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I incline my head toward Logan as he jerks his jaw toward the restaurant’s giant window next to us. We’re the fucking evening’s entertainment.
“As soon as he says sorry, I’ll let him breathe,” I hiss, fixing my eyes back onto my father’s.
“Drew, please!” Mum cries.
The despair in her voice makes my jaw clench, and I release Dad in a rush. He bends over, grasping at his neck, coughing.
“You see your son, Violet? See his temper? He’s always been trouble. If it isn’t stealing cars, it’s something else,” he wheezes.
“I saw. And Iheardtoo.” Mum’s voice slices through the air with a strength in it I haven’t heard before. “I heard it all.”
I snap my gaze to Sophie as all heads turn in her direction. She’s moved further away and is standing on her own.
I take a step toward her, but she holds up a hand, making me stop.
“I’m so sorry.” She looks at my mum, then Maddy, and finally Logan. Her eyes never move to me or my father. “I never knew about any of you, I swear. You shouldn’t be finding out like this. I’m so sorry.”
Her voice is even and calm, and I recognize the pulling back of her shoulders. It’s what she does when she puts on her suits for work in the morning. When she’s putting on her mask. Sophie Havers, the lawyer who has to remain emotionless to protect herself from the ugliness of people and what they do to one another.
But her eyes can’t lie. Not to me.
She blinks a couple of times, pressing her lips together. Then she spins on her heels and strides away.
“Let her go,” Dad barks. “Crazy bitch. Making up stories like that.”
My fist clenches, and I prepare to swing. But his head is already flying to one side from the force of something as I spin back to face him.
“Go, check on Sophie,” Mum says from her position in front of Dad. She’s shaking and rubbing her palm, which is turning a bright shade of red, matching the mark on my father’s face. “Go on,” she repeats. “I want to speak to your father. Alone.”
It takes me fifteen minutes to find Sophie. She isn’t back at the car. She’s pacing a street nearby, her blonde hair lit like a halo beneath each streetlight she walks beneath. Any other night and I’d have something to say to her about being here in the dark alone. But from the way she freezes and lifts her chin with a tortured scowl on her face as she sees me, I’m pretty sure she’ll rip my head off if I even try to tell her anything other than what I know should be the first two words out of my mouth.
“I’m sorry,” I say when I’m close enough for her to hear me.
She sniffs and drops her eyes to the ground, wrapping her arms around herself.
“I shouldn’t have told him it’s twins.”
“No, you shouldn’t.” She swallows. Her dark lashes clump over her eyes as her cheeks glisten.
“Fuck, Sophie.” My heart clenches, and I step toward her, but she shakes her head.
“But you saying sorry to me, Drew, it isn’t right. Not when…” She looks past me like they might have followed me. But they haven’t. Dad sloped off with Mum into their car, and Logan and Maddy followed after asking if I was sure I’d be okay. I told them the only person I was concerned about right now was Sophie. Then I ran after her.
“My father is your ex,” I say, which brings her tear-filled eyes to mine.
Her throat trembles as she swallows.
“I had no idea.”
“Is it over?” My gut twists painfully as I search her eyes.
Her mouth drops open. “You know it is! How can you ask me that? It was over before I met you. I never… Oh God.” Her face creases up and she starts to cry. My strong-ass boss starts to cry. And nothing has ever made my soul feel like it’s being ripped from my body before like this.
“Not with him.” I grab her and wrap her in my arms before she can protest. “Withus? Tell me there’s a way through this for you, Sophie. Because I’ll burn the whole world to find the path that still leads me to you. Every. Time.”
“I was with your father.” She buries her face into my chest as I stroke her hair. “How can you even bear to look at me?”
I press my nose against her blonde strands and inhale. “Because any life without you in it isn’t a life for me. It’s hell.”
