Page 29 of Finding Forever

Chris was hovering, and I hated that I wasn’t alone to have this conversation.

“Call me if you need anything,” I said before the line went dead.

∞∞∞

When I came downstairs later that day, it was to find my mother, Malina, lounging in her oversized pajamas on the sofa with a cup of tea. People often said that we look alike. But I wasn’t so sure. I had inherited her medium brown skin, but that’s as far as our similarities went. I didn’t inherit her light brown eyes, neither did I inherit her wavy hair.

I sighed and huffed down on the seat next to her.

She looked over her glass of tea at me, noting my worry. “Is Mycah okay?”

“He’s alright. He fell asleep quickly tonight.”

“Then what’s bothering you?”

I shook my head. “Chris…” I dropped my face into my hands and told her everything that Mycah’s father had told me about Maverick.

She paid me all of her attention until the end where she took a breath before saying, “Darling, I don’t want to say that Chris may be right in this scenario, but can you just consider the fact that he might be?”

My eyebrows inched up on my forehead. “What do you mean by that?”

“I mean,” she leaned forward to speak, “that Victoria has clearly seen more of Maverick than you have. She would know the kind of person that he is. Is it possible that you are seeing what you want to see right now?”

I was silent as I thought about her words.

“He’s still in the audition stage of a relationship with you, so he’s going to expose you to nothing but his best. Remember how you once thought that Chris was the love of your life? And look at how that’s turned out? Sometimes, people aren’t who they portray themselves to be.”

A large part of me found it extremely hard to believe that there was any part of Maverick that was violent, but I supposed that my mother was right. I nodded, telling her as much.

“Think about it this way,” she said after a pause, “what would you do if the shoe was on the other foot? What if Chris was dating someone that you deemed unsafe to be around Mycah? What would you want him to do?”

I didn’t reply to that question because I already knew the answer to that. Without hesitation, I’d want Chris to keep our son away from that person. Still, I was doubting that Maverick was as violent as Chris made him out to be.

Maverick

My lawyer’s voice poured through the speakers of my car as I all but raced downtown to get Penny from this impromptu shopping excursion.

“We’ll have to prove that there’s been a significant change in circumstances and that the updated custody agreement is in the child’s best interest.”

“That shouldn’t be a problem. Both of those things are true. Victoria treats my daughter like an accessory and I’m sick of it. She doesn’t get to keep calling the shots and leaving us to pick up the pieces whenever she gets bored.”

If I were a lesser human, I would have recorded all the times she had verbalized my exact sentiments. She didn’t want her cash flow interrupted, so she did less than the bare minimum. Money I could make back without feeling the loss. But there weren’t too many more times I could look Penny in the eyes and explain her mother’s apparent disinterest.

Today’s circus act, picking up Penny from daycare on an unscheduled day, was the icing on the cake. And the cherry on top was that her so-called boyfriend had known before me. All of it was repulsive and maddening. Even for her. She was becoming more and more reckless with her actions. Neglectful and flighty, at best. And if she was the only affected by her actions, I probably wouldn’t care. But Penny didn’t deserve this. She never did.

As my lawyer talked me through the filings he’d make first thing in the morning, I thought about how this was only possible because of money. Money was the reason Victoria did most of the things she did. While she used it as a pawn to purchase spurts of short-term happiness, I used it as a resource to help me in situations like this.

It might not be able to buy happiness, but it could solve a lot of problems. Thankfully, it was easy to find Victoria. She loved the boutique downtown because they catered to her every whim with champagne and personal selections. Penny didn’t care about any of that crap, but she was probably happy to have just a fraction of her mother’s attention.

I strode into the boutique and went straight to the back, bypassing the attendant who tried to stop me and tell me that it was a women’s only dressing room.

“Sir, I am asking you to leave. Right now.”

Turning my head, I spared the petite man a cursory glance before continuing my journey to the back. Penny sat in a chair with an iPad in her lap and her head bowed, watching videos while her mother was on the other side of the room sipping wine and paying her no mind.

Upset wasn’t the word. I was livid. Furious. And angrier at myself than ever for choosing this woman to procreate with. Who knew such a pretty face and a good lay would end up being the bane of my entire existence?

“Penny, we’re going home,” I told her as calmly as my tightly wound nerves would allow.

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