“Whatever. What do you want, Kreed?”
I paced to the doors that led out onto the patio and shoved one of them open. Stepping out of my suddenly too-stuffy office, I drew in a deep breath, trying to calm myself. I couldn’t handle Bonnie while I was angry. She, like her son, would just escalate the situation into something extremely dramatic if I lashed out at her more than I already had.
“Tell me about your ex—the one who’s a doctor,” I ordered.
“Orlando?” she asked, surprised, and I gritted my teeth that she remembered him so fucking well when she hardly remembered her other exes. “What about him, Kreed? How do you even know about him?”
“I found out why Hudson is so afraid of doctors,” I bit out, fury lacing my words again. Was she trying to hide what had happened to Hudson? It wouldn’t surprise me. She was a shit mother. But fuck, it pissed me off. “Tell me about him.”
“Oh, my God,” she dramatically groaned. “Is he still going on about that? God, that fucking kid drains the life out of me.”
I clenched my jaw but forced myself to remain silent. Unlike Hudson, when Bonnie got worked up, she rambled and usually ended up saying more than she meant to. And I was relying on that.
“He’s a fucking liar, Kreed. Always has been, always will be. No doubt, he’s finally trying to destroy this marriage for me, just like he’s destroyed all my past relationships.”
He actually was, but she didn’t need to know that. Especially since I hadn’t found out about this fucking doctor from Hudson. I’d found out because of Corvus. And it wasn’t as if Hudson was trying to destroy our marriage to piss her off. He was doing it because he’d suddenly become hyperfixated on me.
“He tried to tell the fucking cops and child protective services that Orlando had raped him. As if anyone would want that fucking boy.”
Rage bled through my veins like fucking poison.
“He’s foul-mouthed and disrespectful. Always has been, and Orlando liked women, not little fucking boys. I was forced to take him to the hospital, and he was such a fucking terror there, too, that I damn near just left him there. Constantly screaming and fighting the doctors and nurses. And come to find out, he’d been using toys to make it look like he’d been sexually assaulted.”
She sniffed delicately, as if she was the wounded fucking party. My blood boiled in my veins, and blood dripped from my palm as my nails dug into my skin. “Orlando left me after that. And he moved away because Hudson ruined his goddamn reputation.”
“You believed that goddamn doctor over your own fucking son?” I snarled. Hudson wasn’t faking his fear of doctors and hospitals. That fear was real. It was damn near tangible, it was so strong. How the fuck could his own mother claim he was lying? “Who the fuck did the examination on him, Bonnie?”
She huffed. “One of Orlando’s coworkers, I think. I don’t know. I was so embarrassed, I left the hospital until the whole shitshow was over. I heard they had to put him to sleep.”
Put him to sleep.
Left the hospital.
He’d probably been assaulted even more while he’d been fucking unconscious.
My stomach turned, and I eyed the grass off to the side of the patio, wondering if I was about to be sick. I’d known Hudson’s life had been absolute dogshit before I met his mom and stepped in, but I hadn’t known just how horrible it’d been. It was no wonder he was so cold and manipulative. That he had a brick wall around himself that could have rivaled the Great Wall of China. Who the fuck could blame him?
Hudson was stuck in survival mode. It didn’t matter that he’d been living under my roof and my protection for years. As long as Bonnie was in the picture, Hudson would always feel the need to survive rather than just live.
She was the reason for all his pain and suffering. Sure, others had clearly done their parts, too, but if not for her, he would have never suffered any of it.
“You’re a real fucking bitch, Bonnie,” I finally managed to say. “Actually, I can’t even think of the right fucking words to describe just how fucking vile you are.”
“What the fuck?—”
I hung up on her then headed into my office. After booting up my laptop, I shot off a short email to my attorney.
Mr. Quinn,
Please contact me at your earliest convenience on Monday. I’d like to file for divorce.
Kreed Emerson
Then, I shut my laptop and headed back to the kitchen. I had chicken broth to make and blue Gatorade to order.
Suddenly, Hudson’s obsession with me seemed extremely small. He’d been through enough. Had enough ripped from him—his innocence the biggest fucking thing. If he wanted me…
Fuck it. Fuck it all. He would finally have the one thing he’d ever asked me for. And to hell with the rest of the world and their issue with it. To hell with being forced out the closet, and to hell with my reputation.
