Page 1 of Tailored for You

CHAPTER 1

Serena

You have to be kidding me.

I clenched my jaw hard enough to hurt, but it did nothing to rein in my mounting anger.

For the eighth time, I checked the time on my phone—6:39 pm.

That time couldn’t be right, could it? As discreetly as I could, I glanced at the clock on the oven. Then the one on my new fancy fridge.

They all said the same thing. I closed my eyes and tipped my head back.

A rock settled in my stomach.

He wasn’t coming.

After all the promises and plans he made, he couldn’t bother to show. Or call, as a bare minimum, and come up with a flimsy excuse as to why he wasn’t.

I banged the back of my head against the wall softly. I should’ve pushed more, forced him to prove he was more than talk this time.

Fine. If he wasn’t going to call me, I was going to call him.

Stepping out of the kitchen and into my design studio, I tapped his name, and the phone rang until I got his voicemail. I hung up and dialed again. And again.

On the fourth try, he finally answered.

“What?” His tone was annoyed, like picking up the mother of his child’s call was every bit as inconvenient as being married to me.

“You were supposed to be here five hours ago.” I barely held back my snarl.

“No,” Charles said, his words slurred. “It isn’t my weekend. I don’t have her for two more weeks.” Even with the slur, he managed to keep his tone annoyed and condescending.

“It’s your weekend. Like it was your weekend last week and you didn’t show up.” I rubbed a thumb between my eyebrows. “You make her all these promises, and you never follow through. I put this on your calendar, confirmed with both your mother and your assistant, helped create an itinerary so you could remember to do all the activities you promised her, and emailed it to you. All you had to do was show up.”

This was so typical, and it was all my fault for letting it happen. He had one job: to show up, and he couldn’t even manage that. He never had. When we were together, it was easy to let his tardiness, forgetfulness, and unreliability slide by.

I should’ve seen those missed appointments and the excuses as foreshadowing for the husband and father he would be, but I was scared. Pregnant and scared, then postpartum and stressed, doing everything by myself, while he was off doing whoever and whatever he wanted.

Charles not showing up was par for the course in our relationship, but it wasn’t about me. It was another day he wasn’t around or another promise he was reneging on to me. It was our daughter that he was letting down. How dare he get her hopes up, talk about some magical weekend together, and forget to show up?

He had staff, secretaries, and personal assistants who did everything for him, yet he somehow managed to disappoint Harper every chance he got.

“Just tell her that I got caught up at work or something. It’s the truth anyway. I came down yesterday to entertain some investors. She’ll understand,” he said, so passively that it made me want to throw my phone.

Co-parenting with Charles—if I could even call it that—was a struggle. He showed up when he wanted to, never kept to our agreed schedule, and did things like this: make promises to our little girl, not follow through, and leave me to deal with the fallout. How many tears had I wiped away because he didn’t show up? How many stories did I have to tell because Daddy was late?

The only person Charles was hurting was Harper. I couldn’t stand it.

I took out a little red marker, found the calendar on my mess of a table that I used as a desk, and drew a line through the weekend. There were other red dashes, each one noting when Charles had missed his scheduled visitation.

Going back to court was something I wanted to avoid, if I could.

Court was draining, physically, emotionally, and financially. He had a team of lawyers on retainer that would pick apart my life and everything I did for Harper. I’d been there before, and I didn’t ever want to go back.

For Harper, though, I would. I would do anything to keep her safe and in a place where she knew she was always wanted and loved.

I glanced through the archway that led into our apartment and saw Harper lining up her baby dolls to feed them. I took a step closer to the window and lowered my voice, not willing to chance Harper overhearing me.