are you in love with her?”
I nod once, and my broken heart from the exchange with Scott finds a steady rhythm. “Yes, I am. And you just went and destroyed what we had.”
Truthfully, I don’t know if she did. All I know is that Billie still hasn’t returned my calls, and I’ve got multiple bruises and lacerations, courtesy of my former best friend.
“What you told Scott—about me being a predator and trying to take advantage—that isn’t right.” I push a hand through my hair and take another step back. “You can believe or convince yourself of whatever you want, but the honest truth is that I started to fall for Billie when she returned from Austin. And after Blake was born, I spent even more time with her. I’m in awe of so much more than you give her credit for. Her strength, brains, courage. The way she cares for people unconditionally.”
