A couple of years before, Thackeray College had brought in a counselor to help train its administrators and educators on the most common signs of depression in students so that we could better identify anyone who might be struggling. But it didn’t that two-week course for me to know that something was seriously off with Victoria.

When she wasn’t up all night sitting at her computer or binge watching old episodes of Friends, she was sleeping for long stretches at a time. She also wasn’t eating much. When she did sit down to a meal, she just pushed her food around her plate. And sometimes when I’d walk in the door at night after a long day on campus, she would still be in the pajamas she’d had on when I’d left, her body rooted to the same spot on the sofa.

When pressed, she insisted everything was fine, but I knew better.

Currently, she was lying face down on the bed, her body akimbo and her hair matted to her head. By the looks of things, it’d been a couple of days since she’d last washed it.

I pushed off the door jamb and picked my way across our bedroom, avoiding the piles of clothes that’d somehow tripled in size over the last twenty-four hours.

Sitting down next to her, I pushed Victoria’s hair back from her face. “Come on sleepy head, time to get up.”

She groaned and tried to pull the covers up over her head.

“Nope,” I said, grabbing hold of them so she wouldn’t be able to. “You have guests coming over later tonight. It’s time to get up.”

“Can you call them and cancel?” she asked, turning away from me.

That was the other thing. She hadn’t spoken to her brothers in a number of days. Even though they’d called practically non-stop—and in Drew’s case, even stopped by—she’d shut herself off from them.

We were all becoming worried.

“Sorry, no can do. All the food has been bought, and everyone’s expecting us to feed them.”

She groaned again. “Just tell them to go to our mother’s house.”

“They’re coming here. It’s all arranged.”

She sat up and stretched her arms above her head with a yawn, revealing a giant ice cream stain on the front of her faded Omar t-shirt that I recognized as pistachio ice cream. She’d taken to eating it straight out of the carton—practically the only thing she would eat these days. “Okay, fine. But I’m not showering until I’m done cooking. I don’t want to smell.”

That sounded reasonable. Except, my girl could really use a shower. Now.

Ever since the night our parents had shown up at my house on Dobber’s Island, things had gone from bad to worse. A few days ago, Alex had finally confessed that their mom had told Victoria that as long as she and I were together, she was no longer welcomed at family events.

Never—not once in all my years—had I ever wanted to cause physical, bodily harm to another person, but if Veronica Witherspoon Carstairs had been standing in front of me when I’d heard the gist of those messages, I would have gladly shaken some sense into her. Or died trying.

I was under no illusions that Victoria’s current state was a direct result of the appalling way her mother had been treating her. I’d spoken to my father a couple of times since that night, but he seemed clueless when it came to dealing with his wife. The most I’d gotten from him was a tepid, “I’m sure it’ll blow over.”

Well, it hadn’t blown over … but it needed to, and fast.

And if my father or Victoria’s brothers weren’t going to do something about it, I certainly was.

“Hey, why don’t you hop in the shower? I’m going to run out and grab some molasses for the pie. I just realized I forgot it when I went to the store yesterday.”

Victoria waved me away as she dropped back down onto the mattress with an oof. “Sounds good. I’ll see you when you get back.”

I rose to my feet and stared down at her, helplessness churning in my gut. I might be overstepping my bounds, but I couldn’t stand by and watch the woman I loved sinking further and further into the pits of despair.

It was time for a conversation with her mother.

“Oh! Hello, David.” Veronica glanced over her shoulder, obviously hoping my dad was behind her. He wasn’t. “If um … if you wait right there, I’ll go get your father.”

When she moved to close the front door on me, I brushed past her and into the foyer. I didn’t bother mentioning that she’d been about to leave me standing outside in the snow instead of inviting me into what was my father’s home as well. It seemed prudent that if I wanted to win her over, I shouldn’t start by calling her out on her bullshit.

That would come later.

“I’m here to see you, actually.”

“You are? I can’t imagine why.” Her eyes darted toward my father’s office.

Or, at least, that’s what he called it. The truth was he’d been retired for almost ten years, so it was really just a place for him to hole up by himself and smoke his stupid cigars in peace.

“Really? You can’t imagine why your daughter’s boyfriend would show up on your doorstep wanting to have a word with you?”

“How is Victoria?” she called out over her shoulder as she made her way to the bar, her hands shaking as she poured herself a small glass of sherry.

I followed her into the room, watching her fidget uncomfortably. The longer it took me to reply, the more twitchy she became. It would have been fun to see how far I could push her, but Victoria’s well being was on the line.

“How do you think she’s doing?”

Roni lifted her chin, a gesture I’d seen Victoria do many times. It was uncanny; mother and daughter really were spitting images of one another. It was somewhat unnerving to have this glimpse into what Victoria would look like when we were in our sixties. And yes, I planned being around then.

But first, I needed her mother to press pause on her campaign of guilt and silence. Because if these two didn’t patch things up, Victoria would grow to resent me and the rift I’d caused with her family. She might have chosen me in the short term, but in the long term, it was clear her heart was breaking. If forced to choose again, I wasn’t entirely certain I’d come out on top.

“Alex says she’s enjoying her new job at Theo’s company,” Roni said, sipping her sherry.

“She is,” I confirmed. “It’s not the newspaper, but she seems to enjoy it.”

“That’s good,” she murmured, moving across the room to perch on the edge of the sofa. “And your job? How are things going at Thackeray?”

“Things are busy, but you know that’s not what I’m here to talk about.”

She winced and blew out an exaggerated sigh. “Fine. Say what you’ve come to say, and let’s be done with it.”

I took a few steps closer and lowered my voice. “You’re breaking her heart, Roni.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” She lifted her chin haughtily.

“No, you wouldn’t. Because you haven’t spoken to your daughter in weeks.”

“That was Victoria’s decision,” she answered, spearing me with an angry glare. “She knows what she has to do to repair the damage she’s caused this family.”

“Break up with me.” While Victoria may not have told me about the ridiculous ultimatum her mother had issued, Alex had had no problem filling me in on all of the ugly, sordid details.

I didn’t know what I’d expected—evasion, maybe?—but I was shocked when Veronica didn’t even deny it. Instead, she nodded regally. “Yes, that’s right. Break up with you.”

I pulled a long, slow breath into my lungs to tamp down my rising anger. Yelling at Victoria’s mom wouldn’t do either of us any good. I needed this woman to see that I wasn’t a threat to her child. That being with me wasn’t the nightmare she seemed to think it was. “Why?”

Veronica laughed, an ugly, grating sound I was coming to loathe. She might have been a beautiful woman, but I couldn’t imagine what my father saw in her. Not when she was so willing to put her daughter through agony just to get her own selfish way. “Why do you think?”

Honestly, I had no fucking clue. I had all my teeth, and a stable career that I was proud of. I might not be the most exciting man on the planet, but I treated her daughter with respect and dignity. I loved Victoria, and she loved me. What else was there? “Why don’t you fill me in so we’re on the same page.”

“I don’t understand why you couldn’t just leave Victoria alone,” she spat, rising from her perch and refilling her glass. Or rather, replacing her glass. The last one had been tiny, practically no bigger than a thimble. Now she commenced filling a full-sized goblet to the brim. “You could have had any woman you wanted, but you had to go after my daughter.”

Wait, what?

“Come again?”

She turned on me, anger flashing in her eyes. She set her glass down and marched toward me with purposeful strides. Stabbing her finger into my chest, she bit out, “I know all about you, Professor Cockstairs.”

My eyes widened in surprise, and Veronica stepped back with a satisfied nod. “Veronica may not know about your reputation, but I do. I Googled you.”

All at once, understanding dawned. I blew out a breath and ran my hand through my hair with frustration. That fucking blog.

“You do know I have no control over what they write?”

So little control, in fact, that there was nothing I could do to get The Wild Tales of Professor Cockstairs taken down. Whoever was writing it hadn’t hosted it on Thackeray’s servers, so the school’s hands were tied. When it had first popped up two years ago, the IT department had performed a cursory investigation, but once they’d realized they weren’t on the hook for its contents, my employer had dropped it like a hot potato. Seemed they were more worried about me suing them than they were about their students posting zoomed in pictures of my crotchal region. Their advice during that last meeting? Wear looser pants.

Unfortunately, the blog had only grown in popularity since then. Now, in addition to the pictures, some students had taken to writing what Hank laughingly referred to as dirty fan fiction. When I’d pointed out that my penis wasn’t a celebrity, he’d smacked my back and said, “It is now, man. It is now.”

Early on in our relationship, I’d debated whether or not to show it to Victoria, but the woman was an investigative journalist. It was only a matter of time until she’d found it on her own. And since I’d already hidden my divorce from her, I’d decided to come clean about the blog, too. When I’d pulled it up on her tablet one night, she’d laughed until tears streamed down her cheeks and confessed that when she’d first told Drew about me, he’d mentioned the nickname. That night, we’d stayed up late into the night reading the stupid tales of horny students getting their hands on my junk, ending with Victoria acting out one of the more salacious stories. That had been the last time I’d thought about the stupid thing.

“Maybe if you weren’t fucking your students, they wouldn’t write anything at all!” she seethed, her hands fisted righteously on her narrow hips.

Oh shit. Suddenly I got it. Roni thought the blog was real.

“I’ve never laid a hand on any of my students. That site is one hundred percent fake.”

She speared me with a skeptical glare. “It sounded real enough.”

I dropped my head back, my eyes finding the ceiling. Pinching the bridge of my nose, I counted to twenty in my head. Enough time, hopefully, for me to regain some measure of cool. When I thought I could speak without yelling, I tipped my face forward. “It’s fake. A silly site that started a couple of years ago. The college tried to get it shut down, but there’s nothing they can do about it.”

“Why should I believe you?” She still sounded suspicious, but decidedly less so than mere moments before.

“Because I’m in love with your daughter, and I would never do that to her. If you don’t believe me about the blog, ask her yourself. Hell, ask Drew. He knows about the nickname, too.”

“Victoria knows?” She chewed her lip, a look of extreme unease taking over her features.

“Yes,” I nodded. “She’s known about it for months.”

Veronica fell into a wingback chair, her shoulders slumped in on themselves as the fight went out of her. She looked up at me with tears shimmering in her deep green eyes. Eyes so much like her daughter’s that it pained me to see her tears.

“What have I done?” she asked on a pained whisper.

I dropped down into a crouch and took her hands in mine. “The question is, Roni, what are you going to do to fix it?”