Chapter 3

"Every time Gus is upset about something, Mommy gets that cold look on her face and yells at me," Leona said. "If we both want the same thing, she always buys it for him. The toys I play with, the books I read, they're all stuff Gus didn't want anymore and tossed to me."

She was counting on her fingers, her whispered voice shaking with how much she'd been holding in. "If we leave here, does that mean my things will actually be mine?"

The sting behind my eyes was so sharp I could barely see. My daughter should have been the center of everyone's world, but instead she'd spent her whole life suffocating under Elise's favoritism.

She wasn't happy here. The last reason I had for trying to hold this marriage together just disappeared.

This divorce was happening, no matter what Elise had to say about it.

After I worked out the terms of the divorce agreement with a lawyer, I slept in Leona's room.

I'd barely closed my eyes when the door slammed open. Elise was white as a sheet, and she grabbed me by the arm and hauled me off the bed.

"Gus has a high fever. What do I do?"

This was one of the rare moments I'd ever seen her panic.

I instinctively glanced at Leona, who was still sound asleep, and crept out of the room as quietly as I could. I didn't turn to look at Elise until the door was shut behind me.

"Cool him down with a damp cloth," I said. "Get the nanny. Take him to the hospital. Elise, what good does it do to come to me when he has a fever? I'm not a doctor."

Irritation flickered across her face, but she swallowed it for Gus's sake.

"Ian, you're the one who raised him. Nobody knows him better than you do. His fever is really bad. Can you stop being so heartless for one second?"

Heartless? That word sat with me for a moment, and I let out a cold laugh. If I were truly heartless, her precious adopted son would have died five years ago.

Maybe he'd inherited it from his biological father, but Gus had severe allergies. He was a little kid with no self-control, and one day when no adults were around, he'd gotten into a handful of lemon drops. The hives spread across his skin almost instantly, and within minutes his face started turning purple.

I used to check the security cameras at home now and then. The second I saw Gus collapsed on the floor, gasping for air, I nearly lost my mind.

I blew through over a dozen red lights and clipped a guardrail on the way home. By the time I got to him, I was covered in blood. I got an allergy pill into him and dialed 911 before I blacked out.

The ambulance took us both. I had a severe concussion and three broken ribs, and it took a full month before I could get out of bed.

Elise didn't visit me once during that entire month. When I finally broke down and confronted her about it, she glanced at me like I was wasting her time.

"You're alive, aren't you?" She had scoffed. "You're a grown man who can't drive properly, and somehow that's my fault?

"Gus had it worse. He could barely eat for days. Anyway, hurry up and get discharged. He says he misses your cooking."

That was how it always went with her. When she needed me, I could be a doctor, a chef, or a live-in nanny. The one thing I would never be was a husband she actually respected.

I didn't say anything. I just walked into Gus's room. His face was flushed red with fever.

I got his shirt off and wiped down his palms and the hollows of his neck with rubbing alcohol, then found some fever reducer and got him to take it. The fever broke quickly, and the moment he opened his eyes, Elise shoved me aside and pulled him into her arms.

"Sweetie, you scared me half to death. How are you feeling?"

Gus's eyes were still hazy, but he reached up on instinct and wrapped his arms around Elise's neck.

"Mommy, thank you for taking care of me," he murmured in that soft little voice of his. "You work so hard."

"It wasn't hard at all. As long as my little prince is healthy, nothing I do is hard."

I stood off to the side, laughing so hard my shoulders shook.

They both turned to look at me when they heard it. I looked Gus in the eye and spoke slowly, one word at a time.

"Gus, I'm the one who took care of you. What exactly did she do? For five years, I treated you like my own son. What part of that was hard for her? Was it hard spending all that time mourning a father who barely raised you before he died?"

The gentle look on Elise's face shattered. The fury behind it looked like it could burn the whole house down.

"Ian, have you completely lost your mind?" She clamped her hands over Gus's ears and glared at me with pure venom.

Something in me settled, and one corner of my mouth pulled up.

"I've just finally thought it through.

"Elise, the divorce papers will be delivered to your office. Sign them quickly. Once we're divorced, you can put up a proper memorial for him and be with him out in the open."