I’d want half of everything, plus the house. Alimony payments until I felt like supporting myself, plus full custody of the kids along with a healthy child support check. And if he denied me? Well, I knew how to spread gossip like spreading dirt on a wall. Especially since most of his patients’ moms were friends of mine in the PTA. Grant’s reputation would be ruined, taking down him and his thriving medical practice. So really, what choice would he have?

I didn’t want to be that kind of woman—the woman scorned. But he’d forced me here, hadn’t he? It was merely a matter of payback’s bitchiness at work.

No, I wouldn’t dwell on such things anymore. Today I would enjoy the calm before the storm, then tomorrow let the thunder come. Sixty minutes all for me. The temptation to online browse Wayfair’s “must-have clearance décor!” pulled on me, but I resisted. I could refuse my urges, just like I would refuse Grant’s begging for forgiveness tomorrow night. Instead, I set down my phone and prepared to vegetate. It was the most precious time of week, but when the phone rings, may God smite the person who interrupts me time.

I had just queued up Stranger Things when the doorbell rang. If I weren’t worried it’d wake up Collette and Lucas I might have ignored it. Muttering my way to the door, I answered it, prepared to politely tell the Jehovah’s Witness I expected to go peddle their Watchtower someplace else. What I didn’t expect was to see a police car parked in my driveway and a plainclothes detective standing on my front porch.

An impulsive breeze blew in behind him.

“I’m Detective Rossi looking for Ryan Thompson. Does he live here?” The detective flashed a badge, then returned it to his jeans pocket. He was wearing an orange button-down shirt that darkened his olive complexion. He wasn’t much taller than me with gelled curls that I imagined crunching between my fingers.

“I’m his mother. What’s this about?” I knew what this was about. I just never thought it would actually happen. I steeled myself for the worst.

“Please show me to your son, ma’am. I’m going to need to bring him to the station for questioning.”

A force cut through the air like a guillotine. Somehow I managed not to faint—or to hit Rossi in the mouth. I couldn’t believe this. Owen Fischer was most certainly behind this. After what he had done to Ryan, smashing his face, he had the gall to press charges now? The shock shook my anger loose.

“Is this about Aria Fischer? Because he didn’t rape that girl. She’s a family friend and it was consensual.”