I put my finger in my free ear because I didn’t want to mishear anything. “What does she want?” It could only be Bethany. What else?
“A meeting.”
There was no way that woman was going anywhere near my child. She’d proven just how unreliable and untrustworthy she was by walking out. She didn’t have Bethany’s best interests at heart at all and I didn’t want anyone near my daughter who was focused on anything other than what was best for Bethany.
“I’ll see her but I’m not taking Bethany. She’s not going to lay eyes on my child.” A whoosh of noise from the street filled my ears as if I’d been brought back to life. I’d crawl from the grave to protect my daughter.
“If it makes you feel any better, there was no mention of Bethany. She wants a one-on-one conversation with you.”
I took a couple of deep breaths and tried to think. What was she up to? After all these years she suddenly wanted a meeting? It didn’t make sense.
Unless it was about money. Her family had money but perhaps they’d cut her off? Maybe she just thought she was owed. Whatever the reason, my ex had changed her mind and had decided she wanted some of my fortune after all.
“I don’t want to see her. Can’t you just get a number? Find out how much she wants.”
“I’ve tried that,” Gillian said. “She’s assured me she doesn’t want money.”
Irritation prickled at the back of my neck. She might be saying that. But she’d also said ‘til death do us part. And that she loved Bethany. And me. I’d never believe another word that came out of her mouth.
“Right. And I don’t want to see her. I’m not interested.”
“Gabriel, I understand how you feel but we need to find out what she wants. We’re in touching distance of getting this divorce, and if that’s something you want to pursue, you should probably just agree to a meeting.”
I wondered if this was how my clients felt when I advised them to do something they didn’t want to do. The difference was this was personal. Not business. I didn’t want to sit in the same room as the woman who’d left our baby. Who’d left me. Who’d broken every promise she’d ever made.
“A meeting about what?”
“Maybe she wants to explain. She did leave in rather a rush.”
I wasn’t sure it had been a rush. She’d taken every single item of clothing she owned. And over the months after she’d left, when I’d come out of the initial fog of grief at losing my wife, I’d realized there was nothing in our home that had been hers before we’d married. Her graduation photos. The pictures of her and her sister. Even the chair that had been her grandmother’s had mysteriously disappeared. She hadn’t just taken off on impulse. She’d planned it. Every time I thought about it, it was like her leaving for the first time, and a fresh wave of anger engulfed me. She hadn’t wanted to talk then. She hadn’t wanted to discuss anything as she was removing every trace of her life from our house. She’d done that in complete secret.
“Maybe you’ll find out why she left,” Gillian said.
“I don’t care why she left.” Of course, I’d tortured myself in the aftermath. How had I driven away my daughter’s mother? Why hadn’t she come to me? What had I missed? And then answers started to drip through. Alternatives that came to me in the middle of the night.
She’d met someone else.
She’d been having an affair all along.
She’d only been after my money.
She didn’t like being a mother.
But none of the answers mattered because there was one thing I knew for certain—she’d lied to me. She’d lied when she’d said she loved me. She’d lied when she’d said she loved my daughter.
“If you don’t want answers, then think practically,” Gillian said. “What we want to avoid is her turning up on your doorstep out of the blue.”
The thought crawled over my skin like a cockroach.
“This way you get to control the situation. You’ll know exactly where you’re going to see her, when, and for how long.”
She had a point. If she was determined to speak to me, she’d find a way. She knew where I worked. Where I lived. And if she came to the house and Bethany was there, with Autumn . . .
“Okay, I’ll meet her. But I want it to happen soon. Your offices.”
“Her solicitor suggested the two of you could have lunch.”
Her solicitor could fuck right off. Lunch was never going to happen. “If she wants a meeting, tell her it will be at your offices Monday at four. I’m not negotiating on this.”
“Very well. I’ll go back and see what they say.”
“Tell them it’s a binary choice. Meeting at your offices or no meeting.”