Page 89 of Fire

“There’s an asshole here,” he whines, “but it isn’t me.”

“Enough, Julian.” Franklin regards the man with a look of utter disdain, then turns back to me. “I’ll make this simple. Ivy and Nell don’t belong here. Ivy, get your things. We’re leaving.”

The audacity of this man. He actually thinks all he has to do is snap his fingers and Ivy will scurry her way back to him. And maybe there’s a version of her that would have, but I’m confident she’s grown past that since she’s been with me.

“See now,” I say, with a quick glance at the woman I love, “you’re wrong on that one. Ivy and Nell one hundred percent belong here.”

“He’s right, Dad.” She lifts her chin, her voice clear. “This is where I belong. Where Nell belongs. Here. With Micah.”

“No.” Franklin doesn’t even look at his daughter. “They belong back in Seattle with their family. Where I can take care of them.”

I frown. The douchebag is still addressing me, like Ivy doesn’t have a choice in the matter, like he and I oversee her life. “They are with family,” I reply. “And they don’t need you to take care of them.”

A harsh laugh. A roll of his steely eyes. Franklin Cole is not impressed. “You think you’re financially prepared to raise a child? On a firefighter’s salary?”

“I’m doing just fine financially, thank you very much, but what I mean is that Ivy doesn’t need anyone to take care of her. Not me. Not you. Not that insignificant twat over there. She’s perfectly capable of taking care of herself.”

Once, when I was little, I had the bright idea to put a dandelion puff in my mouth when we were on vacation at Everglades National Park. Julian’s face looks a lot like mine did that day. I count it as a win.

“What are you doing here, Dad?” Ivy asks, stepping forward to face her father. “And why were you lurking in the car like a freaking mob boss?”

“I came to ask you the same question. What are you doing here, Ivy?” Franklin smooths his lapels and swoops his hands over his hair, cool as a fucking cucumber. “And I sat in that car because I knew Julian would be as ineffective with you today as he’s proved to be since this debacle started.”

I fight back a grin as Julian swallows another dandelion puff.

“Hey!” he cries, holding up his hands. “Ineffective is a little harsh, don’t you think?”

“Get in the car, Julian,” Franklin says without sparing the man a glance.

“What?” He recoils, swallowing dandelion puff number three. If I didn’t loathe the men in front of me so much, I’d be handing out high fives. Watching this dick get put in his place is the best thing I’ve seen in a long time.

“I think the man told you to get in the car like a good little boy,” I say with a shrug.

Sputtering and stuttering, Julian gets into the car like a dog with his tail between his legs.

Ivy folds her arms across her chest and sighs. “What happened between me and Julian isn’t your business, Dad. Neither is what’s happening between me and Micah.”

“You’re my daughter. Everything you do is my business.” Franklin’s steel-colored eyes make me think of thunder and lightning, of dark clouds boiling in the distance.

Maybe there’s a reason Ivy doesn’t like storms.

She shakes her head. “My business is my business.”

“That’s simply not true. Everything you do affects me. I either pay for your decisions financially or through the simple inconveniences of finding solutions to problems you created.”

“Do you hear yourself?” I ask. “Who talks to their daughter that way? She’s a grown woman who doesn’t need her daddy looming over her, making her feel like crap all the time.”

Franklin’s calm composure cracks and he steps into my personal space. He’s a tall man, meeting me eye-to-eye, but he’s never been a big man and age hasn’t been kind to him in that department. “You have been bad for my daughter from the moment you two met,” he says, his upper lip curling. “She had the grades and the drive to get herself into a good college, to pursue that medical degree. She could have been anything she wanted, but because of you, she’s just a mother, unable to provide for herself, running from one man to the next.”

“Because of me?” I arch a brow. Someone derailed Ivy’s trajectory and it sure as hell wasn’t me.

The look on Franklin’s face says he thinks he has me. “Are you implying that child isn’t yours?”

“I’m implying I didn’t know she existed.”

“That’s rich.” Franklin lifts his chin, peering down his nose at me. “Even in this you can’t take responsibility for your actions.”

I scoff. “If I’d known, I would have been honored to take responsibility, and they would be so much better off for it. Ivy would be in school. Nell would have known her father. I’m a Hutton. We take care of our own.”

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