His Chubby Obsession

Chapter Nineteen: Walking Back In

The estate looked exactly the same as it had the day I left it, which was somehow the most disorienting part of all.

Same manicured lawn. Same circular driveway, same fountain out front that had never once, in five years, made me feel anything but small standing beside it. White balloons arched over the entrance to the back garden where the party was being held, and somewhere beyond them I could already hear the tinny, cheerful sound of a children's entertainer's music drifting across the grass, as if nothing underneath any of this was rotten at all.

My lawyer, a sharp, careful woman named Diane who'd taken my case two days ago on the strength of a single phone call and a great deal of grim determination, walked half a step behind me, close enough to be visible, far enough to not appear as though I needed a bodyguard for a five-year-old's birthday party.

I did need one. We both knew it. We were simply choosing not to say so out loud.

Charlotte's hand was warm and small in mine, her other arm wrapped tight around Mr. Hoppy, who I'd allowed her to bring despite Bruce's mother's well-known opinion about stuffed animals at formal gatherings. I didn't care anymore what anyone's opinion was. That particular fear had burned off somewhere in the last week, leaving something harder and clearer in its place.

"You remember what we practiced," I murmured to Charlotte as we crossed the lawn.

"Shoulders back," she said solemnly, in the exact cadence Sofia had used on me, and despite everything, despite the fear crawling up my spine with every step closer to that party, I almost laughed.

"That's my girl."

—

Bruce found us within minutes, appearing at my elbow with a smile so warm, so convincingly relieved, that if I hadn't heard him through that office door six nights ago I might almost have believed it myself.

"Emma." He leaned in for a kiss on the cheek that I turned my head just enough to avoid, landing it instead somewhere near my ear, a small, silent battle neither of us acknowledged in front of the gathering guests. "You look beautiful. I'm so glad you came home."

"I'm here for Charlotte's birthday," I said evenly. "That's all this is."

Something flickered behind his eyes — irritation, quickly smoothed over into the same performed warmth. "Of course. Of course." He crouched down to Charlotte's level, arms open. "Happy birthday, princess."

Charlotte didn't run to him the way she once might have. She stepped half behind my leg instead, small fingers tightening on my skirt, and I felt a fierce, complicated pride at the sight of it even as it broke my heart a little that a four-year-old had learned, this early, to keep distance from her own father.

"Say hi to Daddy," I said gently, giving her the choice rather than the order, the way I'd promised myself I would from now on.

"Hi," Charlotte said, quiet, guarded, and didn't move any closer.

Bruce's smile didn't waver in front of the guests drifting nearby, but I saw the muscle tighten in his jaw, filing the moment away, and understood that I would likely pay for it somehow, later, in whatever quiet corner he found to corner me in.

—

Valentina found me by the dessert table an hour later, a glass of champagne in hand, dressed in something expensive and understated, playing the role of family friend with the same practiced ease she'd once used to play the role of mine.

"Emma." Her smile was all teeth. "You look well. Considering."

"Considering what, exactly?"

"Oh, you know. The whole..." She gestured vaguely, taking in some invisible category that apparently encompassed my entire recent life. "Situation. The biker gang. The scandal. It must be exhausting, keeping up appearances after everything."

"I'm not the one keeping up appearances today, Valentina." I said it lightly, evenly, the way Sofia had coached me, chin level, not daring, not begging. "You are. I heard you and Bruce quite clearly, that night. I know exactly what this marriage was always going to end in, long before either of you thought I was listening."

For just a moment, something cracked across her carefully composed face — not guilt, not quite, but something closer to the first flicker of doubt I'd ever seen from her, the beginning realization, maybe, that the man she'd been so certain would choose her wasn't nearly as certain a bet as she'd believed.

"You don't know anything," she said, but her voice had lost some of its earlier confidence.

"I know he called Charlotte 'just another responsibility.'" I kept my voice pitched low, for her ears only, calm in a way that seemed to unsettle her far more than shouting would have. "I know exactly how disposable he thinks people are, once they've served their purpose. You might want to think about what that means for you, once you've served yours."

I walked away before she could respond, leaving her standing there with her champagne and her composure cracking at the edges, and felt, for the first time all afternoon, something that might have been the beginning of actual satisfaction.

—

Bruce cornered me near the side of the house forty minutes later, away from the crowd, his hand closing around my elbow with just enough pressure to be a message rather than an accident.

"You think you're clever," he said, voice low, all pretense of warmth finally dropped now that no one was close enough to see. "Cozying up to Valentina like you've got something on her. Playing the wounded wife for my grandfather. Do you have any idea what you're actually dealing with?"

"I know exactly what I'm dealing with, Bruce. I heard it through your office door."

"Then you should also know I'm not a man who loses gracefully." His grip tightened, just slightly, just enough. "I know about your little biker friend. Enzo Romano. President of the Giants MC, isn't he? Interesting company for the mother of my child to be keeping."

My blood went cold, ice spreading fast through my chest. "You don't know anything about him."

"I know Vincent's been watching that little safe house of yours for two days now." His voice dropped lower, almost pleasant, almost conversational, which made it so much worse. "I know the layout of the house. I know what time the lights go off. I know your friend Sofia drives into town every other morning for supplies, and I know exactly how long that leaves the property with fewer eyes on it than you'd probably like." He straightened, smoothing his jacket, releasing my elbow at last, the threat delivered as smoothly as an invitation to dance. "I'd think carefully, Emma, about how this custody fight is going to look for you, if something were to happen to your criminal friends because you couldn't manage to just come home."

He walked back toward the party, smiling, waving at some passing guest like nothing at all had just happened, and I stood there in the shade at the side of the house with my heart hammering and my hands gone cold, understanding, with sick clarity, that the safety I'd started to believe in over the last week had never once been as secure as I'd let myself hope.