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"Lee," I began to say, but she cut me off with a cold stare.

"Donottalk to me," she warned.

"Mom," Hope croaked out. "None of this is his fault."

"Not his fault?" Derek snarled. "No. This is on thebothof you."

"Princess!" Kyle's voice boomed through the house then, distracting everyone. Moments later, he appeared in the doorway with a furious looking Cameron in tow. "We have a big fucking problem."

"Yes," Lee choked out, dropping her head in her hands. "We do."

"This fucker," Kyle growled, gesturing wildly at Cameron. "Got his girlfriend pregnant!" Oblivious to the tension he had just walked into, Kyle continued to rant. "But wait, it gets better." Pulling at his tie to free it, he ripped it over his head and tossed it on the counter before shouting, "His pregnant girlfriend is aGrayson!" With his tie gone, he unbuttoned the top two buttons of his shirt and snarled. "Rachel's niece to be exact. He's gone and tied himself down to that crazy fucking woman's blood."

Lee, who looked like she was tittering on the edge, burst into tears then, resulting in Kyle smacking Cameron around the back of the head. "See what you did?" he growled, glaring at his son. "See what your dick has done to your mother?"

"How many goddamn times do I have to say it? Tillie is her own person," Cameron shot back, looking just as pissed as his father. "She hadnothingto do with any of the shit that went down between you and Rachel. But you had to judge her, didn’t you? You had to scare her away." Cam ran a hand through his dark hair in pure frustration. "She's gone, Dad. Back to Seattle.With my kid. Because you couldn’t get over your own goddamn past and support me!"

"Support you?" Kyle strangled out, eye twitching. "You can't drop a Grayson bomb on me like that and expect me not to freak out."

"Well, your 'freaking out' just screwed everything up forme," Cam roared. "Thanks a lot, Dad."

"Where are you going?" Kyle demanded, when Cam moved for the door.

"Seattle," Cam snarled.

"When are you coming back?"

"When she's with me."

"What about work?"

"Fuck your job. I quit," Cam roared back. "And if you can't accept the mother of my unborn child, Dad, then fuck you, too." Cam slammed the front door behind him with such force a photo frame crashed to the floor in the hallway.

"Well, shit," I muttered, glancing down at Hope.

"Yeah," she whispered, looking up at me. "Shit."

Kyle, who up until this point had been wrapped up in his own personal crisis, finally took notice of the scowling faces sitting at his table. "Oh Jesus," he groaned. "What else is wrong?"

****

Chapter Fifty

Hope

My mother was disappointed in me.

It was written all over her face.

She couldn’t even look at my face as she quietly wept into her hands.

But my father wasn’t crying. He was standing beside me like a lion with his cub, protecting me just as fiercely as he had when I was a child.

I looked to Hunter, unsure of what to do, as my father and Derek squared up to each other.

Hunter winked down at me, and even though it was an entirely inappropriate thing to do given the circumstances, it made me breathe a little easier.

I was safe with this man.

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