Chapter 23
Jonas
If I thought Emma seemed pale when she walked into the dining room, that’s nothing on the shade of near-translucent she’s going now.
Understanding why is nearly instantaneous.
“Hey, Em,” the man in the backyard says.
She doesn’t look at me.
Doesn’t acknowledge me.
But she does put her body between the man and Bash. “What do you want, Chandler?”
Emma not looking at me doesn’t mean he’s not though.
His gaze slides my way, and I actively resist the urge to do to him what Theo tried to do to me a little over a week ago.
“Who’s this?” Chandler says.
“Distant long-lost cousin. What are you doing here?”
His eyes narrow at me.
No idea if he knows who I am or not.
And I don’t mean in the her distant cousin kind of way.
Or in the famous movie star and heir to the Razzle Dazzle fortune kind of way either.
I mean in the dude who’ll kick his ever-loving ass from here to Saturn if he says anything that makes Emma or Bash uncomfortable kind of way.
I know exactly who this assnugget is.
And I would’ve known even without the dossier Hayes’s team gave me.
I stare back at Chandler Sullivan. Don’t nod. Don’t approach to shake his hand. Barely breathe.
Is this rage?
I think this is rage.
Unfamiliar feeling. Not normal. But that’s undeniably what this is.
I don’t even know the man.
Don’t need to.
I know what he did.
He hurt Emma.
That’s the only important part here.
He breaks eye contact with me and looks back at her. “I have a big appointment up in Tiara Falls. Massive business deal.”
“It’s Sunday.”
“Best time to do business, baby.”
“Mama not da baby,” Bash says.
“I am definitely not anyone’s baby,” she agrees.
Chandler squats and looks past her. “Hey, Bash, little dude. Brought you a?—”
“No, you didn’t,” Emma interrupts. “We’ve discussed this.”
“Em—”
“I said no .”
He rolls his eyes. “C’mon, Em. You know you’re not gonna get a better offer.”
“She doesn’t need a better offer to not want you around,” I growl.
Growl.
Me.
The happy-go-lucky guy.
I think my brother just came out of my mouth.
And I’m okay with that.
Chandler puffs his chest. “Look, you little?—”
“Bash, let the chickens out,” Emma says.
“Dick-dick!” my son cries in absolute glee. He drops the scoop, the feed spilling all over the yard, and dashes for the gate on the pen. “Dick-dick out!”
Chandler visibly swallows, but he’s holding on to the glare he’s aiming at me. “She doesn’t need you talking for her.”
My hands are in my pockets to keep my fists still. “You need to learn to listen when a woman tells you no.”
“Emma doesn’t have cousins.”
“I do, actually,” she says.
“I’ve met them all.”
“Did you miss the distant, long-lost part?”
The dick completely ignores her. “Who are you really ?”
Someone who would love five minutes alone with this guy in a dark alley.
But I know how that would end.
All over the news.
And that’s one thing I’ve promised Emma I’ll move heaven and earth to avoid.
It’s the only reason I’m not following instincts that I didn’t even know I had.
Squawking erupts at my feet.
“Fee, dick-dick! Dick-dick fee!”
Chandler inches back.
“Thank you, Bash,” Emma says, still staring directly at the man who put her on a path to being the world’s most notorious runaway bride. “Now say goodbye to Mr. Sullivan.”
“Bye, Mista Suckagain!”
“Emma—” he says, the placating tone so grating that my teeth clench together.
“Aww, it’s a family reunion,” one of the triplets says as he strolls out through the back door.
Dude let himself into Emma’s house.
He has a key.
Of course he does.
They’re family .
“Cuz,” Chandler says. “I was just?—”
“Leaving,” Emma interrupts firmly.
“Oh, good. I’ll walk you to your car.” Lucky. This one’s Lucky.
Even if the haircut didn’t confirm it, the small medical kit he sets on top of Emma’s closed-up hot tub would.
And he’s Chandler Sullivan’s cousin.
As is Sabrina.
None of them actively associate with him, according to my dossier.
“I need a minute with Emma.” Chandler glares at me. “ Alone . It’s about a business thing.”
“Not likely, dude,” Lucky says. “Sabrina and Grey are right behind me.”
Chandler finally looks at Lucky. Then at me. Then at Emma.
Emma crosses her arms over her chest. “If I have to tell you to leave one more time, I’m calling the sheriff.”
Lucky grabs Chandler by the collar and turns him.
I realize I’m barely breathing. My fingernails are short, but they’re digging into my palms. My shoulders are tight. My jaw’s clenched.
Never.
That’s the last time I felt this level of rage.
I make myself breathe. Unclench my fists and jaw. Let my shoulders down.
“Dodo Ono pway!” Bash says, running to the back door. “Dodo Ono pway dick-dicks!”
“Yolko Ono needs to stay inside.” She’s so even-keeled, like this didn’t bother her at all.
And it probably didn’t.
To her, this is probably normal.
And that pisses me off all over again.
“Why don’t you tell Jonas all of the other chickens’ names?” she says to Bash.
“Does he do that a lot?” I ask, forcing myself to match her calm while Bash ignores the request and runs around shrieking with the chickens, scaring half of them.
“He stops by every now and again.”
“Does he leave when you tell him to?”
“He’s a sad, lonely narcissist who will never understand that he’s the problem. He’s rarely as big of a problem as he is when he thinks he has competition. And when he is a problem, I call Laney or Sabrina on speakerphone, and he tends to leave.”
There’s too much to unpack there quickly. So I hone in on the biggest lingering question that I have. “Define every now and again .”
“Jonas, you’ve been very kind to take care of us while we’re sick, but I can handle my life . I don’t have to answer to you about how I live and who I associate with.”
It takes me one very deep breath before I’m calm enough to answer again. “He sets off all of my alarm bells.”
“Thank you for your concern, but let me assure you, if I ever had reason to believe Bash was in danger, I’m fully capable of handling everything.”
Something new flashes in her brown eyes, and it takes a minute for her full message to penetrate the fog of my fury that people like Chandler Sullivan even get to exist.
She’d handle him.
She would.
Quickly, efficiently, and with no evidence left.
I swallow.
Swallow again.
I think I’m turned on.
Yep.
Definitely turned on.
Hard not to be at realizing what my son’s mother would do to protect him.
I’m also simultaneously feeling completely impotent.
Because my way of handling this, after I beat him to a pulp, would’ve been to let my security team clean it up.
Hers would likely involve calling friends with shovels and doing it herself.
“Really didn’t think I’d ever see the day chickens would scare him as much as bees do,” Lucky says off-handedly as he strolls back around the side of the house.
“One of them pecked him in the calf the last time he dropped by,” Emma replies. “It bled. Got infected. He sent me the hospital bill. I sent Theo to give it back to him.”
Lucky grins.
Emma smiles back.
I stand there feeling even more useless.
Actually, I feel worse than useless. “If he recognizes me—” I start.
Lucky snorts.
Emma sighs though. “There’s approximately zero chance he’d recognize you. He always refused to watch Razzle Dazzle movies with me because he hated dumb woman shit , and he’d rather watch theater movies with explosions than movies that might teach him something.”
“Sad but true,” Lucky agrees. “If he says you seem familiar, we’ll tell him you have a little podcast. He thinks those are stupid too.
And if that fails, and he realizes you’re like, famous ”—that gets an eye roll—“then we go with Laney’s plan and tell him you’re studying Theo’s life for the biopic about him. ”
My eyeball is twitching and I want to punch the douchebag all over again.
And I rarely want to punch anyone.
Bash suddenly giggles though, and all gets brighter in my world. “Dick-dicks poop! Dona soo!”
I look down.
A chicken did, in fact, just poop on my shoe.
“You know what this means, Jonas?” Lucky says.
“I’ve been accepted into the flock?”
“Not until you poop back on his foot.”
I’m still not myself enough to do anything more than let my jaw come unhinged.
But then Bash squeals with laughter. Lucky grins. Emma laughs too.
She puts a hand to my arm, and goosebumps sweep my entire body.
“You don’t have to poop on his foot,” she assures me. “But I’d be incredibly grateful if you could bring me crackers and a Gatorade. And give Yolko Ono a little cup of that chicken food too, please.”
“Sure. Absolutely. Be right back.”
Pretty sure she wants to talk to Lucky alone.
I’m not in yet.
And I won’t be if I act like her Neanderthal-brained ex.
So I head inside. Do what she’s asked. And double down on my commitment to being here for whatever she needs.
Letting her lead.
No matter how much it scares me to know I might not ever earn my way back in.