Oh.  Ugh.  This man.  How had I been fooled by him for so long?

“None of this matters,” I said, voice going very blank and cold.  I wouldn’t give him the satisfaction.

I was starting to suspect that he enjoyed our hostile interactions.  Why else would he go out of his way to make them happen?

“Tell me why you’re calling,” I said slowly.  “And it had better be productive, or I’m hanging up in exactly five seconds.”

“You’re lucky, you know.  I could have pressed assault charges against both you and Rafael for what you did to me.”

Ugh.  This man.  Grrr.

He rendered me incapable of coherent thoughts he was so frustrating to deal with.

“Are you threatening to press charges against your own child right now?” I shot back, astounded that Eduard was even capable of disgusting me more than he usually did.  “Is this a joke?”

“If I had known, if I’d had any clue, that you were vindictive enough to turn my children against me—”

I hung up in the middle of his tirade.

“Assault?”  Heath’s tone was sardonic.

I looked up at him, smiling ruefully.  “It’s a long story.”

“I’m here all day.”

I sighed, and let it spill.

“For the record, I’m normally a pacifist.”

“Noted,” Heath drawled.

“But, and I guess you know this, or at least part of it, I caught him cheating on me.  He butt dialed me while he was having sex with my ex-best friend.  I heard enough to be certain that it was them and what they were doing.”

I paused, trying to read his expression.  “My reaction, more than anything, was fury.  I became so furious that I did assault him.”

“How?”

I always felt like a psycho retelling this story, especially now that I was so completely free of my ex.  But I told him.  If you wanted someone to open up to you, of course you had to reciprocate.

“I waited until he got home, honestly not knowing what to say to him, and he acted like everything was normal when he greeted me.  He went right away to take a shower, and that was when I lost my temper.  You see, he’d done that a lot, come in from wherever and gone immediately to shower.  He must have been stepping out on me for ages, and I hadn’t a clue.”

I studying him a while, trying and failing to gauge his reaction, and finally continued, “I grabbed the Fabuloso and his belt.”

“I like where this is headed,” Heath noted, and it made me smile.  At least he didn’t think I was a complete nutcase.  Yet.

“I sprayed the ground right in front of the shower.  It’s very smooth marble.  The second he stepped out, he slipped, cracked his head hard on the counter, and landed on his ass.”

“Good,” Heath said succinctly.

I smiled.  I should have known this wouldn’t remotely shock him.  “That’s when I took a belt to him, buckle first.”

“Good,” he repeated.

“I beat the shit out of him, beat him until he ran out of the house, naked, just to get away from me.  Then I locked him out.  Filed for divorce as soon as humanly possible.”

“That doesn’t explain why he’s threatening your son with assault charges.”

“Rafael, my oldest, beat him up rather severely when he found out what his father had done.  Still, I can’t believe Eduard would threaten his own child like that.”

“He’s a scumbag.  Want me to take care of him for you?”

I felt my eyes growing wide.  If it were anyone else, I’d have assumed they were joking.  “Do you mean . . . ?”

“I’m not talking about killing him.  I guarantee I can get him to leave you alone without resorting to that.”

Now that was half tempting.  But I restrained myself.

“He’s nothing I can’t handle.  To be perfectly honest, he just annoys me at this point.  And the assault charges are bogus.  If he was going to do that, he’d have done it ages ago, when he could’ve proven it.”

“Why do you think he’s still harassing you?  And why is he so concerned about who you’re seeing?  Do you think he’s trying to get you back?”

“God, no.  But, you know, it’s started to occur to me that there’s a motivation behind it, and it’s not that he wants to see more of our sons.”

“What then?”

“I . . . ” God, I hated talking about this.  “Well, you see, I’ve always had I guess what you could call a trust fund, for lack of a better word.  From my father.  And I’ve had a few successful careers over the years.  Long story short, I’ve got a bit of money saved up.”  Several hundred thousand, to be exact.  “And my ex knows it.  He thinks he can use this to somehow get more money from me.”

“Motherfucker.”  Heath’s voice was low, and his tone managed to achieve a rather intriguing combination of being both blank and succinct.  “You let me know if you change your mind, okay?  I’d have no problem whatsoever putting that guy in his place.”

I nodded, wondering what to do with him.

We started walking again.

“You should show me your house.  Didn’t you say it was around here?”