“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean—”
The phone is pulled from my fingers. The last thing I hear before Nicolas claps it to his ear is, “It’s disgusting. Maybe you don’t see it because, like your mother, you can’t help yourself, crawling under any man who will have you, but abandoning your family just for some man to bend you over....”
I’m horrified by the snap of thunderclouds clashing across his beautiful face. The fire that lights his eyes even as they fall to mine.
“Nick,” I plead, and am ignored.
“Who the fuck is this?”
I hear my dad’s tirade break off. For only a second.
“Who is this?”
“I’m the guy who will find you and use you like a hand puppet if you ever talk to her like that again.”
My heart crashes in my chest as I stand frozen beneath his hulking presence. Every drop of spit in my mouth has vanished.
“Isla?” Dom joins us in our cluster, dark eyes moving from me to Nicolas. “What’s going on?”
Rather than answer, Nicolas hits speaker on my screen and Dad’s outrage unspools through the silence.
“I don’t know who you are, but this is a family matter and you have no business in how I speak to my daughter. Put Isla back on.”
“That’s not going to happen. I don’t give a shit who you are, you’ve been warned.”
He disconnects the line and drops the phone back into my trembling palm.
“Why did you do that?” I demand.
Nicolas never so much as blinks when he closes a step between us. “Because I could hear the things he was saying to you from across the goddamn hallway, Isla. If he’d been standing in front of me, he wouldn’t have any teeth.”
“He’s my dad!” I snap back.
His head dips so our faces are inches apart. “You think it makes it okay for him to say those things to you?”
My finger shoots up and stabs him in the chest before I can stop myself. “So, you can tell me I’m worthless, no better than a whore and will be an unfit mother, but no one else can talk badly to me. Is that it?”
“What?” Dominic’s head jerks from me to the other man with outrage. “Nick?”
Nicolas exhales and straightens, but whatever he’s about to say is interrupted by Mom coming out to see what all the commotion is about.
“Nicky, your coffee is getting cold.” Her blue eyes find mine. “Are you trying to leave again?”
I draw in a slow breath. “I was on the phone.”
As if that’s code for my father, Mom’s eyes narrow. “What did he want?”
I stuff my phone into my back pocket to give my hands something to do.
“He thought it was his Christmas.”
Mom bristles. “He had you last year.” Her fists punch into her hips. “He doesn’t even want you there. He’s just a cheap bastard who wants other people to bring that woman’s spawn gifts so he doesn’t have to.” She huffs and turns to the boys. “Isla doesn’t appreciate the things I do for her, but I have never asked her for anything and she still sneaks off in the middle of the night.” Something seems to occur to her and her slitted eyes snap to me once more. “Were you trying to go back to him? Is that what you were doing yesterday?”
“No!” I protest, but she’s not listening.
“Isla, if you want to go to your dad’s, you can go. You don’t have to sneak off. I’m hurt you can’t be bothered to spend one Christmas with me, the one person who gave up everything for you. But go.” She waves a shaky hand at me. “I’m used to being alone.”
It’s taking everything in me not to take her words seriously. To not turn and just walk out. But not to Dad’s. I want to go to my apartment, pack my bags, get in my car and drive. I want to put the country between us. I want to keep going until I hit the ocean. I don’t care which one.
