in here. My next thought was how Tyra had shed all of her basic principles to achieve her dreams. How it had almost been ripped away from her and how it was happening again, only this time for good. I couldn’t let that happen.
“As soon as we’re outside, delete that fucking video,” I warned her.
Her lips spread, bright and victorious. It was about how one would imagine a snake smiling. I shuddered. “Let’s just see how the night goes.”
She stood, and even as scantily dressed as she was, she started for the exit. My feet were heavy as I followed her, and I didn’t allow myself to look to the stage where I knew Tyra now stood, watching us go.
That night, I could have cut the tension with a knife when I returned home. Incidentally, I’d also slept with one eye open just in case Tyra cut me with a knife. The next morning, I found her and most of River’s stuff gone. She’d up and left me in the wee hours of the morning and took my kid with her without a single word. How fucking cold was that?
I didn’t call her. I didn’t go after her, either. At least, not yet. I knew there would be no getting through to her.
So I waited.
Impatiently, but I bid my time until the right moment. Three days later, that moment had come. I sat alone at a table by the window in Macchicino’s, watching the door when she finally walked through it. She had sunglasses on, but I could tell she was pissed long before she removed them and stormed over to the table.
“Thank you for coming.”
“You said you wanted to discuss River,” she replied, making the only reason she’d come clear. I should have been ashamed for using my son under false pretenses, but I didn’t know how else to fight for them. My family. “You’ve got two minutes.”
My eyebrows rose, but I swallowed my retort and said instead, “To start, I wanted you to know that I’m keeping the minivan.”
“What for? Minivans are for large families not—” Her lips pressed together when she remembered that she hated me. “I mean, why did you bring me down here to tell me that?”
“I didn’t. I brought you down here to tell you that you’re wrong.”
“Wrong about what?”
“I didn’t touch your sister, pip.”
She cocked her head to the side, her gaze colder than I’d ever seen it. “The first time or the second?”
I wished at that moment that I could say both. “I know you saw me leave with her at the club.”
“Yeah, so? You’re single.” Looking away, she absently fingered the sugar packets waiting on the table as she whispered her next lie. “You can do whatever you want.”
“Then why did you take my kid and leave?”
She shrugged. “Because we didn’t belong there anyway.”
“Bullshit. It’s exactly where you belonged, pip-squeak.”
“Well then, how about because I didn’t want to be there when you eventually brought her home with you.”
“I’d never do that.”
“There’s a lot of things I thought you’d never do, but you surprised me at every turn. What’s next?”
“Marrying you? Having lots of babies to fill that ugly ass van one day?”
She leaned forward, a challenge in her eyes. “Never.”
“Then why were you begging for me to come inside you not even two weeks ago?” A throat clearing had us both looking at the table next to us and the reproachful gaze of the older man sitting there. When Tyra looked at me, I was sure she was going to kill me.
“Let me take a wild guess and say that you didn’t call me down here to talk about River?”
“Other than the fact that I want him and you back under my roof, not really.”
She started to stand, but I quickly caught her hand. “I promise you, Tyra. I didn’t sleep with Selena. She tried, but…”
“But what?”
“I couldn’t make the same mistake again.”
I exhaled when Tyra relaxed in her chair with a frown, so I let her hand go. “What are you talking about?”
“Selena had a video of you dancing at the club. She was going to send it to the Dean, and God knows who else if I didn’t sleep with her and walk away from you.”
“So if you’re telling me you didn’t, then that means—”
I shook my head before she could finish. “I took care of it.”
“How exactly did you take care of it?”
I ran my sweaty palms down my jeans. I still hadn’t gotten up the nerve to