Chapter 18 #2
She smiled. “Look at you being an awesome dad.”
“Thanks,” I murmured, just as Rosie’s cell phone began to ring.
I maneuvered her back onto the bed, jackknifed up to a sitting position, and leaned across the mattress to grab her purse from the floor.
She took it from me and rummaged for her phone. “It’s Kennedy,” she informed me, checking the caller ID before clicking the answer button and putting the phone on speaker, saying, “Hey, Ned. Are the kids okay?”
“All good, babe,” Kennedy replied. “They were all asleep when I came to work. They were probably awake for half the night watching movies. This isn’t a social call. I got to work twenty minutes ago and was greeted by a slew of emails from Evan’s lawyer.”
Rosie’s eyes slid to me. “Let me guess. He’s playing hardball.”
“I’m sorry; I was hoping that when we presented our evidence, he’d back off. Instead, it looks like he’s doubled down,” Kennedy said quietly. “There’s more to it, though. Can you come down to the office and bring Donovan with you?”
Rosie’s face paled, and in that moment, if I could’ve fucked Rosie’s ex up, I would have, just for making her face devoid of color. It was obvious she was worried, and I didn’t like that for my woman one bit.
“I’ll be there in an hour,” she promised before ending the call and dropping her cell phone on the bed. “It looks like the asshole’s declared war.”
I pulled her into my arms and tilted her chin up with my finger. “Baby, there’s nothing he can do to us. We’re clean; he’s not. Don’t worry.”
Rosie’s shoulders slumped defeatedly. “I know, but I also know Evan. Like I said, he plays dirty.”
“Let him play dirty,” I told her, my tone full of bravado that I didn’t necessarily feel. “While he’s playing dirty, we’ll be playing it smart. We’ll outmaneuver the fucker, no sweat.”
Rosie closed her eyes, nodding, but I could see the weight of the situation was pressing down on her, and I hated it.
“We should get going,” she declared, rolling from the bed and strutting buck-ass naked toward her closet. “Right, so what does a girl wear to a legal meeting where we plan how to castrate her ex-husband?”
I grinned, my eyes traveling down her gorgeous body, taking in the curve of her delectable ass. “You’ve got balls of steel, babe. Fierce, remember?”
Her head popped back around the wall. “Oh, honey. You have no idea. You’ve only seen nice Rosie up to now.
I’ve been placating my inner bitch for too long.
Now, my ex-husband has pushed me over the edge by fucking with my kids’ happiness, and that’s not a wise move.
If Evan wants a fight, then that’s exactly what he’s gonna get. ”
—————
Kennedy stared at us across her desk with her fingers clasped together, wearing a pissed expression.
The second we walked inside the office, I could sense the shimmer in the air, and it wasn’t a positive one. Something had obviously enraged Kennedy, and I could tell by the tight, pinched look on her face that she was struggling to keep it together.
Ned nodded toward a stack of papers on her desk. “Evan’s going for full custody of the kids. There’s shit in there that’s going to upset you both. The reason I know this is because it’s upset me.”
“Is there stuff in there that will help him succeed?” Rosie demanded.
“In my opinion, no,” Kennedy assured her. “But if there’s one thing I’ve learned over the years, is that you should never say never. Are you ready for this?”
Rosie expelled a resigned breath. “I’ve dealt with this shit for a long time. There’s nothing that asshole can do to shock me anymore. Just hit me with it.”
Kennedy picked up the papers and skimmed a few off the top of the pile before handing them to Rosie.
My woman looked at them, her forehead furrowing in concentration. “Evan’s PI has been busy,” she said coolly, holding them out for me to take.
I took the papers that I could see were actually glossy photographs.
As I gazed down at them, a sick feeling hit me when I realized that I was the main feature.
They were images of me with other women in what seemed like compromising situations, all taken in and around the Shamrock.
My heart sank as I flicked through them because to anyone else, it would appear that I was fucking around on Rosie.
Kennedy’s voice penetrated the whooshing sensation in my ears. “They’re all date and time-stamped, the most recent ones being from last weekend. But he’s been having you watched since our first communication.”
I checked the date on the one I was currently staring at and saw it had been taken the Saturday before. The girl I was laughing with was slouched over the bar and leaning toward me with her hand in mine.
“It’s not what it looks like,” I muttered, my eyes lifting to Rosie. “I promise it wasn’t anything. She was so wasted that I had to call her a cab. I was holding her hand to stop her from falling off the damned stool.”
“You don’t have to explain,” she reassured me.
“I do, Ro,” I insisted, flicking over to the next image where I was walking through the Shamrock with my arm slung over the girl’s shoulders.
“Here I was taking her outside to put her in her cab. Her two friends were right behind us.” I waved the photograph between us.
“I know it looks bad, Posy, but it was nothing.”
Rosie’s jaw set, and her hand came to rest on my knee.
“Stop,” she breathed, her eyes filling with tears.
“Atlas was at the bar Saturday night for Lucie’s birthday, remember?
Do you think he wouldn’t have told me if you’d left with another woman?
He already explained how you helped that girl.
He said she was so drunk that you were worried somebody had put something in her drink.
You and my brother had a whole conversation about it.
I know you wouldn’t fuck around behind my back, honey. I trust you.”
The sight of her tears made my heart swoop. My hand went to her cheek to brush away a lone tear with my thumb. “Then why are you crying?”
“Because never in my life have I been so fucking angry with someone.” Rosie’s tear-filled eyes met mine, and her tone turned from soft to biting as she continued, “And never in my life have I ever wanted to go home, get my gun, and blow someone’s dick off as much as I do right now.
Even when I found out he was fucking every woman who was desperate enough to go with him, I brushed it off.
It didn’t matter to me because by that point, I’d already stopped caring about his sorry ass.
But right now, if that motherfucker was standing in front of me, I’d rip out every hair on his lying, cheating, underhanded, snaky head.
” She stood from her chair and immediately began to pace.
“How fucking dare he? How fucking dare he pay some old creeper to follow my boyfriend around and take pictures of him doing his job and helping some poor, drunk girl, just to try to use them against him and ultimately, me. I’ve always known he’s a nasty, petty little prick, but this is a bitch move even for him. This is un-fucking-believable.”
Rosie’s outburst made the entire room heat up.
Kennedy and I exchanged glances, and I could tell she was taken aback.
If you could bottle Rosie’s fury, it would probably power a small town for a week.
She was pacing the room like a caged tigress, her face blooming and her body vibrating with pure rage.
As weird as it sounded, I had never, in the entirety of my existence, been so fucking turned on by such sheer fury.
My eyes fell on Rosie’s balled fists and then up to her shoulders that were squared like she was ready to march out, get in her car, drive to Idaho, and throttle her ex-husband with her bare hands.
For a split second, I wondered if it would be too weird if I pulled Rosie onto my lap and made out with her in front of Kennedy.
After deciding that it would for sure border on inappropriate, I settled for shooting my woman a look that said, You’re fucking gorgeous when you’re mad, before getting to my feet, catching her around the waist, and pulling her toward me.
My hand went to her face, and my thumb stroked across her bottom lip. “Let’s not get mad, baby,” I said huskily. “Let’s get even.”
Her gaze settled on mine, and her lip curled as she hissed, “I hate him.”
I dropped my forehead until it rested on hers. “We’ll get him. We’ve got Colt on it, remember? If Evan’s got any skeletons, he’ll find them.”
“Donovan’s right, Rosie,” Kennedy interjected.
“My PI’s the best in the area, too. If there’s anything to be discovered, he’ll find it, and if I’ve learned anything, it’s that when somebody tries hard to take someone else down, there’s usually a level of fear behind it.
Evan knows he’s no angel, so he’s trying to get shit on you before you do him. We’ve got this covered.”
Taking Rosie’s hand, I guided her back to her seat before moving my chair closer to hers, parking my ass in it, and pressing my thigh to hers.
Still holding her hand in mine, I turned back to Kennedy and asked, “What else is there? Give it all to us and don’t hold back.”
She sucked air in through her nose before releasing it slowly. “Remember, you’re not on trial here. Anything that asshole can do, we can do better.” She picked up the rest of the photographs and handed them over, eyeing Rosie nervously.
I took them again to prepare myself because if these were anything like the last ones, Rosie was gonna flip the fuck out, and I needed to be ready to talk her down.
Slowly, I flicked through them, my lips thinning at the images of me and Rosie in a hot and heavy clinch outside her house. Then I cursed under my breath as I came across a couple of Rosie sunbathing out the back by her pool in a bikini while the kids were fucking around with their friends.
“Is that PI a pervert?” I asked, handing them over to Rosie.