Page 73 of The Wedding Planner's Manny

“I'm afraid I can't banish her from the town.”

“No.” Nathan glared at me. “You can't even banish her from this house.”

Ouch.That stung. But he was right. I wasn't protecting him the way I should. “It's only one more night.”

“Why can't you just throw her out right now?”

I took a deep breath and let it out slowly through my teeth. “Because having to deal with her retaliation for months to come would be worse than dealing with her for one more day. She loves being in the spotlight. She'll get bored and move on as soon as she's not getting it anymore.” I'd definitely picked the wrong words because Nathan looked hurt now.

“So we're too boring for her?”

“You're not boring, Nate, your mother's just... difficult. That's not your fault. You're perfect, okay?

Don't ever let her tell you any different.” I wish I could have told him something else. Like that his mother would love him no matter what, but I didn't want to lie to him. I didn't want him to hang on to someone who would only continue to hurt him. Laura had no regards for other people's feelings. Not even when those people were her children.

“I want her to go away,” Nathan muttered.

“I know, kiddo.” I stroked his hair and pressed a kiss to the side of his head. “She won't be here for long, okay?”

Nathan nodded, but didn't say any more.

“I'm going to go downstairs now and brave the lioness. You can text me if you need anything, okay?”

Nathan only nodded again.

I suppressed a sigh on my way out of the room.

Downstairs, I found my youngest son and my soon to be ex-wife in the living room. The TV was on and I recognized a scene from Caleb's favorite movie playing out on the screen. Laura sat on the couch with him, but her attention was on her phone.

“You're not looking, Mommy!” Caleb complained.

“Sure I'm looking, sweetie,” Laura responded without taking her eyes off the phone even once.

Caleb pouted. He might have been young, but he wasn't stupid. “You're not!” he insisted.

Laura made a shushing sound at him.

My eyes widened as Caleb reacted by snatching the phone out of his mommy's hand and tossing it in a corner where it struck the floor with a dull thud.

Wow.

My little one wasn't messing around. I wondered if maybe onsomelevel, he was just as fed up with Laura's bullshit as Nathan was.

Laura, meanwhile, looked like she was on the verge of an explosion, staring first at the spot where her phone lay on the floor and then at our son. “Do you have any idea what you just did?” she demanded.

“I make you watch the movie!” Caleb said proudly.

Laura whirled around to me when laughter escaped my lips, betraying my presence. “You think that's funny? That phone cost seven hundred dollars!”

I shrugged. “You ignore your children, they wreck your property. Sounds normal to me.”

“I can't believe you're approving this behavior!”

“You better believe I'm very proud of my son right now. If you can't put up with him maybe you should consider staying somewhere else. I'm sure if I called the bed & breakfast right now they'd have a room for you.”

“You'd just love that, wouldn't you? If you could drive me out of this house again.”

“Laura,” I said sharply.