Her heart was breaking because he was making her choose and there was only one choice. “Yes. I have to protect my son.”
Harry sat down on the bed they’d recently shared and pulled on his boot, tying it with sharp gestures. “This is ridiculous.”
“I agree. I should have realized it wouldn’t work. I was dumb, but then I always seem to make the wrong choice. I need to stop hoping some white knight will race in and save me, and I have to start saving myself.”
“Now you have to save yourself from me? How exactly did I become the bad guy?”
He wasn’t bad. He simply wouldn’t understand her. “You’re not. You’re probably right about everything, but you don’t know your aunt the way I do. I had a nice day with her. But she won’t forgive me. I walked into this relationship knowing it couldn’t work. I don’t even know what I was thinking. I wasn’t thinking at all.”
He stood in front of her. “You’re kicking me out because I don’t agree with you?”
“I’m asking you to leave because I need space and time to figure out what to do.”
“I want to help you decide.”
“No, you’ve already made your decision. You want to convince me to do something that could cost me my son because you don’t understand what’s at stake.” It was obvious he was going to try to argue until he wore her down. If she didn’t stand her ground, she would find herself walking into Beaumont House tomorrow and putting them all at Celeste’s mercy. She wasn’t so foolish to think one lunch truly changed things between them. “I’ve asked you for time, Harry. Are you going to give it to me?”
He was silent for a moment. “Yes. I don’t want this, but if you insist, I’ll give it to you.”
“I insist.”
He stared down at her, his eyes full of pain. “I think I could love you.”
She’d wanted to hear those words, but now she knew they came with conditions. “If I’m honest with your family.”
“I don’t think anyone should start a life together with a lie,” he said, his tone mournful. “I’ll come by in the morning and pick up Shep. I don’t want to disturb Luc.”
But he did. He wanted to disturb Luc’s whole life, wanted to shake it to the core and pray everything came out right on the other side.
She watched as he walked out. She managed to follow him down the stairs, lock the door behind him, and walk back up to her room. She managed to close the bedroom door before she let herself fall apart. It was okay because in the morning she would put herself back together and she would prepare for war.chapter thirteenSera strode into Guidry’s the next day, looking for her brother. Remy was the one she needed to talk to. He was the one who knew people outside of Papillon. She made her way into the kitchen and found him stirring a big pot of gumbo. It was midmorning, before the lunch rush, but Remy would have already been awake and working for hours. Her brother and sister-in-law were dedicated to their business, to growing it and positioning it for the future.
It made her wish she could find something in her work life she could be as passionate about. Not that she had much of a work life. She had an asset she needed to sell, and now it looked like that money might have to go to ensure she kept custody of her son.
Her big brother looked up and flashed a grin. “Hey, sis. I didn’t expect to see you. You need a shift?”
It was what she did. When she was in between jobs, she took shifts here to ease the way to the next thing she would try, and her brother would make it simple for her. She couldn’t float through life anymore, depending on her brother to give her a safe place. “No. I’m going to work on the house this afternoon. I have a crew coming in to fix the bathroom tile.”
“Which bathroom?”
“Pretty much all of them,” she admitted. She’d been ready to work on the bathrooms while Harry dealt with the stairs to the second floor of the house. She would need to ask Herve if his cousin was still available. “I need to ask a favor. Do you know any lawyers?”
A brow rose above her brother’s eyes. “Sure. Lisa’s brother-in-law is a lawyer. I’m pretty sure he’s licensed to practice in Louisiana. But what’s wrong with Quaid? If there’s something you need with the house, he knows Louisiana property laws like the back of his hand. He also owes me twenty bucks from poker the other night.”
If only it were that easy. “I need someone who can represent me in custody matters, and it can’t be Quaid because he’ll likely be on the other side of it.”