Chapter 26
Chapter Twenty-Six
Lilly was glad to run into Anna and Melody. She was incredibly angry and had to pull herself together in front of the kids.
She didn’t know Christine, but God, how she hated her for what she’d done to Austin! She regretted holding a glass of orange juice. She needed a handle of rum.
“She’s not worth the anger,” Anna said encouragingly. “Really. Don’t give her the attention she craves.”
Lilly took a deep breath. “She hurt him.”
“Fox is a grown man; he can handle it on his own.”
“But he shouldn’t have to,” she hissed. “He doesn’t like being alone! Why do you think every damn Hawks player has a house key? He was lonely for years because of her, and I can’t forgive her for that.”
Anna looked at her thoughtfully before asking quietly, “You like him quite a bit, don’t you?”
Heat gripped Lilly’s cheeks and luckily, her cell phone rang in her purse, giving her the perfect excuse not to reply. “Excuse me, could you keep an eye on Del for a minute?”
She didn’t like Anna’s knowing smile at all. “Sure. No problem.”
Lilly took a few steps to the right, toward the edge of the banquet hall, which was filling up by the second, pulled her phone out of her pocket, and answered.
It only dawned on her that she hadn’t even heard her own ringtone when someone began speaking: “Hello, Mr. Fox. This is Frances Toban. Hazel Barrow hired me as your attorney to help you. I’m sorry it took so long, but it was shockingly difficult to find any incriminating evidence against Ms. Adams. But I think I’ve gathered enough so that you have at least a solid chance in a custody battle.
She doesn’t have much money and won’t be able to afford a good lawyer, which makes things easier.
I’d be happy to send you her file. Do you know how you’d like to proceed?
Ms. Barrow hinted that you want to be prepared for all eventualities? I’m certainly ready at any time.”
It was as if the world stood still. As if the conversations around her swelled into a roar that snapped at her like a crocodile at its prey.
Lilly’s hands began to shake so violently that the phone threatened to slip from her fingers.
But she clung to it as white spots danced before her eyes and the dizziness became so severe that she had to steady herself against the wall to keep from collapsing.
“I think I have enough evidence to convince a jury that Ms. Adams is not a suitable mother and you would therefore be granted sole custody of Delfina. It won’t be easy, but I’m good, if I may say so.
Ms. Adams won’t know what hit her. Ms. Barrow has indicated that you are currently seeking a friendly relationship with Ms. Adams. I can only endorse that for now. ”
Nausea churned in her stomach, surged up her throat, and seared her tongue. She couldn’t breathe. The whole world tilted until nothing was right anymore, and everything was crooked.
Austin had sought a friendly relationship with her. Well, fuck, he’d succeeded!
“Mr. Fox?” the lawyer pressed. “Are you there?”
Lilly squeezed her eyes shut and ragged breaths forced air into her lungs.
How could she have been so stupid? How could she have fallen in love with a man who’d been plotting for months to take her child away?
“How wonderful,” she whispered hoarsely into the phone. “Mr. Fox will be pleased. Thank you."
Then she hung up.
Her heart pounded in her chest and her vision blurred.
She couldn’t tell if she had tears in her eyes or if her high blood pressure was affecting her optic nerve.
That seemed unimportant compared to the noise in her head, which she could no longer hear…
nothing except Austin’s voice: The last few months have possibly been the best of my life.
She had never felt so stupid.
“Hey, are you okay?” Anna asked anxiously, pushing her way into her field of vision.
Lilly barely heard her, but nodded. She wasn’t going to break down in front of hundreds of L.A. high society people. She’d do that at home in bed, like everyone else!
“Yeah, yeah,” she replied stiffly. “Everything’s great. I…I suddenly don’t feel well. I think it was the orange juice. I’m sorry. I think I’ll take Delfina and go home.
Anna’s eyes widened in astonishment. “But you just arrived.”
“Yeah…I’m sorry.” She didn’t want to explain any further. Every word out of her mouth increased the chance that she would burst into tears. “Can you give Austin his phone back?”
Before Anna could press her any further, she thrust the phone into her hand, went over to Delfina, and left the room.
Del wasn’t happy; she wanted to stay and show everyone her dress and look for the pool with Melody, but when Lilly told her she had terrible stomach pains, her daughter understood immediately.
Nonna Rossi always said: When your mother isn’t feeling well, you have to be especially good.
Ah shit, Del was going to have to be good for the next week!
When the Uber dropped her off at Sunshine Pier half an hour later, the stomach pains weren’t even a lie anymore. A red ball of fire and rage burned a hole through Lilly’s stomach lining, so that she could barely feel the heat of the sun.
She let Del watch TV while she sat at the kitchen table, staring at her hands, trying to prepare herself for what was to come. She tried to be rational. She tried patiently to justify what she had heard. She tried to understand Austin.
But she couldn’t understand when it came to taking Delfina from her. She had no rationality when she thought about how Austin had deliberately cultivated a friendly relationship with her. She didn’t understand it!
Nothing about the past few weeks. Every kiss, every word from Austin’s mouth.
She had thought…she had hoped…she had believed…
The doorbell rang, and she flinched.
She had expected it after turning off her phone, but the last hour and a half hadn’t been enough to calm her down.
A burning, empty despair smoldered within her, threatening to engulf her…and she only managed to get up and head downstairs because Delfina called out, “Who is it?”
“I’ll get it, honey,” she replied, forcing her voice to sound calm. She took a deep breath with each step and closed her eyes for a few seconds before opening the door.
It didn’t help.
Her heart still stopped when she saw Austin by the back door. Her eyes still stung when she saw his worried expression. A thousand needles still pierced each of her lungs, as if she were drowning in this tough moment, unable to fight her way to the surface.
She didn’t want to see him. She didn’t want to hear him. Besides, if it weren’t for Delfina, she would never have spoken to him again.
But she was a mother, and her feelings weren’t as important as Del’s…so she had to pull herself together.
“Hey,” Austin said, his voice unbearably loving and concerned. “Are you okay? Anna said you disappeared without a word, that you weren’t feeling well?”
Lilly stared at him…and hundreds of images flashed through her mind. Hundreds of moments and conversations that she had believed summoned up Austin.
But she’d been wrong, hadn’t she?
How could she have been wrong?
Maybe it was a misunderstanding. Maybe Austin didn’t know about the lawyer. Maybe…maybe…
“I answered your phone,” she whispered, her voice like glass shattering beneath Austin’s shoes. “I’m sorry. I wasn’t thinking. But…I spoke to your lawyer. The man you hired to find as much dirt as possible on me so you’d have a chance in a custody battle.”
Austin opened his mouth — and for a blissful second, he looked as bewildered as she felt. For one wonderful moment, he seemed not to understand what she was talking about.
But then she blinked, and he pressed a fist to his forehead. Then she took a deep breath, and guilt crept over his features like a parasite climbing a plant.
He knew who the lawyer was. He knew why he had called.
And the cold fear, which hope had shoved aside, broke over her again like a blizzard, taking every spark of compassion she might have been capable of. It stole her patience. Her hope. It took everything. Mercilessly.
“Shit,” Austin whispered.
“It’s good that we agree on that,” she replied hollowly. “I think that says it all. You can go now.” She gestured toward the door, but Austin didn’t move.
“Lilly,” he said firmly. “Let me explain, okay?”
“You want to explain to me that you wanted to take my daughter away from me? Oh, I’m so looking forward to this conversation!” she snarled.
He narrowed his eyes. “It’s been months since I hired him! I’d forgotten I’d even done it.”
“You forgot that you wanted to take Delfina away from me by court order?” she cried out angrily, digging her fingers into the fabric of her dress.
“You forgot that you wanted to destroy my life? You just didn’t think about it, that you had hired a man to find out everything about me that you could use against me?
You forgot that you only slept with me because someone recommended you try a friendly relationship with me to improve your chances with Delfina?
! Shit, Austin, you should consider seeing a doctor!
” Her voice grew louder with each word. “That kind of amnesia can be dangerous!”
“I didn’t sleep with you to improve my chances with Delfina,” he retorted heatedly. “What a load of crap. I slept with you because I wanted to!”
“Oh, what a nice bonus! Free sex while you convince the mother of your child that you’re a good guy and only want what’s best for everyone!”
“I only want what’s best, Lilly! God…” He took several deep breaths before fixing her with his gaze.
“I didn’t plan on sleeping with you, okay?
Yes, I wanted to be nicer to make things easier for Delfina.
But sex was definitely not on my radar. It just…
happened. Shit, you know that, you were there! ”
“All I know is that you lied to me, saying you spent the best months of your life with us, while behind our backs, you were plotting to go to court!”
“It wasn’t a lie!”
Tears streamed from the corners of her eyes. “It was all a lie, Austin!”
“No! I was angry, okay?” he shouted. “You kept Delfina a secret from me for nine years, and I was afraid you’d take her away from me again. I wanted to protect myself!”
“And you did. Congratulations. By the way, the lawyer is right, I don’t have enough money to fight your lawyers — but Daisy does, so I’m going to shamelessly exploit that.”
“You don’t have to do anything at all, Lilly,” he whispered desperately, placing his hands on her shoulders.
Not tightly, but enough to make her look at him.
“I don’t want to take her away from you!
I don’t want sole custody. I don’t want to go to court.
I don’t want to change anything. I won’t use any of the material the lawyer sends me. ”
“Oh, really?” she retorted angrily, shaking his hands off. “You just want to store it in a drawer as a nice safety net in case you decide you’ve had enough of me? When it gets too complicated?”
“No! God, no, okay?” He nervously ran a hand through his hair. “I’ll burn it all in front of you. I don’t care about any of that. I just want…us.”
“There is no us, Austin!” she whispered bitterly.
“Of course there is.”
“I don’t sleep with liars!”
Something about his expression changed. It became hard and unyielding all at once.
“Okay, Lilly,” he replied coolly. “You’re right.
I made a mistake. I forgot to tell the lawyer he didn’t need to bother working on my request anymore.
Okay, okay, that’s a lie. I didn’t tell you about the lawyer.
But you lied too, every time you talked about your ridiculous letter!
” His voice rose. “And God damn it, I still love you. I still want you! Maybe you should grant me the same fucking kindness!”
Everything inside her froze. Her heart stopped, and her lungs ceased to function.
How dare he throw those words at her…and make them into something ugly?
“I didn’t lie,” she stated coldly. “And the woman, the one you love, doesn’t want to take the child away.
So stop adding new lies to your old ones. ”
“I’m not lying,” he whispered sharply. “Lilly, I…I love you, okay?” The old despair was back. In his voice and his eyes. “I think I have for ten years. I can’t let go of you, and I don’t want to. I didn’t want to fall in love, okay? I couldn’t trust you…”
“You can’t trust me?” she cut him off loudly.
“You’ve been sleeping with me for weeks and forgot to mention that you sicced a lawyer on me to try and make me out to be a bad mother!
Who the hell isn’t trustworthy here, Austin?
Who just told me why, ten years ago, he just climbed out of my bed in the middle of the night when he was afraid his ex-wife might catch him? ”
“Lilly…”
“Stop saying my name! Stop talking, stop…”
“Mom?” a thin voice called out from behind her, and she winced.
Delfina stood on the stairs leading to the apartment, glancing back and forth between them, uncertain.
“Why are you fighting?” she whispered, her eyes wide and shining, as she clutched her favorite stuffed animal, an oversized dragonfly, to her chest.
And Lilly’s heart broke for the second time that evening.
For Delfina. For the situation. For herself.
Two hours earlier, she would have given anything to hear the words I love you from Austin’s mouth, but now she was unable to even look him in the eye. Now she wished he would just take them back because they were only making things worse.
“No reason, sweetheart,” she said, her voice trembling, nervously wiping tears from her cheek before pulling Delfina close and kissing her head. “Your dad forgot something and he was just leaving.”
Austin narrowed his eyes, his breathing at least as ragged as hers. “Lilly, please…”
“You were about to leave,” she repeated firmly. “Before I say things I can’t take back. Things Delfina shouldn’t hear.”
He stared at her, his lips slightly parted, a silent plea in his eyes. But she couldn’t read it. She didn’t want to make it worse — and every word Delfina overheard would only make it worse.
Austin seemed to finally understand because he lowered his gaze to Del.
“I love you, Delfina. Everything’s okay,” he whispered, pulling her close and kissing her forehead…before he finally did what Lilly had asked him to do and left.
The house had never felt so empty.