Her children her priority.
Her life.
Exactly what they were supposed to be.
Emotion surged my throat when the images popped onto the screen, the bright light glaring into my darkened apartment. Thomas had taken picture after picture of his sisters. Mallory being crazy and funny and the brightest thing on the Earth, and Sophie wrecking all that mayhem, the child nothing but a handful that I would do anything to hold.
There were some that Thomas had taken of himself. The boy stoic and proud and scared and too mature for his age.
My chest tightened.
Everything ached.
Then there was Grace. Always there. Always present. Always loving.
God, how could I have been so selfish to think I could fit into their world? That’s what I’d fucking done, wasn’t it? Started to imagine what it might be like to belong.
Really belong.
When the only thing I’d ever truly belonged to was selfishness and greed.
I clicked into a video.
Cringed a bit when I realized it was taken at the Dearborne estate. Still, I couldn’t stop watching it, their little voices breaking into the unbearable silence of my condo.
“Thomas, Thomas, are you recording me? I’m going to sing you your favorite song!”
Thomas scoffed. “Pssh . . . all you’re gonna do is ruin it.”
“Nuh-uh! I’m the best singer in the world and I’m gonna go to New York and be an actress or maybe to Hollywood so I can be in movies and then you’re gonna be sad you didn’t believe my dreams when I’m famous and you want to be my best friend. And I’m going to write all my own songs because I’m a writer and I’ll probably write all the movies, too. Maybe you can record them since you take such good pictures. Just don’t make me mad,” she warned with some of that sass.
A soft smile pulled at my mouth, while my shredded heart ached.
Mal Pal.
Pain sheared through the middle of me. And I just watched. Unable to stop.
“Sophie dance!” Sophie was bouncing around Mallory, always wanting to be in the middle of it.
Mallory started singing.
New Kids on the Block.
Good God, I was going to have to have a talk with Grace about that shit.
With the thought, a hot blade pierced my chest.
How the fuck had it gotten to the point that Grace no longer had the influence? That her right was taken away?
“Tom Tom,, dance, Tom Tom, dance!” Sophie chanted.
Thomas was angling his camera to get a close-up, her big blue eyes so excited and trusting.
The screen bounced around, and I could tell Thomas was setting up his tablet to record where he balanced it upright on a table. Then all three of them were in the middle of the room, dancing and singing and laughing.
My breath hitched.
It was the most perfect thing I’d ever seen.
Only thing wrong with it was the location and the fact Grace wasn’t there.
A female voice called, “Lunch,” and the three of them took off. Thomas had completely forgotten about his tablet, leaving it recording as they scrambled off to eat.
I started to click out of that video so I could move onto another one when a male’s voice broke through the speaker, so distinct and recognizable my blood went cold.
“I told you she was going to be a problem.”
Lawrence Bennet.
I shot forward on the couch, clutching the tablet in my hand, staring at the screen that only captured a stilled picture of a living room. But it was the voices caught from somewhere off to the side that had tension racing.
Gripping and clutching.
“And I told you she was my problem and not to worry about it,” another voice hissed. One I wouldn’t recognize if it weren’t for the two foul interactions I’d had with him a little over a week ago.
Reed Dearborne.
“There’s a point where you no longer get to make that call. You put everything at risk, and I’m going to step in. I think you should know me well enough by now.”
Finally, finally, both of them stepped into the frame. Reed glanced around, his voice held low and hostility vibrating from his demeanor.
“You think you’re going to come into my house and start making demands? Do you know who I am?” Reed demanded.
Asshole was clearly offended Lawrence had the audacity to question him.
Lawrence lifted his chin like the cocky old bastard that he was. “I think the better question is, have you forgotten who I am? I built this company. This town. You. I own everything. So, when there’s a problem? It’s my job to fix it. Including when your pretty little wife goes rogue.”
My blood that had run cold froze over.
Reed flew into his face, like the fucker cared. “Stay away from her. If she’s an issue, then I will be the one to handle it.”
“She’s already an issue. The fact that she isn’t here and you can’t control her is proof enough.”