Hard Fall by Brenda Rothert

Chapter Twenty-One

Wes

I’d taken a load of our stuff over to my condo, but now that there wasn’t much left to move out of Ben and Lauren’s house, reality was hitting me hard. Hadley looked completely wrecked, her eyes puffy from crying, and every time I caught a glimpse of Susan, I reached a new level of disgust. I’d known the woman more than half my life but in this moment, I fucking hated her. And I knew with every fiber of my being that Ben would be furious with his mother right now. Hadley and I had been trying to give Ben’s parents the benefit of the doubt because they had to be grieving, but this was a dick move, and the fact that the judge had fallen for it pissed me right the fuck off.

We hadn’t had time to do anything but pack and try to keep Annalise calm, so I had no idea what we were going to do, but the one thing I knew for sure was that I was going to use every goddamn resource at my disposal to beat them when we went back to court. I rarely called on my father for help in anything because I was a grown man with plenty of money and success, but this was different. My father was one of those men who often played dirty in business, one of the many reasons I’d distanced myself from him professionally, but this? This was right up his alley, and I didn’t care what I had to do to make sure Annalise and Benny stayed with me. And Hadley.

“I don’t want you to go!” Annalise stomped her foot for what had to be the dozenth time today since we’d told her we were moving out for two weeks. We’d said it was so she could spend time with her grandma and grandpa, but she wasn’t buying it and wasn’t happy at all.

“Grandma and Gramps have lots of fun things planned with you,” I told her, squatting down so we were eye level.

“I don’t like them.” She stuck out her lower lip and tears filled her eyes.

Christ. I didn’t know what to say or do.

“Don’t be silly, sweetheart.” Susan swooped in, reaching for her, but Annalise shook her head vehemently as she moved closer to me and away from her grandmother.

“You’re not nice,” she said, scowling. “You always yell. I want Uncle Wes and Aunt Hadley.”

“I’m sorry I’ve yelled at you,” Susan said slowly, blowing out a breath. “But you have to learn to behave like a little lady. We’ll work on it now that you’ll be with us.”

“No!” Annalise threw her sippy cup across the room and ran out of the kitchen.

“This is what you’ve taught her to do?” Susan asked, folding her arms. “Behavior like this is exactly the reason why we need custody of the kids.”

“We’re not the ones who yell all the time,” I said, grabbing my protein powder out of the pantry.

“Of course not. You probably don’t know the first thing about discipline.”

I opened my mouth to respond but Hadley beat me to it.

“There are more ways to discipline a child than to yell,” she said, eyeing the other woman. “Annalise knows if she behaves that way with us, she’ll go right to the corner for a time-out.”

“Time-out.” Susan scoffed. “That’s newfangled parenting, resulting in a generation of spoiled brats.”

“They’re not—” Hadley began.

“Forget it.” I squeezed Hadley’s arm as I interrupted her because this would escalate quickly if we let it, and we didn’t want to do that in front of Annalise. “Let’s just get out of here, okay?”

Hadley picked up the shopping bag she’d filled with a few of her own kitchen essentials, since she didn’t want to leave them with Patrick and Susan, and grabbed her purse.

“It’s better this way,” Susan called after us. “You’ll see that we’re doing you a favor.”

“Go to hell,” I muttered under my breath as I shut the front door behind me.

We drove to my condo in two cars—me in my SUV and Hadley in Ben’s Escalade—and I barely remembered getting there. My mind was a blur of images, switching back and forth from the judge’s order to Susan’s smug face to Annalise’s crying fit this morning when we told her we had to leave for a while. God, I’d never yearned for Ben’s counsel more than right now. What would he advise me to do if he were still here?

I had no fucking idea, and of course, none of this would be happening if he were still here.

“Hey, I’ll come down and get the rest of your stuff,” I called to Hadley as she pulled into my second parking spot. “Let’s just get everything upstairs for now.”

She hesitated but then nodded. She seemed as numb as I felt, but there hadn’t been any time to talk. Annalise had clung to her leg most of the morning, and though Benny obviously had no idea what was going on, his little arms had been outstretched, his face screwed up in a scream as I kissed the top of his head before he’d gone down for his nap.

It fucking killed me just thinking about it.

“You want to just order in?” I asked Hadley when I got the last of her things inside.

“Sure. Okay.” She nodded, looking around for a moment and then sinking into the couch.

“It’s going to be okay,” I told her. “I’m going to figure this out.”

“Wes, I don’t know what to do.”

“I know.” I sat beside her and pulled her into my chest. She resisted for a second but then relaxed into me, her body going limp, though the fingers of one hand had a death grip on my shirt. I stroked her hair and we just sat there, as if we suddenly had no purpose. No kids, no hockey, no nothing but the silence of my very quiet and sterile condo.

Had it always felt this way?

No. I’d loved my condo until all of this happened. Hell, I hadn’t even put it on the market because I wasn’t sure what we were doing and I didn’t want to live anywhere else if I wasn’t going to be with Hadley and the kids. Except now everything had changed. I wanted to live in a big house with Hadley and the kids. I wanted to buy something new that she and I could make into a home, both for us and for them.

Fuck.

When had I started thinking this way?

“I’m kinda hungry,” I said after a while. “Let me order something and I’ll come right back.”

“Okay.” She looked so lost; I would have done anything to fix it. To make her smile again.

Instead, I ordered Chinese food from our favorite place and then sank back down next to her. I reached out my hand and she slowly placed hers in it.

“You okay?” I asked.

“No.” She shook her head. “I still see Annalise’s face, crying and calling for me. I feel like the worst human being on the planet right now.”

“I’m so fucking pissed right now.”

She didn’t respond at first and when she finally turned her head, tears were puddled in her eyes, threatening to spill over any minute.

I reached out to brush them away with my thumbs. “What’s wrong, baby?”

“Everything.”

“We’ll figure it out. I’m going to call my dad and if I get him involved with this custody battle, the Whitmers aren’t going to know what hit them. I didn’t want to bring in the big guns because they’re mourning the loss of their son, but now that they’re playing hardball, I’m going to double up our efforts too.”

“You don’t understand.” She rubbed her eyes and sniffled.

“Talk to me.”

“There’s no we. It’s all you now. Don’t you see? I have to go back to New York or I’m going to lose my job. And once I’m back, I’ll be working sixteen-hour days again, with no support system for the kids. The smarter choice—for the kids—is for you to take custody. You have the money to make sure they’re okay, and you have your Mavericks family to help you. I have no one but a handful of workaholic, single girlfriends who know less about kids than I do, and probably have even less free time than I do.”

“But—” I started to protest but she put a gentle finger on my lips.

“This is about the kids. I want them, I love them, and I’ll spend every moment of vacation I have being Aunt Hadley, coming to see them, talking to them on the phone…but on a day-to-day basis, you’re the better choice, Wes. The writing’s on the wall.”

I stared at her, trying to understand what she was saying even as my gut churned with disbelief and frustration. Part of me agreed, because I did have more time than she did, even with as much as I traveled. But we were a team, dammit, and this thing between us was more than sex, no matter what it had started out as.

“Hadley.” I put one of my hands on the side of her face, forcing her to look at me. “What about us?”

She blinked, and this time a single tear ran down the other side of her face. “I don’t have time for an us. Not with the way my job is. Unless you got traded to New York…” Her voice trailed off.

The chances of that happening were slim to none and we both knew it.

“You don’t have to work,” I said after a moment. “I make millions of dollars a year and we also have everything Ben and Lauren left for the kids. We could make it work, and it would be—”

“You want me to quit?” she demanded, her eyes narrowing slightly.

“I don’t want you to quit. I’m just saying you have the option.”

“And I’d do what? Stay home and be the kids’ full-time nanny?”

She looked pissed and I didn’t understand what she was mad about.

“You could find a job that’s less demanding, with a more understanding boss, someone who’d—”

“I’ve helped build Willow into what it is!” she snapped. “I own stock in the company. That’s like me telling you it makes no difference what team you play for as long as you’re playing hockey.”

“It was just a suggestion, Hadley. I thought you and I—hold that thought.” I cut myself off and shook my head because the buzzer sounded, indicating our dinner had arrived. I got up, signed the check, and grabbed the bag of food. I put it on the counter before going back into the living room.

Hadley got up and walked toward me, a look on her face I’d never seen before. “I think it’s best if I head back to New York in the morning.”

“You’re going to just cut and run?” I demanded, staring at her.

“I’m not running. I’m just doing what’s best for everyone. The deal was that we’d figure out who was better suited to have custody and that’s obviously you. You have the money and the extended family to help, and I don’t. Even if I had Ben and Lauren’s money, I’d burn through all of it buying a comparable house in New York, private schools, full-time nannies, and so on. And I’d barely see them to boot. At least you’re around when you’re not on the road, and you’re off anywhere from three to five months in the summer, depending on whether you make the playoffs. So this is the mature, responsible thing to do. For the kids.”

“And what about the right thing to do for us?” I asked.

She shook her head. “There isn’t an us. Us was just a convenient fantasy while we were playing house. We bonded because of the kids, but we’ve never even liked each other. Nothing has really changed.”

That one cut deep and I couldn’t believe she’d said it. “How can you say that?”

“Even after all we’ve been through, you have no respect for who I am professionally and as an independent woman. The first words out of your mouth were for me to quit, as if I somehow need a man to ride in and take care of me, and that right there shows me that this thing between us would never work.”

Ah, there she was. The Hadley of the past. The one who busted my balls about every damn thing even though she was full of shit. Because this thing between us wasn’t just good, it was damn good, and she was throwing it—and me—away like I’d meant nothing to her.

I’m sorry, Ben, I thought to myself as I watched her turn her back and walk toward the kitchen. I tried to make it work. I really did, buddy.

This time, I wasn’t taking any of the blame for what happened between us. This time, it was all on her. And it fucking gutted me.