Soaring (Magdalene #2)(52)

“I…can’t talk about this with you,” I told him shakily, his words rattling me.

“Not surprised,” he replied and then socked it to me. “Down without a fight.”

I forgot about being rattled and snapped, “None of this is any of your business.”

“Yeah, you’ve made that clear.”

What did he mean with that? How did I make that clear?

No. No, I didn’t care.

“Not clear enough,” I returned. “Has it occurred to you with all you’ve said about things you know nothing about that perhaps you are treating me much like Conrad did?”

“Oh no,” he whispered and a chill chased up my spine at the sound of it. “No, you f*ckin’ do not, Amelia,” he kept whispering sinisterly. “If you were mine, no matter if you f*cked me, you’d get respect from me. I know that shit because my wife sunk into a bottle, she f*cked up our lives, our future, our kids, and she never gets that shit from me. You cannot tell me that whatever it is that happened between you two is as bad as you pickin’ booze over your family. So you cannot tell me the way he spoke to you was what you deserved because I know that shit isn’t f*cking true.”

Again, he was right and this time, not kind of.

This time, he was really right in a way that again rattled me.

“I can’t imagine why we’re discussing this,” I said defensively. “We hardly know each other, and again, my business isn’t yours.”

“I figure you’re right, you can’t imagine why we’re discussing this because even someone who gives a shit about you, we hardly know each other or not, lays it out straight with no bullshit, you’re so deep in what he’s taught you to believe, you refuse to see.”

Again.

Right.

Again.

Rattled.

“Maybe we should stop talking,” I suggested.

“Maybe,” he returned.

“Like, ever,” I went on.

“You want it that way, Amy, in your big house all alone, accepting the dregs when a woman like you should be handed everything, you got it.”

Before I could reply, he hung up on me.

I took the phone from my ear and stared at it, asking, “Did that just happen?”

The phone and the entirety of my house were unsurprisingly silent.

He convinced you that you were a piece of shit when he is and you went down without a fight.

Mickey’s words pummeled me so hard mentally, my entire body jerked.

Did I?

Did I go down without a fight?

It felt like I’d been fighting for years. Anytime I saw Conrad or Martine, anytime I forced them to see me, I fought.

But I didn’t.

In the game they made me play against my will, each time that happened, I wasn’t fighting.

I was showing them my cards.

So it wasn’t a big shock that they’d bested me.

And maybe he’s convinced your kids you’re a piece of shit too.

My husband had cheated on me. He’d left me. He’d destroyed our family.

I thought we’d been happy. For years, years, I’d run through moments, snippets, hours, weeks, months and the only thing we consistently disagreed about was how he didn’t want me to spoil the children. Outside of that, I’d never found a single second where he’d given me any indication things were going wrong.

Conrad had never sat me down and shared something wasn’t working. He’d never found his time to find his way to say something I was doing upset him, troubled him, annoyed him.

He’d never said or done anything.

Heck, we’d made love, doing it most enjoyably, until the night before he told me he was leaving me!

“Oh God,” I breathed, staring unseeing at my phone. “I’d showed them all my cards and they’d bested me.”

I lifted my head and looked at my reflection in the glass of my wall of windows.

It was wavy but it was me.

Great highlights.

No-longer-Felicia-Hathaway dress that very much suited me.

And I knew I had elegant, stylish, strappy, high-heeled sandals on my feet.

But that was wrapping.

All of that, all of it, was me.

It had always been me.

And I let Conrad—and Martine—convince me differently.

“They bested me,” I whispered, my hand curling tight on my phone. “Those *s bested me. All of them bested me.”

I glared at my image in the glass.

Time to grow the f*ck up.

On that thought, I stomped through my fabulous, multi-million dollar, Prentice Cameron house right to my unfinished den/office/whatever-I-wanted-it-to-be.

I fired up my computer on my used, massive, intricately carved baronial desk and I sat down in the officious, completely awesome, leather button-backed chair behind it.

I waited and when it was ready, I pulled up my email.

I typed my father’s address in.

Dad, I wrote.

I’m aware you and Mom have been calling. I’m emailing you now to explain why I’ve not picked up.

Before I left, I told you I was moving to Maine in order to be closer to my children. My relationship with them the last few years has deteriorated and it’s crucial I do the work I need to do to focus on healing that breach.

And I do believe you’re aware that there’s a great deal of work to do on that. Therefore, I’ve been doing what I intended to do when I moved to Maine, focusing on just that.