Page 9 of Loving You

Pulling out his phone, he scrolled through his emails as he waited for Poppy to return. He only had a few cases. He was still getting established, and he was starting to feel a little anxious that he was never going to do more than this. That his father was right—that his career was meant for small-time nobodies and he’d never make anything of himself.

He’d been distracted by all the very well-off men his father paraded around when he was younger. He’d wanted to be like them: distinguished and respected just byentering a room. He wanted to be the lawyer turning away cases because he had too many.

Disillusion hit him the year after he passed the bar and realized if it wasn’t for the money he’d squirreled away and the inheritance he hadn’t touched, he’d be up the fucking creek.

His father would tell him that’s what he got for going into family law. His uncles would tell him that’s what he got for not being more ruthless and going after clients who had fuck-you money. But Monty was the fool who actually wanted to make a difference.

His father considered the Reed case to be an epic failure. To him, a win would have been stripping the mother of everything, giving sole custody of the little girl to his client, and forcing her to sell off everything she owned in order to pay her child support.

For Monty, it was getting Dallas the time he wanted with his daughter while ensuring he could comfortably co-parent with his ex. And he’d made a friend out of it too, something no one in his family would ever understand.

He and Dallas had been getting drinks a few times a month since the final custody hearing, and Monty was coming to realize that maybe he could be comfortable and settled here. Maybe he didn’t have to run and start over where no one knew him.

“Hey.” Poppy skidded to a halt, her boat shoes making a little squeaking noise on the tile, and she grimaced. “Sorry.”

Christ, she was so young. He tried for a smile as he opened the door for her, and she hesitated before walking ahead of him, keeping her pace slow.

He realized what she was doing and held back a frustrated sigh. “I’m not going to keel over.”

“No, I know. I wasn’t worried about that.”She flushed at his silence. “Okay, Iwasworried. The last time you were here, you hit your head on the pool deck.”

That had been the cataplexy. He was walking beside his dad one minute and hit the ground in the next. He felt every inch of that fall. “I appreciate your concern, but at least I know you’ll catch me if I go down.”

He didn’t bother pulling his punches this time, and from the look on her face, she knew it.

She didn’t say anything else as she led the way to the circle driveway where her car sat. It was a cute little two-seater sporty thing with the top down. The weather was getting too cold and windy for it, but he just wrapped his jacket around him a little tighter as he climbed inside and waited for her to start up the engine.

She immediately hit the button to close the top just before they pulled out onto the main road, and he only regretted it because it meant she was going to want to make small talk. “So…”

He groaned. He couldn’t help it. When she looked devastated, he sighed and said, “I’m sorry. It’s not you. I don’t actually hate you. You know that, right?”

Poppy scoffed. “Do I?”

“I hope so. I’m angry at him. Neither of us wants me to call you Mom.”

She bit her lower lip, then shook her head. “No, we don’t. It’sweird, right? Like, Carlos and Angelo are twenty years older than me, and he makes them do it too.”

He lifted a brow at her. “They’ve never been able to tell him no, no matter how absurd the request is.”

Poppy swallowed heavily. “They’re your half brothers, aren’t they? From his first wife?”

“Second,” he corrected. “My mother was his third. Catia was his firstchild.”

“And I’m the fourth,” Poppy said very softly and maybe a little sadly.

That was true—technically. His father never spent more than a few weeks as a single man. The fiancées outnumbered the wives, but the cycle was the same. Different woman with a new face and new story to tell, giving herself to a man who was making the same promises over and over. Eventually, they realized Rod was full of shit and left, and he didn’t seem to care.

Though Monty did have to admit Rod seemed to love this one more than the others. He’d had a vasectomy years ago, but Monty had a feeling if he could, he would have had a child with her by now.

“Anyway, they’re all my half siblings, but I don’t think of them that way. We were all brought up in the same house. None of our moms ever fought for us.”

Poppy looked like she had a thousand more questions, but from the way her cheek caved in, he could tell she was biting them back. “I…do you think he still loves her?”

Monty frowned. “Who?”

“Your, ah…your mom. Or any of his exes?”

Monty laughed. He didn’t mean to, but he hadn’t realized she was feeling insecure. “No, chérie. Because that would imply he loved her once, and I don’t think that was the case. I think he married her because she was willing to put up with his bullshit long enough to have a kid with him.”

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