Page 34 of Forty and Fighting Dirty
“Well, your ticket stub is wrong,” I insisted.
“Darling,” Rhett drawled, “let’s calm down a bit here?—”
“Don’t you dare tell me to calm down,” I snapped.
I was making a scene. I could feel everyone’s eyes on me like a thousand pinpricks poking into my spine and the back of my neck. Ihatedit. I hated the fact that once again, I looked like the crazy, unreasonable, hysterical woman.
The urge to crumple in on myself was almost unbearable. I’d spent the past decade and longer making myself smaller to fit into my ex-husband’s life. I’d given up my career and myambitions. I’d put my body on the line with two hard pregnancies. I’d stripped away everything that made memein order to build a family and a life.
Fat load of good that did me in the end.
I wasn’t going to make that mistake again.
My independence and my freedom were everything to me. I couldn’t give them up just because of a bit of peer pressure. Let every single person in this town think I was a lunatic. Let them judge me. Let them compare me to King Rhett and shake their heads with atsk.
I wasn’t giving anything up for a man. Never again. Never. Ever. Again.
Besides, Mila had confirmed it. That was my number! That was my house!
Rhett Baldwin owned half this town, just like the Wilsons had owned half of Clare. He didn’t need another house. And what kind of man would insist on taking a free house when there was a single mom with two kids who needed it more? A single mom and two kids who happened to have the winning ticket!
I stomped up the rattling stage steps and followed the emcee to his podium, my boys trailing behind me. Rhett took up the rear, brow knitted in a sort of harmless concern. The liar. Every time our eyes met, his blazed with annoyance bordering on fury. He hated being called out.
Was this some sort of scheme? Did he count on no one in this town wanting to go up against him? Was this how he made his money?
What hadreallyhappened with the designers I’d replaced?I didn’t know this man at all, and it wasn’t beyond the realm of possibility that he was as crooked as a boxer’s broken nose.
“Now, let’s all take a deep breath and get this sorted out,” the emcee said. He walked over to the table at the back of the stage, where a teenager sat behind a computer. The two of them studied the screen, then the ticket, then the screen again. The emcee looked at me from under bushy white brows, then turned back to the computer. Then he looked at the ticket stub they’d pulled out of the comically huge fishbowl and pursed his lips.
“What game are you playing, Darling?” Rhett asked quietly, that same fake expression on his face.
Rage ignited inside me, and I whirled on him. “What game amIplaying? What game areyouplaying?”
“They pulled my ticket out of the barrel,” he said, shrugging.
“Show me your ticket, then,” I demanded. “Show me the numbers matching.” I pointed to the display.
Rhett’s eyes narrowed slightly, and that false concern melted away. “I don’t have the tickets. They use the stubs with our information on them to do the draw.”
“The fine print on the back of the ticket says you need to show your ticket to claim your prize, then do a skill-testing question.”
Rhett said nothing. I doubted he’d ever taken the time to look at the fine print. This was probably some scam, and he was so sure of winning that any fine print would be moot.
Well. It wasn’t moot for me.
We faced off. I hated for my boys to see me in this kind of mood, but they needed to know that their mother wasn’t goingto be pushed around. Alec had twisted his fist into my shirt, and now he clung to me like a terrified puppy. Nate was frowning at Rhett and intermittently glancing at the emcee and the computer.
And the gathered crowd was murmuring, the swell of their conversation, curiosity, and judgment pressing against me like a concrete wall.
I wanted to explode. I wanted Rhett Baldwin to slink away and know that I’d called him on his shit.
A throat cleared, and we both whirled around to see the emcee standing there. He lifted his palms as if to settle us, my ticket clutched in one hand, the winning stub in the other.
“All right, you two, we’ve got a bit of an issue here,” he said. “Let’s take this to the office and get it sorted out.” He gestured to the stairs, and when I’d turned toward him, I heard him say to Rhett, “Sorry about this.”
Rhett replied something conciliatory, but my anger blocked it out. The emcee hadn’t apologized tome, had he? Only to the emperor of the town, the man who was in charge, the arrogant jerk who wasn’t used to being challenged.
Well. They were both about to find out that I might not have money or much of a reputation, but I wasn’t going to back down.
