Chapter 16: The Offer

I opened the door before Ward could knock.

He stopped on the mat with the envelope in his hand and his hair wet from the wind.

He looked at my face first, then at Emmett standing behind my shoulder.

"Lexi," he said. "I need two minutes."

"You've had six years of minutes."

"Please."

"Say it from there."

He held out the envelope, and I did not take it.

"It's from Mother's lawyer," Ward said. "She'll file Monday after the gala."

"File what?"

"A petition for temporary custody, with the doctor's letter, and a nurse in the house."

"A nurse."

"Haley. As the child's primary caretaker. You'd have supervised hours." His voice cracked. "Unless you come home before then."

"And then?"

"You bring Stella back, you sleep in your own bed, and the petition dies. She told me to say it exactly like that."

"And you came to say it."

"I came because I'd rather it was me than a stranger on your porch."

He had meant it as kindness.

That was what made me want to scream.

"You think I'd go back to the house where you told your lover you never stopped loving her?" I said.

"Lexi."

"Where your mother paid a coordinator to forge a clinic form?"

"I think it would stop all of it."

"For whom?"

Ward did not answer.

"You don't have to follow her plan to keep Stella," Emmett said quietly behind me. "You could have walked away from the whole plan."

"This isn't your family, Ridgely."

"No. It's hers. And she's standing right here."

Ward's face closed.

"This is what Mother said you'd do," he said. "Find a man to stand behind you."

"I didn't find a man to stand behind me," I said. "He's standing next to me. You never learned the difference."