Free You Dropped a Blonde on Me by Dakota Cassidy Page B

him talk to you like that?”
    Because each and every time she thought she just might have the market cornered on giving him a piece of her mind, her tongue stuck to the roof of her mouth like it had been freshly tarred there. Factor in her lack of quick retorts for the circles Fin was so good at talking, and she always stumbled. “What good does it do to argue with him? It’s better if I just leave well enough alone.”
    “Better for who?”
    Me, me, me. “Well, Connor, primarily. How would it look if his father and I got into a fistfight in the middle of a senior citizens’ village? If word got out, and if you know these women in the village, it would, how can I possibly preach to him that fighting isn’t the answer?”
    “Nobody said anything about fists. I’m just talking about standing up for yourself. He talks to you like he owns you. Like he has every right to be in your business, but you have absolutely no rights at all to his.”
    She held up a hand to correct him, then let it fall to her side with a slap of her thigh. Campbell was right. Her entire marriage had been based on Fin having all the rights, and her having none. How that had come to be deserved at least a little research.
    Tipping her chin up, his blue eyes settled on hers. “The way I see it, he was your husband for a long time, but he isn’t anymore—or he won’t be soon. He’s Connor’s father. Sure, that entitles him to certain things, though he definitely doesn’t behave as though he deserves any rights to his kid at all. But you’re Connor’s mother, not just the vessel he deemed important enough to procreate with. You have just as many rights as he does. Big money or not. You can give him hell right back, and you shouldn’t have to fear retribution if you do. He can’t take anything else away from you, right? He’s got all the money. He’s got all the power. As far as I can see, speaking your mind is all you have left.”
    Ouch. Maxine winced, lifting her chin up and out of his strong hand. “I just have trouble expressing myself.” But only with Fin. He steamrolled her with his slew of words and fast and furious potshots.
    “Having an opinion about how he’s treated you is more than fair, if you ask me. If I were you, I’d be pretty pissed off at what he’s done. Yet, I watched you shrink a couple of inches in height when he went into demand mode. This is 2010, Max. You don’t have to walk ten paces behind him.”
    She didn’t. Okay, maybe she walked five or so, but definitely not ten. That was an exaggeration. Wasn’t it? Shaking her head, Maxine decided to change course again. “Why are you getting so worked up about it? Why do you care how my ex-husband talks to me?”
    “Almost ex-husband,” he corrected with a half smile, “and the Max I knew would have run up one side of him and back down the other. I guess I was just surprised at how you jumped at the chance to pacify him instead of telling him to take his shitty attitude back to his mini-mansion and barely-beyond-jailbait girlfriend. The Max I knew once gave a bully a thorough tongue-lashing in front of a whole gymnasium of students because he had the ’nads to call Mindy Weirtz flat-chested in front of you.”
    Maxine’s head cocked to the left, calling up the memory. She had read Leon Matheson the riot act, hadn’t she? Like she’d written it herself. A small smile lifted her lips upward. “I liked Mindy. She was always nice to me. She helped me with my algebra. I sucked at math.”
    “So you don’t like ‘you’ enough to at least have even a small, angry protest on your behalf? I wonder what the old Max would have to say about that?” he pondered out loud, giving her a questioning glance that held a challenge.
    Oh, fuck the old Max. The old Max had that kind of energy. The new, now older, far less firm, sans pom-poms and rhinestone-bedecked tiara Maxine didn’t. Instead of reacting, she chose to change tactics. Divert, distract, defuse. The