Page 138 of Under the Table

“Yeah.” She wasn’t going to say that she didn’t want to do that. The last thing she needed was to issue an alert for Eva and Rex and have police crawling all over the city to find them. But she could use that to her advantage. “Thanks, Mary.”

“Good luck, Hope. This isn’t going to be easy, but I’m here for you.”

Standing up, Hope stretched out her legs and walked to the kitchen to dump the rest of the coffee she hadn’t drunk and rinse out her mug. She leaned against the sink and closed her eyes, pulling in every ounce of strength she had to make this call.

She held the phone to her ear and let it ring, waiting for Rex to once again not pick up his damn phone. When it went to voicemail, she hung up.

Immediately, she sent him a text.

Hope: If you don’t answer me in the next five minutes, then I will call the police. I have a right to see my daughter, and you can’t keep her from me.

Her thumb hovered over the send button for one split second before she tapped it. There, now he had a deadline. And that anger Mary had talked about began to bubble up in her belly and move into her chest. She needed to hold that feeling tightly. She needed?—

Her phone rang.

Hope glanced down at it, finding Rex’s name staring back at her. Holy fuck that had actually worked. Because she really hadn’t wanted to make good on that threat. She held her breath as she answered the call.

“Where are you?” she asked.

“Rachel’s.”

Hope nearly collapsed right then and there. She should have known. The two of them were so close. She should have figured out that they would have?—

“It’s not what you’re thinking, Hope.” Rex’s voice was terse, tight. “So stop thinking it. I didn’t want Eva to be freaking out, so I brought her here to have some familiarity.”

“But you didn’t fucking tell me where you went? So I could just sit here and suffer for a week while you played uncle to my sister’s kids?” Hope clenched her fingers around the edge of the counter, squeezing back the tears that were again threatening to fall from her eyes. “Don’t act the saint now, Rex.”

“I’m not.” He sighed. “I should have told you. I figured Rach would have?—”

“Rach and I would have to be talking in order for that to happen, and you know very well she’s not talking to me right now. Not after…” she trailed off, not sure she could even say the words. “I did what you wanted. I chose you.”

“I know.”

The silence was loud, but Hope wasn’t sure what the hell to say next. She wasn’t even sure what she could say to get anything across to him. Her heart hurt. Her soul was shattering even more than when she’d pretended that he had just gone on a trip with Eva and she hadn’t been able to go with them. This was the reality that she had wanted to avoid and pretend didn’t exist.

“I don’t want to be your second choice.”

“God.” Hope collapsed onto the floor, her back against the cabinets as she pressed her hand to her face to hold back her sob. He wasn’t her second choice. He’d always been first. He’d always been the one she wanted and needed in her life. Couldn’t he see that?

Or maybe he was seeing what she refused to acknowledge.

That ever since she’d met Angelica, things had been different. They had changed. It didn’t start with that first awkward kiss in the hallway in New Orleans. It started on that studio floor with Wade taking photos of them. It had started the very moment Angelica had walked into that room and captured all of Hope’s attention.

“I’m hiring a lawyer,” Hope said, keeping her voice calm. “I don’t want to make this nasty if we can avoid it, okay?”

“We still have to work together next season.”

“We do,” Hope said, sighing heavily. “But that’s so far away right now I can’t even think about it.” She breathed slowly, letting the cold air settle into her lungs and calm her down. “Right now I want to see Eva. Tomorrow. You can bring her by the house, or I can go get her, and then you and I need to sit down and talk to her about what’s going on. Together preferably, but if you don’t want to see me, then I can do it. But you can’t keep her from me.”

“I’m going to keep her with me until we figure this out.”

“No. That’s not how this is going to work.” Hope’s shoulders tensed, and she pushed her head back into the cabinet. “You’re not going to keep her from me.”

That wouldn’t be in Eva’s best interests, surely Rex could see that. Surely he could understand it. Eva had barely been separated from them during her entire life—to completely cut Hope out now would be detrimental to her.

“We’re going to do this my way or through the courts. I tried it your way, and that was a mistake.”

“My way?” Hope’s voice broke. “You’re talking about Ange? Because you’re the one who suggested an open relationship. You’re the one who put the idea in my head and told me that we could make it work. You’re the one who came up with the rules that we all agreed to and followed, and then you’re the one who decided to throw that all away without even talking to me first!”