I was the reason he couldn’t sleep in the same bed as me.
I was the reason he wasn’t interested in sex with me after I conceived our son.
After, well, the baby weight disgusted him. Not that I’d ever been skinny.
I was also the reason he worked so much. Quite closely, in fact, with his thin blonde secretary.
Everything was my fault.
And it wasn’t until he hit me that I put it together. All the little things, the slights, and the insults he’d tossed at me over the three and a half years we were together, were all a distraction.
Things he said and did to cover up the fact he was a total slimeball.
I didn’t deserve any of it. The way he treated me was a reflection of his poor character, not mine.
I understood that now. And I wasn’t going to let him get away with it anymore.
With my inheritance tied up, I couldn’t afford the lawyers I knew I needed to fight him. These new threats involving my son?
I couldn’t even think about them.
The idea of my ex getting his slimy hands on my precious child—no.
Just no.
Maybe I should’ve been paying more attention to why I thought of Andres the second I read the letter of intent to sue for visitation from Gary’s lawyer. But it was too late to worry about that now.
I listened as heavy footsteps stopped on the landing outside my door.
Andres was here.
Too late to chicken out now.
CHAPTER FOUR ANDRES
St. Elizabeth’s offsite housing was actually an old Victorian remodeled to offer five smallish apartments, if you counted the basement apartment where Mrs. Stevens, the caretaker, stayed.
Each one was big enough for two people to share. In Ellie’s case that meant her and Sammy.
There was nothing wrong with the house. It was fine. But my hackles went up every time I thought about her living there.
It was boorish of me, I knew that. But I couldn’t help it. Ellie deserved better. She deserved the best. She deserved me.
It wasn’t conceit that had me calling myself the best. It was fact. No one else could possibly feel about that woman the way I did.
She was all I thought about. Everything I saw, heard, smelled, felt.
It was all her.
All Ellie.
And. She. Was. Everything. To. Me.
Yeah, I was sick. Borderline fucking psycho. But what could I say?
Ellie and me, we were simply meant to be. I believed that with every fiber of my being.
I lifted my fist and knocked quietly. Half a second later, she pulled the door open, and my mouth went dry.