Who has been quiet the whole way here, which I didn’t push or pry for why, or attempted to get her to talk to me.
She needed to blow off steam, and she was within my grasp.
I won.
For now.
“I figured we’d hang out tonight since it’s late,” I say through the hollowed space of silence between us. “I brought groceries to make you dinner.”
Sienna doesn’t turn around to acknowledge me when she says, “What kind of dinner?”
“Steak.”
“And?”
“Salad. I also have some potatoes and?—”
“Did you win?”
My brows furrow when I ask, “Did I win, what?”
“The custody battle with Heath.” Slowly, she begins to turn on her heels to face me and, for some reason, I feel nervous as hell. “Did you get what you wanted?”
I bob my head, unable to speak the words for some reason.
Unable to admit that, in the midst of throwing her to the side, I got what I wanted, and she didn’t.
Well, sort of.
If I could go and turn back time, I wouldn’t have spoken to Sienna the way I did.
Shit, I wouldn’t have even answered the damn door if I knew I wouldn’t be able to contain the emotions coursing through me that night.
Sheer fear is the only way I can describe it.
Of losing my son to my ex.
Of having to share custody with a woman who emotionally wrecked me and was trying to insert herself back in our lives because it was convenient for her now.
It threw me right back into that emotional whirlwind of bad shit, and there’s no other excuse for it. I thought I was a strong man, but seeing Laura again proved to me that I wasn’t so steel-proof.
And I hated that she had that power over me.
If I’m being truthful, it took me weeks to get back to myself again. To shove out demons that threatened to drag me down.
And I did it to Sienna when I promised I was serious.
I was.
Until everything went to hell and I couldn’t risk us both falling to Laura.
“Good,” Sienna finally says through my silence, clasping her hands together. “Can she appeal?”
Oh, geezus, Christ.
I think I’d drown myself in Magnolia pond.
“She could, I guess. But I’m not worrying about that now.”
