Page 307 of Steamy Ever After

“I’m sorry, sweetheart.” She stood and wiped her tears away. “Let me get your father.”

“Didn’t you hear the doctor say I’m supposed to avoid stress?” Peyton shouted at her mother, who was already partway down the stairs.

She didn’t feel any better when her father walked in a few minutes later with an envelope in his hand and his face ashen.

“Dad, what is it? You’re scaring me too.”

“I’m sorry, Peyton. There’s no easy way to tell you this.”

“Just say it,” she snapped.

“Lang has filed a petition for joint custody.”

“Over my dead body.”

“That’s what we’re afraid of,” her father muttered.

“This is ridiculous. He wouldn’t know the boys if he saw them.”

“He has seen them.”

Peyton flew out of the bed, but her father grabbed her arm.

“When?”

“He’s been attending their basketball games.”

She clenched her fists. “Oh my God. What have the boys said? Has he approached them?”

“Not yet, or at least not that anyone saw. I’m sorry, Peyton.”

“They know better than to talk to strangers, and that’s what he is to them,” she seethed.

“He’s also their father.”

“No, he isn’t. He’s their sperm donor. He doesn’t know anything about those boys. He hasn’t seen either one of them in seven years. Seven years. Two or three basketball games don’t make up for it.”

“I know, honey. But they’re granting him a hearing.”

“When?”

“In two weeks. I’ll call Stan.”

Stan was their family attorney. He’d handled her divorce from Lang and the subsequent hearings when he got behind on child-support payments. Stan would understand her ex had no business asking for visitation, let alone joint custody. If she wasn’t so scared that something would go terribly wrong and he’d somehow manage to get the judge to side with him, she’d laugh this off as being ridiculous. What judge in his or her right mind would give a man who’d abandoned his children joint custody?

Alex answered on the third ring. “What’s up, girlfriend? You bored out of your mind yet?”

“Alex, Lang wants custody of the boys.”

“I’ll be right there.”

“But—” Too late, Alex had already disconnected the call.

Peyton rested her head on the pillow and looked at the ceiling. If Kade were alive, he’d know exactly what to do. Her parents were wonderful, but they’d encourage Peyton to handle this the “right way.” They’d tell her to let the courts do their job, and surely, everything would go the way it was supposed to. Unfortunately, Peyton knew of too many horror stories where a parent’s rights were respected more than the child’s. If they were to get a judge sympathetic to Lang, who he managed to convince he’d made a mistake and wanted a second chance, he may be given it.

The door slammed, and Peyton heard Alex take the stairs two at a time.

“No f’in way this is happening. Over my dead body.”

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