Chapter 04 #2
“No. What I need is to keep my mind busy. Getting out of bed’s been a battle for weeks. But now that I can’t afford to pretend nothing will change, it’s worse.”
I take a slow breath.
I hate that son of a bitch—that small, shriveled-dick excuse for a man.
Knowing I can’t stall any longer, I say, “Colin was here earlier. Right after dinner, when you went to the family room with Alicia.”
“What did he want?”
I roll my eyes when she looks up at me. “To convince you it was all one big conspiracy theory and that I forged the evidence, maybe?”
Her expression doesn’t change. Normally, my sarcasm earns at least a hint of a smile.
“He wanted to see you. Talk to you. See the kids. And, of course, ask you to take down the blog post.”
“I was thinking about that earlier,” Cecily says, her voice barely above a whisper.
“It’s drawing more and more attention. My editor even offered to turn it into an article, using the post as a hook.
I just don’t want this spreading any further…
to the kids. That was never my intention. I wasn’t trying to make a scene.”
I crouch in front of her.
“You’re not taking anything down. Thousands of women are reading that post and feeling seen, heard, represented. If it’s bothering him, that’s because the truth hurts. This is your truth, and he doesn’t get to erase it.”
I grin, just a little.
“Besides, after months of radio silence, the traffic’s finally turning into real money from ads. Like that singer said—'Las mujeres ya no lloran, las mujeres facturan’.”
She gives me a small smile. I kiss her cheek before sitting across from her.
Now comes the hard part.
“Ethan unlocked my tablet using facial recognition while I was napping on the couch earlier.” I watch her face drain of color and know she already understands what’s coming. “He saw more than he should have… part of the evidence I gathered for you.”
Cecily closes her eyes, and I tell her everything.
Every last detail.
I wake up a little dazed, my throat dry, the house completely hushed. Stretching, I head to the kitchen for a glass of water.
That’s when I see Ethan, hunched over the kitchen island, the glow of the screen casting a pale light across his face.
It takes me a moment to register what he’s holding, and another to grasp what it means.
I lunge forward and rip the tablet from his hands. Ethan doesn’t even try to stop me.
When I see what’s on the screen—screenshots of their texts—I drag a hand over my face. It’s not the worst of it, but it’s still something I wish he hadn’t seen. “How did you unlock it?”
It takes him a while to answer. Then, in a flat voice, he says, “Face ID.”
I curse under my breath. When I’m home—or here—I disable the extra security layers for convenience. Of course it has to be Cecily’s son who outsmarts me. Goes straight to the cloud, digs around like he knows exactly where to look.
At least he didn’t inherit his father’s brain cells.
“What did you see, Ethan?” I ask, keeping my voice calm. “Don’t bother lying. I can check the activity history in under a minute.”
He steps away from the island and starts pacing.
“Pictures,” he says. “Him going in and out of a building after midnight. With a woman in an elevator. Arm in arm at a restaurant. Kissing her at what looked like JFK. A bunch of texts—him saying he’s on his way, her sending pictures. No faces. Just her. In lingerie.”
He stops, disgust etched across his face.
“That’s all you saw, Ethan?” I ask, glancing toward the garage door, making sure Cecily and Alicia aren’t back from ballet yet.
“Just that?” His eyes widen. “There’s more?”
I don’t answer.
“I’m not lying,” he says, his voice breaking. “I’m not a liar like him, Uncle Mark.”
The words fracture on the way out.
I step closer and rest a hand on his shoulder.
“Hey. I know,” my voice softens. “You’re already a million times the man he’ll ever be.”
Ethan stares at the floor. When he finally looks up, I see the tears he’s trying to hold back.
“The last text I was reading,” he murmurs.
“It was sent on September seventh… the weekend Mom took us to the Hamptons. He couldn’t go all summer because of ‘work.’” His jaw tightens.
“But that woman sent him a picture of one of his T-shirts, said he’d left it there earlier. That the weekend was wonderful.”
He swallows hard.
“Mom spent months begging him to come. Even just for a day. He never had the time. But he had time to play house with her?”
I don’t know what to say. Every new detail somehow manages to sink lower than the last.
I look at Ethan, almost a man, but at heart a boy, forced to carry a kind of pain no one his age should ever have to shoulder.
“This isn’t about you,” I tell him gently.
“Or your mom. Or Alicia. This is about your father’s selfishness.
He didn’t know how to value what he had.
He thought that because he lived a privileged life, he was above consequences.
” I pause. “But it’s too late for that now. He’s going to have to face them.”
“How is it not about us?” Ethan’s voice rises, trembling with anger. “He was barely ever home. But I saw the texts. There was a week in July when he messaged her four times—Monday, Wednesday, Friday, Saturday—saying he was on his way. Other weeks, it was two or three times.”
He taps his temple. “Those days are burned into my head. I keep wondering if those were the nights Mom got a text from him and made that face… the one that looked like pain mixed with missing him.”
Tears spill down his cheeks. He wipes them away angrily.
“Do we mean that little to him?” he asks. “That he traded us for cheap sex? He kept saying he loved Mom… that he loved me and Alicia. How could he do this?”
I pull him into my arms.
“Hey,” I murmur. “It’s going to be okay. You’re strong. Your mom’s a fortress. And Alicia, she’s tougher than she looks. You’ll all be okay.” I tighten my hold. “You’ve got me.”
His body trembles against mine, sobs shaking through his chest. I bite the inside of my cheek and stare at the ceiling, fighting my own tears.
“I—I don’t want t-to cry,” he says into my shoulder, his voice breaking. “H-he doesn’t d-deserve us.”
“No,” I whisper, my throat tight. “He doesn’t. Don’t cry for him.” I rest my chin against his hair. “Cry for yourself. Let it out… for you.”
“I didn’t notice… He was so talkative at dinner, teasing Alicia, laughing. I just…” Cecily whispers, tears tracing down her face as I finish.
“He went upstairs to shower,” I say. “To pull himself together before you got home. He only came down when the food arrived. He didn’t want you to see him like that.”
She covers her face with her hands, then wipes the tears away.
“I never thought I’d say this,” she murmurs. “But I hate Colin. Not so much for what he did to me…but for what our kids are going to have to live with.”
“I hate him for all those reasons,” I mutter. “And a few more. Should’ve done worse.”
Her head snaps up. “What did you do, Mark?”
Of course she wouldn’t let it slide.
“Nothing big,” I say quickly. “Okay? I just made things a little harder on a couple of acquisitions. They’ll find out soon enough that a major investor he met with in San Jose won’t be putting money into Montgomery Clifford & Co. anymore.”
Her eyes widen, so I add, just as fast, “Don’t worry—it won’t tank the company. The investor’s a friend of a friend. I just suggested he might want to look elsewhere. And that friend trusts me.”
She exhales and lowers her foot from the chair.
“Mark, I know you’re angry, and hurting, just like I am. And it wouldn’t be easy for me to watch you go through something like this either. But hundreds of people depend on that company. I don’t want revenge. I don’t want anyone losing their livelihood just so I can feel better.”
How anyone could ever hurt someone with a heart like hers is beyond me.
“I won’t,” I promise. “It was just a scare. And I’d never mess with the kids’ inheritance.”
I squeeze her hand and manage a small smile.
“Besides, you’re entitled to half of everything. I fully expect to see you filthy rich for the rest of your life.”
She studies me for a long moment, then stands and takes my hand, pulling me into a hug. We stay like that, arms wrapped around each other, saying nothing.
“I’ve said this so many times over the years,” she murmurs, her voice thick with emotion. “And these last few days, I’ve lost count. But please don’t ever forget how grateful I am to have you in my life.”
Her words land somewhere deep. I tighten my arms around her.
“I’m your ride or die,” I murmur.