“You need to make sure the locksmith gets here before five,” Ben was saying into his phone, his back to me, his voice carrying that patronizing, corporate tone he used when closing a deal. “Yes, the front door, the back patio, and the garage code. My wife is out of town until Friday, so I want the new deadbolts installed before she gets back. She’s going to be… difficult about the transition.”
He ended the call, tossed his phone onto my mother’s desecrated bookshelf, and finally turned around.
The color drained from his face so fast he looked as though he had been poisoned. Maya gasped, dropping a pristine copy of Wuthering Heights onto the floor, her hands flying to her mouth.
I did not scream. I did not drop my leather briefcase. I simply stared at the man I had shared a bed with for five years, watching the gears in his mind frantically grind as he tried to salvage his blown cover.
“Starting today, Maya and the little ones are moving in here,” Ben declared, puffing out his chest, attempting to deploy anger to mask his terror. “So if you have a problem with it, that is just too bad for you, Kate.”
He actually had the audacity to throw my own name at me like an insult in my own foyer.
“What in the world is the meaning of all this?” I asked. My voice did not shake. It was terrifyingly calm, stripping the oxygen from the room.
Maya shrank behind Ben, refusing to meet my eyes. Ben let out a long, theatrical sigh, rubbing his temples as if my early arrival was a personal inconvenience to him.
“It means I am finished hiding the truth,” Ben snapped, gesturing to the toddler. “These are my children. Maya has nowhere else to go. We are going to settle this like two mature adults. I know you’re going to be hysterical, but I won’t let you throw my family onto the street.”
read more in next page
