I turned to look at Dean. “The best way I could. I explained it, leaving out the sexual details, and let him ask me questions.”
Dean nodded, then sighed as he looked around the room. “I handled things wrong,” he said. “I just hadn’t been prepared.”
I wasn’t going to tell him it was okay and offer forgiveness. I didn’t feel as if I could do that just yet. I needed time.
“Brielle.” He said my name as he reached out a hand to me.
I stepped back. I didn’t want him to touch me. This wasn’t something I could move on from. However, the stricken look on his face was hard to see. I shifted my gaze toward the television. The local news was still on.
“What is it you want me to say?” he asked me.
I didn’t look at him. I wasn’t sure I could and make smart choices. “What do you want to say? I don’t want anything from you. Cam is our son. We can discuss how you want to be involved in his life.”
“Don’t say that,” he said softly.
My eyes swung to his of their own free will. “Say what?”
“That you want nothing from me,” he said. “Because I have a list of things I want from you.”
I shook my head. “No. You don’t get to say that now. You … you …” I backed away from him. “You are Cam’s father. You tell me how much of his life you want to be a part of, and we will go from there.”
Dean moved then, and his hand wrapped around my wrist. “Brielle,” he said in a pleading tone, “you dropped this on me out of nowhere. I felt lied to. Betrayed. Robbed. Can’t you see that? My world had been turned on its ear, and I needed to process it.”
“Let go of me,” I said, trying not to soften toward him.
I had to protect my heart, and this man had already crushed it once. I wasn’t over that, and it was a large, gaping wound I couldn’t even acknowledge. I had my son to think of first.
“Brielle.” He said my name again, and I hated how hearing him say it made my heart spasm in my chest.
“Let my mama go,” Cam shouted forcefully.
I turned to look at him and saw him glaring at his father.
He was protecting me. Something he shouldn’t feel the need to do.
thirty-six
dean
I saw it then. The fierceness on his face. The fire in his eyes as my son stood there, glaring at me. How had I not seen it before? Except for the eyes, he looked exactly like Rush at that age. Even more so than Nate did.
“It’s okay,” Brielle said in a soothing tone as she pulled her arm free of my grip.
She moved toward him then. His gaze went from me to his mother. He was worried about her, and I knew in that moment that he’d face down anything to keep her safe.
Pride swelled in my chest. I hadn’t expected it to hit me that hard. It was almost painful.
“Why was he holding your arm?” he asked her, then shot a warning look in my direction.
“He was just trying to talk to me. I was being hardheaded. You know how I am,” she said to him.
“You’re not hardheaded,” he said to her, and then he looked at me. “Don’t make my mama cry again.”
I looked at Brielle then. She didn’t acknowledge his threat. She was focused on him completely. She had cried. I’d made her cry. My chest felt as if someone had stuck a knife in it and twisted.
“Cam,” her soft voice said with sternness, “this isn’t necessary. Dean is here to talk to us both.”
“Why? Because his test came back? He knows you’re not lying?” The accusation in his tone was clear. He trusted his mother without question.