Rushing the Goal
Page 165

Rick opened the file to see a picture of him sitting on a bench with Amy, their boys playing in the sandbox nearby. He shut the file and looked back at them. “So, you’re blackmailing me? I don’t show the video and this goes away?”
“Oh, no,” Lucy said, feigning surprise. “Never. We are just reminding you that if you show, we show. While, yeah, it’s gonna suck getting out of the fucking custody mess you caused, everyone will know that you are not only married to Heidi with a daughter the same age as the one you’re fighting over, but you also have a girlfriend with twin boys that your wife knows nothing about.”
“I mean, the video is bogus anyway. All it will cause is an investigation and I’ll be exonerated in the end. But the fact you are putting money into another account without the knowledge of your wife or your mother is stealing, fraud even. I’m sure that won’t go over well, especially if they press charges,” Benji added and Rick’s eyes narrowed.
Looking away, Rick sucked in a deep breath and shook his head. Lucy watched as he thought over his words, and she wanted to laugh how the cocky asshole was shaking in his boots. She was disgusted by him. She always knew he was a bad guy, but she had thought there might be a good guy underneath. She was wrong. So wrong, and as she watched the man she had loved at one point in her life struggle, all she could do was feel sorry for him.
He was pathetic.
When she looked over at Benji, he smiled, leaning over to kiss her temple before whispering, “We’re okay.”
She nodded. “We are.”
When she looked back, Rick was watching them, venom in the depths of his blue eyes. “I hate you,” he said, looking at Lucy, his eyes dark and full of malice. “I hate who you are, that you trapped me.” He paused and Benji went to say something, but she held her hand to his leg, stopping him. “I don’t like dealing with you. I want you to disappear more than I can even tell you. Your family has been a problem since the beginning, and now you have this guy you want to marry… Yeah, I’m done.”
Her brows pulled together. The feelings were mutual, but what was he saying? “Done?”
“Yeah, listen, I don’t care anymore,” he said, sitting up and holding their gaze. She wasn’t sure what he meant, but her heart dropped to her stomach as she watched him. “I hate doing this with you. Always fighting and having to see your smug face ’cause you think you’re better than me. So, you know what? Do you want her?” he asked Benji, and Benji looked confused at the abrupt change in topic.
“Want who? Lucy? I’ve got her.”
“No, Angie. You want her?”
Lucy looked bewildered as Benji nodded. “I mean…yeah. Yes, I do.”
“Then take her,” he said simply, like he was giving away a dog and not his firstborn. “I don’t have the money for child support, obviously. And I was hoping if I got custody of her, boom, you’d be paying me. But now this is getting insane. My mom is saying she doesn’t want me to fight anymore, and I just don’t have the cash flow for it. The kid doesn’t even like me. So if you want her, and you’re cool with taking her, I’m honestly done.”
Lucy’s heart stopped as her eyes narrowed. “You put me through this, put Angie through this, so you could get child support money? For a child you don’t even want?”
He shrugged as he held her gaze. “I don’t like you. Anything to ruin your life is fine with me.”
“But hurting a child, your child, in the process… That didn’t matter?” she asked, tears spilling over her cheeks as she held his gaze. But Rick just shook his head. How could he do this? Who was this man she had made a child with?
This filth.
“It’s over. I don’t care,” he said simply and then he stood up. Clearing his throat, he took their file, almost like he thought they didn’t notice, before saying, “I’ll see you Thursday, and we’ll get the ball rolling.”
“On what? What do you mean?” she asked.
“Come on, Lucy, keep up. I’m giving up my rights. I don’t want her. I don’t want to pay for her. I don’t even want to deal with her. I’ll always love her—I guess I’m supposed to—but she doesn’t like me. She likes that guy. So you guys go ahead, be a happy little family.”
She gasped as she looked up at him, unsure what the hell was really going on.
“Wait, are you serious? Just like that?” Lucy asked, her heart almost cracking her ribs it was beating so hard.
“What, you don’t believe me?” he asked. He grabbed a pen from a passing waitress before taking a sheet of paper from the file. They watched as he wrote something and then signed it, laying it on the table. Tapping the file to the edge of the table, he nodded at them. “That’s that. See you guys Thursday.”
And then he walked away.
Like it was nothing.
Like he hadn’t just agreed to give up his flesh and blood.
Reaching for the piece of paper, she read it through tear-filled eyes.
On Thursday, I, Rick Hart, will give up my rights so that Benji Paxton can adopt Angela Lynn Hart.
And then there was his signature and the date. That was it. Wide-eyed, she looked over at Benji. “What?”
He looked at the sheet, shaking his head. “Really?”
“Did that just happen?” she asked and Benji gulped beside her.
“I’m not a hundred percent sure, but I think he just gave me Angie. Like, actually, gave her to me,” he said, his voice breaking as her body went numb. Looking over at her, he smiled. “She’ll be mine. Like, I’ll be her dad. Her real dad—she’ll have my name.”