Page 81 of Dominate
I cut Callum a look. “That was awkward.”
“What?” he retorts, straightening his tie.
“You shouldn’t have said yes for dinner. This is my time with her.”
“Come now, Sloan. We’re a family. We should be able to have a meal with each other.”
I take a deep breath before replying, “Well, you should be able to stick to our custody agreement and show up for her on the weekends you’re allotted. You’re really disappointing her every other weekend, Cal.”
“That’s why I’m here to talk. Can we sit?” he asks, gesturing to the living room.
I roll my eyes and stomp over to the sofa, nerves erupting in my veins over what Callum could want now. I sit down and, instead of Cal taking the open chair across from me, he takes a seat right next to me. Far too close for comfort.
“Callum, if you’re going to try to ask me for more time with Sophia, you should know that I’m prepared to fight.”
Callum’s eyes narrow as he smooths his blonde coiffed hair back. “I’m not here to fight with you, Sloan. I’m here to tell you I want our family back.”
My face contorts into what I can only imagine a Picasso painting would look like. Callum could have told me he is a flying purple cow, and I would have believed that more than I believe this. “You have to be joking,” I reply with a laugh. “You’re engaged to Callie.”
“Not anymore,” he replies and scoots in closer to take my hand in his. “I broke it off with her after the funeral. The minute I saw you and that footballer together, I knew I made a horrible mistake.”
“Callum,” I reply, staring down at his hand wrapped around mine like some sort of evil serpent. “You don’t even love me.”
“Of course I do, Sloan. You’re the mother of my child,” he states flippantly like what I said is ludicrous. “I made some mistakes, but I want to be a part of yours and Sophia’s lives again.”
“But you’ve cancelled on Sophia two times in a row now. How is that wanting to be a part of her life?”
“I was trying to get my own life together first!” he retorts, his blue eyes fixed on mine. “But I’m different now. If we get back together, you’ll see that.”
I grit my teeth and stare back at him, willing myself to stay calm. “It’s really coincidental that you’re saying all of this after our meeting with the lawyer yesterday. What did your letter from Margaret say exactly?”
His face deepens to a crimson colour and he replies, “I was planning to talk to you after the meeting, but you left too quickly.”
“Because you were going on and on about the fact that I wasn’t a Coleridge!” I exclaim, pulling my hand out of his and sliding away from him.
“That’s what I want to change,” he replies, shifting closer to me again. “We can be a proper family again. Get remarried. You can take my name, and we’ll all be Coleridges together. I’ll be better this time around, Sloan. A proper father, the way you’ve always wanted me to be. I know how hard it was for you to grow up without a father, and I don’t want that life for Sophia.”
His words pierce through a dark part of my heart that I keep locked away. “Neither do I.”
“See? Then we’re on the same page. And it will be like old times but better.” He reaches out and cups my cheek, the touch foreign and surprising. “You’ll still be in complete control of Sophia. I won’t stand in your way of that.”
I jerk out of his touch, so he drapes his arm on the back of the sofa behind me.
“This is ridiculous, Callum. You don’t know me at all. You never have.”
“I know it kills you to not have access to Sophia every single day. If we’re together again, that all goes away. No more custody agreement. No more part-time motherhood.” Callum leans in, an urgency and hopefulness in his eyes I’ve never seen before. “Don’t you want that, Sloan? Don’t you want to wake up with Sophia under your roof every day?”
“Of course I do,” I reply, my throat closing up over how much I hate this. How much I hate that he still gets to be a part of her life.
“Let me give that to you, darling.”
Callum suddenly leans in to kiss me, but I yank back and shake my head in shock.
“What the fucking hell is going on here?” Gareth’s deep voice growls. My eyes swerve over to see him standing in the foyer, the door wide open behind him.
Callum is still holding my face, our bodies still touching. Everything about this looks so much worse than it really is. And Gareth is one hundred percent pissed. Like a giant, angry bear ready to attack. He drops his training bag down on the floor and his hands tighten into fists at his sides.
“Gareth, nothing is going on! Callum is crazy.” I push back away from him and stand, smoothing my dress down and feeling horrible for how bad it must have looked.
