you were, but she insisted she wanted to talk to you.” He paused. “I’m sorry. You know we would never have wanted to put you into the middle of this.”
Fuck.
“Sorry, Len,” he said gently. “Good luck.”
“Love you. Bye,” I muttered into the receiver. What the fuck?
I got a “Love you” back a second before I hung up.
Jonah raised those thick eyebrows at me. “Bad news?”
I just shook my head.
That big hand went back to the base of my spine, and it stayed there. “I’ll come with you, make sure to pull you back before you say something you’ll regret.”
I made a face. “Good luck with that.” What the hell did this lady want? Why was she here? “Are your grandparents nice?”
“The best.”
The best. He was going to make me vomit.
“Do you think they’ll want to meet Mo?” I asked, more to kill the time while we got closer and closer to the woman who had spotted us and stood up straight.
“More than anything,” he responded. The hand on my lower back moved slowly over to my hip, and I let it, eating it up. “I was planning on giving her a call today to tell her the news now that I’ve talked to my brothers. She’ll have me promising to bring her over as soon as we can.”
“We? You want me to go too?”
Jonah leaned in. “There’s no place I wouldn’t want you to go with me.”
This fucking asshole had magic in him. That had to be it. Sorcery. Witchcraft.
Because this wasn’t right. My heart shouldn’t be doing this. My whole body shouldn’t be reacting like he was fucking crack.
Why? Why did I have to like him out of millions so much?
“Good morning,” the woman said before I could formulate a response to what the hell he’d just dropped on me.
“Morning,” I told her distractedly with all of the five manners that Grandpa had instilled in me,.
“Good morning,” Jonah threw in, with his immaculate manners.
Grandpa’s ex flashed him a hesitant smile a second before her eyes flicked in the direction of where I knew Mo and Sarah were. They moved back to me in the blink of an eye, and I could see her straighten, see her grasp for maybe strength, and then say, “Gus said I could find you here.”
“I know,” I replied. “Something I can help you with?”
She glanced back to the spot behind me, and I ate up the fact that I didn’t feel even a tiny bit guilty for not rushing Sarah over. “I didn’t know you were with your family,” she said, still looking away. “I wanted to see if you were interested in having lunch with me.”
Of course he’d left that part out.
I swear I didn’t mean to ask it the way I did, but the word just came right on out of my mouth like I was pouring syrup out of a bottle. “Why?”
She tried her hardest to mask it, but I could see her flinch. “Because—” She cleared her throat. “—I’d like to speak to you.” Her gaze moved to Jonah and back to me. “I’d like you to know my half of the story too.”
The words seemed so shallow, all I could do was look at her and feel the weight of Jonah’s hand settle even heavier on my lower back.
Her half of the story? That’s what this was about?
“You are my granddaughter,” the woman said when I just stood there and looked at her.
Okay, I could say this a little nicer. Just a little. “Well, yeah, technically. Biologically.” I squinted my eyes because I couldn’t keep that much of the smart-ass out of me. It was in me like I knew I had A positive blood. “I’m not trying to hurt your feelings or anything, but I don’t really care to hear your half of the story, as you put it.”
She didn’t wince or flinch or anything, this woman who looked more and more like me with every second I looked at her. Instead, she lifted her chin up higher. Her fucking nose too. “Well, I think it would be fair if you gave me the opportunity to explain what happened.”
I understood suddenly why my grandpa hadn’t told her to fuck off when she’d shown up to ask him for advice, or whatever bullshit had led her to showing up to Maio House. I really did. But the thing was, I didn’t give a shit. I didn’t give a shit about this woman who had never given a shit about