Chapter Seventeen – Gone with the Wind #3
Reluctantly, I stepped back, gaze still locked on her.
“Sorry to interrupt.”
The hint of a scold from a voice that haunted my nightmares finally tore my eyes from hers to the two people standing in the marquee’s entrance.
It wasn’t the surprise radiating from Andie’s assistant, as strong and stiff as her expensive pantsuit, that caught or held my attention. It was the disgusted look from my ex-wife. A look that took the heat still rippling through my veins and turned it to ice.
Eden’s nearly pitch-black hair was a spiral of curls that spun around her face and down over her shoulders to mid-back.
Her makeup was perfectly applied, thick liner accentuated her soft-blue eyes, and a vivid red stain coated her lips.
She wore artfully distressed jeans and a sweater with cutouts in the shoulder that showed off skin she spent a fortune to keep a perfect shade of bronze.
On her feet were a pair of bright-red-and-purple cowboy boots that had never seen a day of hard labor.
Eden’s gaze flew from me to Andie and back.
“Is this the real reason you stole my son away? So you can play big, bad sheriff to some small-town bimbo?”
As an actress nominated for multiple awards, Eden knew just how to deliver a line for maximum impact, and hers did just that. I felt Andie stiffen beside me.
Fury traveled through me at the pace of a lit fuse.
“What the hell are you doing here?” I demanded.
Her eyes narrowed. “Anika is getting married. I’m one of her bridesmaids.”
“Anika Roberts? You’re in her wedding?” I snorted in disbelief. “Last I checked, she hated your guts.”
Fury flashed over Eden, but she didn’t get a chance to respond as Andie pushed past me to join the two women near the entrance.
“I just sent Anika the pictures of the martini glasses,” Andie told them. “Is there something else she needed?”
Eden’s nastiness settled on Andie. “If this is how you spend your time at work, it’s no wonder you had to hire Misty.”
Andie’s face burned red.
“Knock it off, Eden,” I growled.
She shot me a triumphant look. “Thankfully, you have no say in what I do anymore.”
When I’d first met Eden, all I’d seen was the sweet, girl-next-door who’d stumbled into acting and become an instant viral hit. A woman appalled by a stalker leaving her sex toys and long messages of just how he wanted to use them on her.
I hadn’t met the real Eden until she got pregnant over a year later.
Until she’d begun using the baby as leverage to get everything she wanted from me.
Until, in a fit of pique, she’d told me the real reason she’d kept our baby.
Her manager had insisted it was the perfect answer to keep alive the cop-and-actress love story the public had eaten up at the beginning of our relationship and then slowly lost interest in.
Eden had despised everything about being pregnant and had taken it out on me.
She’d hated the delivery more. And once Luca arrived, she’d wanted nothing to do with him.
Sleepless nights, feedings, swaddling…it all fell to me and the nanny I’d hired.
For years, she barely acknowledged our son existed unless there was a camera nearby.
And yet, when I’d tried to walk away, she’d held me hostage. She couldn’t afford the negative attention of a divorce, and she swore she’d do anything in her power to ensure I didn’t get custody, including using her sway with a local judge.
For too long, I’d believed it. And Luca had been the one who’d really suffered.
It ate at me. The biggest regret of my life was allowing her to keep her hooks in our son for nearly thirteen years.
I glanced from Eden’s scornful scowl to the keenly interested look on Misty’s face to the embarrassment on Andie’s.
I’d made the mistake of putting Andie in the same category as Eden initially. I’d taken her blank professionalism and her ability to show only the emotions she wanted as a sign she was as skilled an actress as my manipulating ex.
Now I knew Andie was simply trying to keep herself safe. She might be calculating, but it was from years spent as a survivor. She wasn’t attempting to control anyone.
Eden used her skills to torment those who didn’t comply with her wishes, and now I’d given her something to use against Andie. Against me.
The only relief I had was in knowing no judge, not even her dear friend, would give Eden custody simply because she’d caught me kissing Andie at her workplace. We hadn’t been naked in public, hadn’t been doing anything two consenting adults weren’t allowed to do.
No. What I hated was knowing Eden had taken our beautiful kiss and turned it into something Andie would regret.
And I hated that I hadn’t been able to take our embrace further.
That I hadn’t been able to touch her in places that would have turned her sweet purr into a desperate moan before it became a sensual chant.
Stealing that moment from Andie and me was just one more sin added to a long list of them Eden had earned.
But I wouldn’t let her take more, and I damn sure wouldn’t let her take Andie’s pride.