As she walked past me, I lightly grabbed her arm and whispered, “You do not have to go.”

She nodded her head slowly. “I just think it’s best if you two talk. I don’t want to cause any more issues.”

She gave my hand a light squeeze then let go. When she grabbed her coat, she walked straight out of the house without another word, and the room somehow filled with darkness.

“What is it you want, Jane?”

“It’s been a year, Graham. I just want to see her.”

“What makes you think you have any right to see her? You abandoned her.”

“I was scared.”

“You were selfish.”

She grimaced and shifted around in her shoes. “Still, you need to let me see her. As her mother, I deserve that much. It’s my right.”

“Mother?” I hissed, my gut filled with disgust. Being a mother didn’t simply mean giving birth. Being a mother meant late-night feedings. Being a mother meant sleeping next to a crib because your child was sick and you needed to watch their breaths. Being a mother meant knowing Talon hated teddy bears. Being a mother meant you stayed.

Jane was not a mother, not for a minute.

She was a stranger to my child. A stranger in my house.

A stranger to me.

“You need to leave,” I told her, uneasy about the fact that she apparently believed she could walk back into our lives after all this time.

“Are you sleeping with Lucy?” she questioned, throwing me for a complete loop.

“Excuse me?” I felt it form in my gut and start rising to my throat—my anger. “You abandoned your daughter months ago. You left without more than a bullshit note. You didn’t take a second to look back once. Yet now, you think you have the right to ask me something like that? No, Jane. You don’t get to ask me questions.”

She pushed her shoulders back. Although she stood tall in her high heels, there was a tremble in her voice. “I don’t want her near my child.”

I walked over to the front door and opened it. “Goodbye, Jane.”

“I’m your wife, Graham. Talon shouldn’t be around someone like Lucy. She’s a toxic person. I deserve—”

“Nothing!” I hollered, my voice hitting a new height of anger, panic, and disgust. “You deserve nothing.” She’d crossed a line by using the word wife. She’d crossed a bigger line by speaking ill of Lucy, the one who had stayed. She’d crossed the biggest line by saying how Talon should be raised. “Leave!” I shouted once more. The second I hollered, Talon started crying and I swallowed hard.

I had grown up in a home with screaming, and it was the last thing I ever wanted my daughter to witness.

My voice dropped low. “Please, Jane. Just go.”

She stepped outside, her head still held high. “Think about what you’re about to do, Graham. If you slam this door, it means we must fight. If you slam this door, it means there’s going to be a war.”

With no thought needed, I replied, “I’ll have my lawyers call yours.”

With that, I slammed the door.

“Lyric’s back in town,” I said, hurrying into Monet’s Gardens where Mari was putting together a new window display.

She glanced over at me and gave me a small nod. “Yeah, I know.”

“What?” I asked, surprised. “When did you find out?”

“I saw her two days ago. She stopped by Parker’s place to talk.” The way the words rolled off her tongue so effortlessly and carelessly confused me. Who had taken my sister, my favorite person in the world, and changed her?

What had happened to my Mari?

“Why didn’t you tell me?” I asked, my chest hurting as my heart began to crack. “You saw me yesterday.”

“I was going to mention it, but our last conversation didn’t lead to the best place. You stormed off,” she told me, picking up the vase and moving it over to the windows. “And what does it matter if she’s back? Her family is here, Lucy.”

“She abandoned them for months. She left her newborn in the NICU because she was selfish. Don’t you think it’s terrible for her to just walk back into Graham’s life? Into Talon’s life?”

“We don’t really get a say in that, Lucy. It’s none of our business.”

More pieces of my heart shattered, and Mari acted as if she didn’t even care.

“But…” Mari took a deep breath and crossed her arms, looking my way. “We do have to talk about the business. I thought I could hold out for a while longer, but since we’re here now, we might as well talk.”

“About what?” I asked, confusion filling me up.

“Lyric is a bit worried about how some of the things in the bookkeeping are adding up, and I mean, I think she’s right. I think we jumped the gun hiring Chrissy. We aren’t bringing in enough profit.”

“Why in the world are you talking to Lyric about the store?” Mari grimaced, and I cocked an eyebrow. “What aren’t you telling me?”

“Don’t freak out,” she said, which of course made me freak out even more. “Remember when we were starting out and we couldn’t get a loan to cover the rest of our needs?”

“Mari…you said you got another loan from the bank. You said after months of trying, it finally went through.”

She continued, breaking her stare from mine. “I didn’t know what to do. You were so happy and excited to move forward after me getting sick, and I didn’t have the guts to tell you the truth. You gave up so much of your life for me, and all I wanted was to give you our shop.”

“You lied to me about the loan?” I asked Mari, my chest tight. “You asked Lyric for a loan?”

“I’m sorry, Lucy, I really am. With the medical bills and everything piling up, I knew I’d never be able to get a bank to help me—”

“So you went behind my back and asked Lyric for the money.”

“You would’ve never let me take it if I told you.”

“Of course I wouldn’t have! Do you think she gave it to you out of the goodness of her heart? Mari, everything is leverage with Lyric. She only does things that will benefit her.”

“No,” Mari swore. “She did this for us, to help us get back on our feet. There were no strings attached.”

“Until now,” I huffed, my hands falling to my waist. “If it weren’t for you taking money from her, letting her hold something so big over us, this wouldn’t even be a problem, Mari. Now she’s trying to tell you how to run our shop. We could’ve worked harder to get the loan ourselves. We could’ve done it, but now she wants to ruin everything we’ve built, all because you trusted the snake. We need to destroy the deal.”

“I won’t,” she said sternly. “I was talking to Parker about everything, and he thinks—”

I huffed. “Why would I care what he thinks? It’s none of his business.”

“He’s my husband. His opinion matters to me.”

“I don’t understand why. He abandoned you when you needed him the most. I was there, remember? I was the one who picked up your pieces after he destroyed you.”

“So what?” she asked.