Page 36 of Falling for the Single Daddy

Gray

I’m so full of rage I can barely think. Jorge grins at me, and Sloane doesn’t even have the decency to look ashamed. She looksproud. It makes me sick. I want to grab Jorge and bounce his head off the goddamn floor, kick him in the gut, make him scream in agony for daring to come here. And Callie… keeping it together all through dinner, somehow not freaking out when she was sitting across from the man who tormented her.

“What are you talking about?” Sloane says with pretend innocence.

“Youknowwhat I’m talking about,” I snarl. “I can see it on your face. Why would you bring him here? How did you even know?”

Finally, she drops the act. “Oh, don’t overreact. It’s just a little trick—a little fun. Jorge here has been dragging Callie’s name through the mud on some internet forums, so I figured, why not give them a chance to resolve the matter? You know that conflict resolution is my specialty.”

“Yeah, man, just rel—”

“Gray, don’t,” Callie whimpers, but I move without thinking before the reasonable part of me can have any say in the matter.

I grab Jorge’s shirt and haul him one-handed to his feet. He gasps, his legs kicking, his eyes widening as some sobriety creeps into him. He looks like exactly what he is—a pathetic douchebag. He gasps as I shake him. When he grabs my wrist like he’s going to pry me loose, he feels so weak. I could break him for even thinking about hurting Callie.

“What have you been saying about her on these forums?” I snarl.

“Puh-put me down,” Jorge whimpers. “I’ll sue you.”

“Yeah, good luck with that. You won’t have any evidence, you sick fuck. You need to be a man and stand by your actions.”

“Gray.” Callie’s voice is the only thing that tugs me back to reality. Her touch on my shoulder grounds me and makes me remember where I am. At my house, with my daughter inside. Any second, she could come out here and see her daddy behaving in a way he never has before. “You need to stop. Trust me, I’d love it if you could slap that smirk off him. But you can’t.”

Slowly, I put him down, my fists clenching, my mind burning with all the things I could do, with all the violence I could inflict on this little worm.

“Explain,” I growl.

Sloane is grinning at me in a way I seriously hate. It’s like she’s happy that she saw me snap and relieved she could drag me down to her level.

“It was nothing,” Jorge says, far less cocky now.

Sloane giggles. “Don’t undersell it, Jorge. You’ve been dragging her name through the mud. That’s why I reached out. Your prose was inspired.”

“Sloane, you have to realize how insane you sound,” I snarl. “You searched the internet for my nanny’s name, found somebody slandering her, and then arranged to bring him on a date with a fake name… why?” I can’t comprehend it. “It’s just sadistic.”

“Oh, stop,” Sloane says with a wave of her hand. “It’s just a bit of harmless fun.”

I stare at her, wondering if she really believes that, wondering how she and Wes can come from the same home but be so different, wondering how I ever thought I’d be able to build a family with this person. “No, it’s not. It’s needlessly cruel.”

“Listen, man—”

I glare at Jorge, and he shuts up. “No more out of you,” I snap. “Unless I give you permission to speak.”

“What’sneedlessly cruel,” Sloane hisses, “is you bringing a woman into our daughter’s home and trying to make her loveherinstead ofme.”

“You left.”

“Well, maybe I want to come back.”

“You’ve proved tonight that you’re nowhere near mature enough to be a mother. This isn’t a slip of the tongue, a cruel comment. This wasplanned. This was premeditated fucking sadism.” I wave a hand. “Both of you need to get out of my house.”

Callie steps up beside me. She looks brave, but I can see the pain beneath her carefully neutral expression and behind her wide eyes. I want to hold her, telling her it’s all going to be okay. But that will just give Sloane more fuel.

“And you need to stop slandering me on those forums,” Callie says. “We both know I did a good job with your boys. I put up with a lot from you, Jorge. It’s not fair to slander me when all I ever did was care for your children while avoiding your advances.”

“I will,” Jorge says, looking at me.

I step forward, looming over him, almost wanting him to find some bravery so I can have an excuse to cave his teeth in. I’m burning inside with the urge to hurt him, to make him pay. I’m trembling with the desire to protect Callie, to shield her from Jorge and anybody else who’d ever try and hurt her.

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