One Night with Hemsworth (One Night Series Book 1) (14 page)

And now it just got weird again.

I let out a loud sigh, not realising just how loud it was.

“What’s up?” Cole asked.

“Nothing. I guess that means we won’t have the next two weekends together.”

“We have this weekend. And weekdays.”

I nodded. “It’s getting close to end of term, though, and I’ve got assignments and exams coming out of my ears. I’m going to be pretty flat out.”

“Yeah, then school holidays will start, and I’ve got Cody for two whole weeks. So I think we’ll need to tell Reece and your dad by then. That way, you can still come over while he’s here. I don’t think I could make it two weeks without seeing you.”

“Ugh. You had to bring out the cheese, didn’t you?”

He laughed. “I still maintain you’ll be begging me for cheese one day.”

“After our first date, I don’t want either kind of cheese. Ever.”

“So are you okay with that plan? We’ll tell Reece after Cody’s birthday but before school holidays?”

I nodded. “I guess we’re doing this.”

19

- COLE -

I awoke to a loud banging noise coming from the front door. Rolling over, I grabbed my phone off the bedside table and realised it was early.

Who the hell comes over at six AM?

Hunter’s voice was shrill as I heard him open the door. “Reece, uh … what are you doing here?”

Shit.

“Paige,” I whispered, trying to wake her. “Reece is here.”

Her eyes flew open, and we jumped out of bed, scrambling for clothes.

This is why you should never sleep naked.

“Where the fuck are they?” Reece boomed.

Shit, shit, fucking shit!

“Who?” Hunter asked. “Nah, uh-uh, I’m not letting you in until you calm down.”

Good, he’s stalling for time.

I’d managed to throw my jeans on and a shirt, but Paige couldn’t find her top. I threw her one of mine. “Wear that,” I whispered. “Then get across the hall into Hunter’s room.”

Before we could get out the door, Reece came barging into my bedroom, Hunter trailing behind her.

“What the fuck, Cole? How could you do this to me?” she yelled.

I took a few steps back, holding up my hands in surrender. “
To
you? I’ve done nothing to you.”

“Fucking Paul’s daughter has
nothing
to do with me? Really?” She took out her phone, tapping the screen until audio started playing, my voice filling the room.

“… Holy shit, I’m gonna come … Paige, I’m warning you….”

“How did you …” Paige started, but didn’t get the whole question out.

Hunter was in shock, and I think I was too.

“You see, Paige,” Reece said, her voice dripping with condescension, “when you’re a bit older and no doubt going through a divorce of your own …”

“Bitch!” I ground out. She ignored me.

“A word of advice—record everything. There’s an app you can download that records all of your phone calls and stores all of your texts. You’ll never know when it comes in handy.” She turned to me. “And you, next time you’re on the phone, make sure you hit the right button when you’re trying to hang up. Better yet, when you’re in the middle of getting a blowjob, don’t answer your damn phone.”

I sideways glanced at Paige. She was completely still, her eyes wide. She was standing on the other side of the bed, and I was at the foot of it—too far away to reach for her.

“Don’t look at her,” Reece yelled at me. “Look at me and tell me what the fuck is going on!”

I let out a loud breath. “We’re not just screwing around. We’re together.”

“What? No, Paige is with Hunter.”

Hunter stepped forward. “Uh, no. I’ve never been with Paige. She was already taken before I’d even met her.”

Reece looked confused, but it only lasted a brief moment. “The dinner. The night you dropped her home.” She snapped her head in my direction. “You hit on my future stepdaughter? What is wrong with you?”

“We were together before I knew who she was.”

“It’s true,” Paige said, finally finding her voice. “And I’m never going to see you as a mother-type figure, so you can drop the label. You may be marrying my dad, but that has nothing to do with me. The truth is, I met Cole the night before you had him over for dinner.”

“And you expect to believe that? This is bullshit!”

“We were going to tell you,” I said.

“I bet you were. You’ve been together for what … over a month, then? When were you going to tell me? Your anniversary maybe? How about your engagement?”

“We only decided last night that what we had was real.” I tried rationalising.

“Oh, another convenient coincidence.”

“We were going to tell you after Cody’s party …” Paige said. I hadn’t seen the unsure, unconfident girl for weeks, but now she was back, shrinking into herself as if she could make herself invisible if she tried hard enough.

“How could you do this to Cody? I thought you’d changed. I thought you were actually starting to take this parenting thing seriously.” I’d seen disappointment in Reece’s face before, it was nothing new, but now it was an undertone from a look of disgust.

“How is me dating Paige not taking it seriously?”

“How do you think Cody would see this relationship? He looks to Paige like a sister.”

“No, he doesn’t. He barely even knows me,” Paige said.

“Is that why you’ve been so distant with us since we moved in? Because you didn’t want us to see you as family so you could continue to fuck my ex-husband?” Reece winced at her own words. “Are you even hearing how this is sounding? This whole thing is completely messed up, and I won’t have Cody around it.”

“Reece, don’t do this,” I said. I knew this was a likely possibility, but now that it was happening, my heart felt like it was going to constrict. “Please.” I knew I was pleading, but I didn’t care. I didn’t want her to say what I knew she was about to say.

Then she got a gleam in her eye. I’d seen it a few times before, and I knew nothing good would follow.

“Reece,” I warned. “Whatever you’re about to do—”

She turned to Paige with a smug look on her face. “So you know why Cole and I got divorced, right?”

Paige’s mouth opened but no sound came out.

“Reece,” I barked to get her attention back to me. “She knows.”

Her eyes widened in surprise. “So you would choose to be with an abusive alcoholic?” She shook her head at Paige. “I thought you’d have more self-respect than that.” Looking at me, she smirked.
Actually smirked
. “And you said you could never forgive your mother for not leaving. You said you’d never put anyone through that again—”

“Hey, bitchface!” Paige yelled, startling us all. “He’s not an abusive alcoholic. He made a mistake three years ago, and from what I understand, all he’s been doing since then is prove to you that he’s not that guy. He jumps through your hoops, he was celibate for six months because you said his sleeping around would be bad for Cody—even though Cody stays with Hunter, the biggest manwhore I know, and you’re fine with that.”

“Hey! I never have girls over when Cody’s here,” Hunter said, bringing himself into the mix.

“And neither does Cole,” Paige continued. “You’re his
ex
-wife. You get
no
say in Cole’s love life, just like he had absolutely no say when my dad lost his marbles and asked you to marry him. You can’t stop us from being together, and you can’t stop him from seeing his son.”

That moment? The moment I was waiting for where I
knew
I was in love with Paige? It just happened. And as elated as I wanted to be, I knew it was about to all come crashing down.

Reece looked down at her phone again and started scrolling across the screen.

“Really? You’re on your phone right now?” Paige yelled again. I’d never seen her so forceful, so in charge … so fucking hot.

“He didn’t tell you everything, did he?” Reece said to her, while looking at me.

She shoved her phone in Paige’s face, and I begged myself to stop her. My mind was pleading with me to step forward and take the damn phone, but my body just wouldn’t do it. I was pretty sure I knew what she was showing her—the thing I’d kept from Paige because it was too much. I never talked about it, to anyone, even after it happened. Sometimes when something hurts so much, there’s no way to let that hurt out. I held onto it because it reminded me of what I lost—what Reece and I lost—all because of my anger that I couldn’t control.

“You were … pregnant?” Paige’s voice was back to being small.

“He beat me so badly, I miscarried two days later,” Reece said, her eyes boring into mine. Part of me was wondering if she was revelling in this.

“Fuck off,” Hunter said exasperatedly. “He didn’t fucking beat you. I saw the police report. He lost his temper and did something he shouldn’t have, but you saw what his dad was like, you know what he could’ve been truly capable of. Considering he was off his face when he attacked you, he had more control in his little finger than his dad had throughout his entire body.”

“Are you seriously defending what he did?” Reece yelled.

“No, but I’m not letting you exaggerate the fuck out of the truth, either. I’m not saying he’s innocent, but he knows he did wrong. The assault charge on his record reminds him all the damn time. But he got clean. One accident, one mistake, and he’s been paying for it ever since.”

“Two unplanned pregnancies,” Paige mumbled. Her eyes snapped to mine. “I knew you were hiding something … I just … I thought you had another kid out there or something. You … you … lied to me.”

My jaw tensed. I didn’t know how to fix this. I wasn’t sure I could. “I didn’t lie. I just … I couldn’t talk about it. I was responsible for my own child’s death.” I hated that my voice was quiet and my eyes were welling up in front of everyone.

“But—”

“Is this really the type of guy your dad would approve of?” Reece cut Paige off. “Do you really see this relationship going anywhere? You’re willing to screw up my child’s mental health for a guy who doesn’t even tell you the truth?”

“Would you shut the fuck up, Reece?” Hunter yelled.

“Bottom line, this relationship is over,” Reece said, ignoring Hunter.

“You can’t make that decision,” Paige said.

“Scroll to the left,” Reece said.

When Paige’s eyes found mine, I knew what she was looking at.

“You relinquished your parental rights to Cody?” she asked, incredulously.

I ran my hand through my hair. “You have to understand it was right after the incident, and I was drinking heavily every night. I didn’t want Cody around that.”

A look of realisation crossed Paige’s face. “That’s why you’ve always been adamant she could take him away even though you haven’t done anything wrong.”

“The fact you’ve had a conversation about it proves you know you’re doing the wrong thing here,” Reece said.

“Reece,” I said, making sure to try to sound calm. “Don’t do this.”

“You stay with her, you don’t see Cody. It’s simple, really.”

“What the hell is your problem?” Paige snapped. “You’ve moved on, why can’t Cole?”

“Because I don’t deserve to be happy after what I did,” I said dejectedly. “That’s what you’ve been telling me all these years, right, Reece?”

Paige threw her hands up in the air in defeat. “Holy shit, you all need fucking counselling.” She frantically tried gathering all the crap of hers that she’d accumulated in my room over the past few weeks, shoving it into her oversized handbag.

“Where are you going?” I asked. My heart started beating erratically in my chest. The idea of losing Paige was tearing me apart. Knowing there was nothing I could do to stop it only made it worse.

“You told me you weren’t going to be the one to walk away, even though you needed to. I also told you that I was never going to come between you and your son.”

“Paige, don’t,” I said, stepping towards her.

She put her hand up to stop me. “I’m barely holding it together as it is.”

Reece rolled her eyes. “Geez, you guys are being pretty pathetic considering you haven’t even been together all that long.”

“And you know what, Reece?” I said. “I feel so much more for Paige than I ever did for you.”

I could’ve picked Reece’s jaw off the floor, it’d dropped so wide. It was almost comical.

A loud thud brought my attention back to Paige. She’d dropped everything she’d just gathered and was standing there in shock. “What?”

I shrugged. “It’s true.”

“But is what you feel for her more important than Cody?” Reece asked, composed once again and clearly out for blood.

I shook my head. “Of course not.”

Paige nodded in agreement.

“But are you seriously standing there asking me to make a choice?” I asked Reece. My voice was still pleading with her, yet it was having no effect on her emotionless face. “I mean, I know you can be selfish, but can you really be this vindictive?”
Okay, yeah, not the best words I could have used.

“Why do you think I’m marrying Paul?” she asked. It wasn’t mean or sarcastic—it was like she genuinely wanted to know what I thought.

“Huh?” I asked.

“Shouldn’t it be because you love him?” Paige asked.

“Well, of course, I love him, but it wouldn’t have gotten that far had he not been suitable for Cody. As a parent, you always put your child first. You have to.”

“Cole does!” Paige exclaimed. “Trust me, he does. The minute he found out who I was, he ended it. I was the one who chased him.”

I appreciated what she was trying to do, but we both knew that wasn’t quite the truth. “Actually, we kind of chased each other. We tried to stay away, truly we did.
Twice.
I know this is weird, and it may take some explaining to Cody, but—”

“Nuh-uh. We are not explaining any of this to Cody.” She was determined, and when Reece wanted something …

I let out a loud defeated sigh and sank onto the bed beside me. Sitting with my head in my hands, my elbows on my knees, I knew this was it for Paige and me.