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“Lease on this place is up, and Mommy has this big case in Mexico. She can’t take us with her, so we were supposed to stay with Brandon in New Orleans, but Pilar has resigned and Mommy is going mental.”

“Okay?”

“Marmie would have to change schools again. He’s not happy.”

“I can understand that. How’s Phinneas?”

“Ask me in Spanish and I’ll ask him. He’s a nutter. He’s so bloody clingy with Pilar and won’t even let me cuddle him at the moment.”

“I see.” My heart felt like it was being stabbed, one tiny dagger at a time.

“So that’s what I suggested,” Constance continued calmly. “I told Mommy that it’s easy. We come stay with you, then she doesn’t have to rent another place and pay for nannies and all that. We’ll be looked after. We can go back to school, and she can concentrate on that case.”

“Constance,” I said softly.

“Don’t give me any excuses. We want to come home.”

“I want this. God, believe me. Yes. Absolutely. I would take you back tomorrow. Just come. Constance,there’s nothing I want more than for this to happen. But your mommy will never allow it.”

I was breathing far too fast. Struggling. And now I had another incoming call.

“I think your mother is ringing me again,” I panted out.

“Ring me straight back,” my daughter demanded.

I disconnected and picked up the other call.

“Dylan.”

“Veronica.”

I didn’t know how much more of this I could take. Hope was a dangerous thing. A fine balance.

“I just had a call from Hendrix in New York. Queries over the custody order. I don’t appreciate this. I don’t have time for this. Whatever you’re trying to do here, I will bring you down.”

“Veronica, calm down,” I demanded with a voice I barely recognised. I didn’t talk like this. Not to her.

“Make it stop, Dylan,” she said, and then she hung up again.

I rang Constance back as someone knocked on the patio doors.

I couldn’t do this. Not now. I lay down and tugged the duvet over myself, hiding from the world like the coward I was.

“She yelled at me,” I started, and my daughter rolled her eyes, just like her mother.

“Are you a man or a mouse?”

I smiled. “I used to say that to you all the time.”

“You’re a mouse, Dad. You need to start barking. It’s the perfect solution.”

I knew. I also fully believed Veronica. I would never win.

“I want to come home, Dad,” she said. “Make it happen. Please.”

She hung up on me. Just like her mother.

And my bloody phone wouldn’t stop ringing. Stewart. Of course.