Addicted(86)

“Don’t think of it as me kicking you out. Think of it as me uninviting you until a later date.”

“Oh, Chloe. What makes you think you have the right to uninvite me from anything in my son’s life? Ever?”

Even as recently as a couple of weeks ago, my resolve would have faltered in the face of all that disdain. All that superiority. But that was before I’d faced Ethan’s secrets, before I’d had to learn what I could live with and what I couldn’t. And while I can live with a lot for Ethan, this woman isn’t one of those things—and she never will be.

“Because Ethan’s with me now. And if I don’t want you here, I promise you, you won’t be here.” They’re brave words, though I don’t know how true they actually are. It doesn’t matter, though. Nothing does at this moment but getting her out of here before I lose it completely. I thought I could handle it, thought I could handle her, but already the panic is crawling up the back of my throat. If I was sober I could do this. But drunk, I’m no match for her and I’m smart enough to know it.

Amazingly, my little display of bravado works. I can tell that I’ve scored by the way her shoulders straighten and the way her spine gets even more stiff. Well, that and the way her lips twist together like she’s been sucking on a particularly sour lemon.

“You don’t actually think I’m going to let you get your hooks into another one of my sons, do you?”

“My hooks?” It’s my turn to stare at her incredulously. “I’m not a fisherman. And for the record, I never had my hooks—or anything else of mine—into Brandon.”

“But you don’t deny that you have them in Ethan.”

“I wouldn’t put it quite that way, Vanessa.” She almost flinches at my use of her given name this time and it gives me an unspeakable amount of joy. “Ethan and I are together and we’re going to stay together.”

“I know you’re playing for keeps this time, but let me assure you, Chloe, my son will never marry the likes of you. You may think that you’re going to end up with access to all of his money and property, but I can promise you that that’s never going to happen.”

I don’t want access to his money, never have, never will. But I don’t feel like telling her that. Besides, it’s not like she’ll believe me. The tabloids might call me a gold digger, but Vanessa Frost Jacobs has trophy wife written all over her too-smooth baby face.

“I guess we’ll just have to wait and see what I have access to in six months,” I tell her smoothly. “And what you no longer have access to.” It’s a bluff, pure and simple, but there must be something in my demeanor that convinces her because the cool fa?ade crumbles right in front of my eyes. What’s left is a fire-breathing dragon that I’m not sure won’t go for my eyes at the first opportunity.

“How much?” she asks after several interminable seconds drag by.

“For what?”

“You know very well for what.”

“I don’t, actually. You’re going to have to spell it out for me.”

Her jaw clenches and unclenches then, much like Ethan’s does when he’s annoyed with me. Or worried. I don’t like knowing that about her, don’t like anything that connects her to him at all. Somehow it makes all of this just seem all the more real.

“Very well, then. How much is my son going to have to pay to get rid of you this time?”

“Your son? This time?” I ask, confused by her wording. “I don’t want a penny from Brandon. I never have.”

“We’re not talking about Brandon.” I see it then, the triumph in her eyes. And for the first time, I realize that I haven’t been holding my own against her at all. She’s just been drawing me in, playing with me, like a spider with a fly, and now I’m caught in her web just as she always intended. “We’re talking about Ethan.”

And though I know it’s a bad idea, though every instinct I have is screaming at me to walk away, to not fall into the trap, I can’t help myself. Can’t stop myself from clarifying even though I know no good will come of it. “I’ve never taken a cent from Ethan and I never will.”

She laughs then, actually laughs. “Some might call you na?ve, but I prefer to call things like they are. You’re stupid, Chloe. Stupid and ignorant and weak. If you weren’t so determined to land one of my sons, I might even feel bad for you. But you are and I don’t.”