“After what you’ve done, you have the nerve to ask me what?” Sylvia turned toward the parking lot behind her and motioned for someone. Great. More people to make her feel like scum of the earth.

“What do you mean what I’ve done? Maybe I got sick. Maybe I went for a drive and had car trouble.”

“Nonsense. You could have called. We called you, we came by, we checked everywhere we knew to check. We even called the police.”

“What bothered you more, Mom, that you were worried about me or that I skipped out on the wedding of the year?”

“Now that I know you’re okay, what bothers me most is your irresponsibility. I have no idea what’s gotten into you.”

I do, she wanted to say. He’s around six-two, heavily tattooed and f**ks like a god.

“You’re always saying I should make better decisions. Yesterday morning I was presented with an option, and I made the best decision for me. Not for you, or Deanne, or anyone else. I’m done being so selfless. I’m sticking with selfish for a while.”

As her voice trailed away, she shifted uncomfortably when she saw who was coming up the walk toward them. Jameson and Michelle. Dammit. She had to fight not to step back and slam the door.

“Candace, is he here?” Michelle asked quietly.

She nodded, and Jameson surged toward the door. Fury flashing through her, Candace shoved viciously at his chest before he could get past her. “You calm down, James, and don’t you dare come in my house starting anything with him.”

Brian must have heard the commotion, because he came up behind her and yanked the door all the way open. “You got a f**king problem with me, James?”

Jameson, ever the type to go off half-cocked until things started to get serious, seemed to shrink a bit. “I’ve got a problem with you screwing my sister, yeah.”

“I suggest you get the f**k over it.”

Sylvia backed away from the stare-down, but Michelle and Candace insinuated themselves between James and Brian as best they could. Both the guys had their feathers ruffled, but she would lay bets on Brian any day of the week. He was the only one between the two who had absolutely no fear in his glare, though that worried her. A lot. “Brian, it’s not worth you getting in trouble,” Candace murmured, her hand planted on his chest.

James exploded. “What the hell is wrong with you, Candy? Siding with this piece of trash over me? I’m not worth him getting in trouble?”

“That’s not what I said! You need to get out of here. This doesn’t have one damn thing to do with you.”

“It has to do with all of us,” Sylvia interjected. She was staring at Brian as if he was something she’d found on the bottom of her shoe. “And I don’t have to go anywhere. I think you forget whose name is on this lease, Candace.”

“Yeah?” Brian asked, shifting that burning intensity to Sylvia, who took a step backward as if he was going to physically assault her. “There’s no one’s name on my lease except mine. You keep this up, and there’ll be another one. This shit stops right here. I don’t give a damn who you call.”

Michelle just looked at him. “I have one question,” she said quietly, and he turned to her, his expression softening. “Is Candace the one you were talking about the other night?”

Candace’s frown deepened. When had the two of them talked? About her?

He nodded. “She is.”

As if some decision had been reached in her mind, Michelle took Jameson’s arm and pulled him back. “James, come on. It’s all right.”

“The hell it is,” he thundered.

Michelle looked imploringly at her aunt. “Aunt Syl, you’ve seen that she’s fine, now you’ve got to let her live her life. If he’s who she wants, that’s her decision, not yours. If you don’t let her go, you’re going to lose her forever. He loves her, and he’ll take care of her.”

But Sylvia Andrews was ever the ice queen, and the fires of hell probably wouldn’t even melt a drop from her. “I refuse,” she all but hissed at Brian, “to stand by while you move in on my daughter.”

He slid his hand over Candace’s shoulder. “I’m already in, and there’s nothing you can do about that.”

Candace put her arm around his waist. “Mom, I love you, and I realize I acted irresponsibly. I wish it hadn’t come to that. But you can either accept us, or you can do your worst. I don’t care. Cancel my lease, I’ll move in with him. Cut off my tuition, I’ll get a job until I can get some student loans and finish on my own. I have half a mind to do that, anyway, because I’m tired of depending on you if this is what my life is going to be like. You have no power here anymore. I know that drives you crazy, but all I can tell you is to get yourself in therapy or something, because like he said, it ends here. Right now.”

Sylvia’s expression steadily fell during her harangue. James’s only became more outraged, and he stared at her much the same way her mother had looked at Brian. “My God, Candace, what have you lowered yourself to? You would turn your back on all of us so you can be his whore—”

The movement beside her was so sudden she blinked and almost missed it. One moment Brian’s arm was around her shoulders, the next he’d lunged forward. One loud, painful crack later, Jameson dropped to the ground, blood gushing from his nose. Immediately, she knew any headway she might have made had just been destroyed.

Oblivious to Michelle and Candace grabbing at his arms, Brian bent over and with both hands jerked James up by his collar. “If you even dare to think the word whore again where she’s concerned, I’ll hang your nuts as knockers on her f**king front door, you got me?” Throwing him back down, Brian straightened and looked at Candace, barely leashed fury seething in his dark eyes. “If they won’t leave, I have a simple solution. We’ll get the hell out of here.”

“Oh, you don’t have to worry,” Sylvia said, staring down at her son, who was rolling over so he could get to his feet. Candace could swear there was disappointment in her expression. “We’re leaving, before you can assault someone else.” That wintry gaze lifted to Candace’s face. “You see what you’re getting, don’t you? How long do you think it’ll be before it’s you lying on the floor with a bloody nose?”

Even Michelle rolled her eyes at that comment. “Aunt Syl, that’s freaking ridiculous, and you know it. If I were the physical sort, I’d kick James while he’s down.” She stepped over him and brushed past Candace and Brian as she entered the apartment. “You guys come talk to me.”

Brian followed her, but Candace lingered at the door. “Mom, I…” Her voice trailed off, but Sylvia lifted a quelling hand anyway.

“I don’t want to hear it. You do what you feel you have to do, Candace. I don’t care anymore, either.”

“That’s not what I want. I don’t want you to not care. I just want you to see how you’ve hurt me, especially about this. He means everything to me. Maybe we’ll stay together forever, and you know what? Maybe we won’t. Right now that’s not the point. The point is, he’s my choice. The risk is solely on my shoulders.”