She was in the seating area wiping down tables, and she jerked her attention to me. As soon as she caught sight of my expression, she started moving toward me.
What had to be fear and dread and hate contorting my face in pain.
“Can you take over for me?” I all but begged, angling my head toward the long line of customers waiting at the counter.
“What’s going on?” she demanded instead.
“I don’t know . . . I just . . . I need a minute so I can find out.”
Her attention dropped to the envelope. Her brown eyes turned sharp as daggers, as if her glare might set it on fire.
I could only wish.
“Excuse me,” the lady called at the counter, patience clearly not her strong suit.
Jenna gave me a regretful look. “Go on. I’ll be right here.”
With a jerky nod, I fumbled through the swinging door and staggered toward the small office area set up at the very back of the kitchen.
Barely able to stand.
I set my hand on the desk to steady myself, drawing in a few deep breaths before I forced myself to rip open the letter. My eyes raced over the words drawn up by Dane’s attorneys.
Terror ridged my spine, that dread igniting in the worst kind of horror.
“Asshole,” I gasped, choking, my vision turning black.
Scrambling for my purse I’d left on the desk, I dug for my phone. I could barely get my hands to cooperate enough to pull up the number I needed.
I squeezed my eyes closed as I pushed send.
I didn’t have to wait long.
Dane answered on the first ring. “Ah, I see you got my present.”
Present.
What did he think? That this was a joke?
Fun?
A competition?
I swallowed around the razors that lined my throat, forced out the words that scraped and ground. “Why are you doing this?”
“I told you I was finished playing your games, Harley. I warned you that if you didn’t come home and stop this foolishness, you were going to regret it.”
“This isn’t a game, Dane. The furthest from it. I’m giving you an out. You and I both know you don’t want Evan.”
I flinched just saying it.
The years of silent abuse.
The rejection.
The disgust.
Everything was hoarse and choppy as it flooded from my mouth. “And now you’re asking for full custody and a review of his medical records? Stating I’m an ill-fit mother? You don’t have the first clue what his care requires.”
“Hiring help has never been an issue, Harley. I think you know better than that.”
Sickness roiled. “Help.”
He wanted strangers to raise my son.
God. Knowing Dane, he would probably lock him away. Hide Evan and pretend he didn’t exist. Put him in some institution as if he were shame.
Humiliation.
When my son was beauty and life and joy.
“When you married me, you promised you would be mine for all your days, and be clear, all your days belong to me. You think I’m actually going to let you walk away from me? You knew you had a role as my wife . . . now stop being foolish and fill it.”
“I didn’t marry you for that role. I married you because I loved you. And you promised to cherish and love me in return. In sickness and in health.”
The words crawled from my throat, venom and a plea. Not for him to have a change of heart. But for him to let us go.
Dane laughed a morbid sound. One that echoed with his own grief. “I never stopped loving you.”
“And you never started loving him.”
Silence moved through the line, and the tears I’d been holding broke free. Hot veins streaked down my cheeks. Years of holding out for this man and the hatred that loss had left in that void.
I could feel the shift, the detached control that filled his voice. “You know how to resolve this, Harley.”
Bitter laughter rumbled somewhere inside me. The disbelief. “Do you not know me at all? Do you think I will ever give in? Allow your disgusting, vile demand?”
The final stake had been driven into my faith in him that day a year ago when I’d opened our front door to find a mailman, holding out a certified letter. One that had to be signed for.
A DNR that had been drawn up for Evan. Without my knowledge or consent.
“It’s time to stop propagating his suffering.”
That was what Dane had said when he’d tried to force me into signing it.
Evan and I were gone the next morning.
“Why fight the inevitable?” he said indifferently, as if it didn’t matter at all.
Pain leeched into my pores. Because I knew he wasn’t talking about my losing Evan to him. He was talking about me losing him forever.
“I will never, ever give up hope on my son. Never. I’ll die first.”
I rushed to end the call, unable to listen to him for a second longer. Slipping from my shaking hands, the phone clattered to the desk, my weak knees finally giving. Back pressed against the wall, I slid to the ground. My face in my hands.