Page 120 of The Best of Us

Colin and I awkwardly peeked around him, trying to gauge her reaction.

Hudson disappeared from sight as if deciding that this wasn’t his business and that he didn’t need to be there.

“I can’t believe this,” Angela said when he finished talking. She motioned for him to step aside, presumably so she could look at her grandson.

“Hi.” Colin lifted his shoulders, becoming six instead of sixteen.

Angela suffocated him in her arms, holding him even tighter than Izzy had. “My firstborn grandson.” She switched to Italian, and while I had no clue what she was saying, either her words or the moment sent Constantine over the edge and had him looking anywhere but at them.

You’re fighting off tears, aren’t you?He’d been through the emotional wringer since we came back into his life.

“I’m sorry I lost my temper.” She turned to me next, offering a hug I couldn’t refuse.

I inhaled her flowery perfume as she held on to me, and I peered over her shoulder at Constantine, discovering him now eyeing us, a hand to his mouth while breathing hard.

Izzy set aside the wine and hooked her arm with her brother’s, leaning her head against his bicep.

“What’s all the commotion?” A deep, male voice that felt like a crack of thunder in the room had Angela letting go of me.

I couldn’t believe it, but she was now defending me. She blocked us like a goalie prepared to stop anyone or anything from coming for us.

“We’re a packaged deal,” I remembered Constantine promising me, and I guess he was serious. Once we were part of the family, we were protected as such.

“Dad.” Constantine stepped into my line of sight, his profile to me. Izzy gave him some space as he gestured toward Colin. “Meet your grandson, Colin.”

Angela hesitantly moved aside to allow Colin to come forward.

Constantine spoke in Italian, engaging in a heated discussion with his father. Lots of hand gestures and raised voices, and this was not going well.

“How could you do this? How could you be so irresponsible? So careless. This is your fault. You should have been in his life, and he should have been in ours,” his father snapped out in English as he stabbed Constantine’s chest with his index finger.

My heart broke for Constantine all over again. The man had been through enough. He did not deserve this from his father.

“It’s not his fault,” Colin came to his defense the way he had before. “Or Mom’s. I was an accident.”

Accident? Oh no. No, no, no.I whirled around to face him, dropping my purse. “No, you weren’t.” I held on to both his arms. “Never say that again.” I didn’t give a damn we had an audience. “You were a miracle. Do you hear me?” I hauled him into my arms as he held the framed photo off to our sides.

“And now the boy is in danger. Is that your fault, too?” His father couldn’t seem to read the room or back down.

“Stop.” I refused to hear him berate his son anymore. “Just stop.” I released Colin to face off with the man.

I didn’t care if he was some badass from Italy that even the mafia feared. No one talked down to the people I loved. Absolutely no one.

“You know what,” I began, striding over to him, “I don’t like you very much right now.” I stabbed the air in his direction. “I don’t like the pressure you put on your son all his life, either. Or the decisions you made on his behalf that hurt him.” I shook my head, gritting down on my back teeth. “And if you think for one minute you’ll get to be in your grandson’s life with this kind of attitude, then you have another thing coming.” I picked up my purse and used it to gesture toward a hall I assumed Hudson had gone down. “Now if you’ll excuse me . . .”

With my chin lifted, I walked around Colin’s grandfather, and I took off before I lost my spine and my nerve. I had no idea where I was going, but I wandered down the hall, a shaky mess, until I found Hudson.

“Where am I staying?” I asked him, trying not to break down.

Hudson looked over my shoulder, and I turned to see we were no longer alone.

“Can you give us a minute?” Constantine requested.

Once it was only the two of us, he swallowed the space between us, took my free hand, and guided me into one of the nearby bedrooms.

He shut and locked the door, took my purse and tossed it, then had my back up to the wall a moment later.

“I’m sorry. He just pissed me off so much,” I cried, blinking back tears as his forearms settled on the wall on each side of me.

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