I roll my eyes. “I’ve already heard this from Dad.”

“And now you can hear it from me. You’re going to be running Calloway Group and you’re a woman. Right or wrong, you will always be dealing with men who think you are lesser, simply because you are a woman.”

“I’m fully aware of all that, Mom.”

“I know you are. Just . . . keep it in mind when you choose who you have standing beside you in life, because as hard as it may seem now, the weight on your shoulders when your father is no longer in the picture is going to be tremendous. You’ll need someone who can hold you up when that weight gets to be too much. Someone who’s there to catch you when you fall, and help you get back up.” She reaches out to pat my hand affectionately. “Maybe Kyle is it. Though it sounds like he already has low expectations for you two lasting, and I’m not sure that’s the right foot to be starting off any relationship on, forget one with you.”

“He’s scared.”

She purses her lips. “Then be sure that what you’re feeling is real. I wouldn’t want you getting hurt a second time by him. ”

“Kyle didn’t hurt me the first time. Dad did.”

“Fair enough. Still . . .”

“Dad’s making me so angry lately.” I break off a piece of flatbread and nibble on it, savoring the potent rosemary and oil drizzle. “Though he surprised me last night, by admitting to being wrong about the way he’s handling Tripp.”

“Yes, I’ve heard you’re having problems. I talked to Rhett,” she adds when I give her a questioning look.

I should have known. At least the little gossip kept his mouth shut about Kyle.

Mom smiles softly. “You know, you’re more like your father than you’d like to admit. You’re both hardworking and tenacious. And sometimes you get so wrapped up in your big, lofty plans that you lose sight of the little things that are just as important to you. Take some time to remind your father of that. He’ll come around, eventually. Oh!” she manages through a sip, her brows curving ever so slightly—either from recent Botox injections or her own natural impulse to keep facial expressions to a minimum, to avoid needing further Botox treatments—“speaking of Wawa, since you brought it up . . . Jackie told me they shut it down.”

“Seriously?”

“I know!” Her voice is full of dismay. “Ruth was going to send Robert this summer but when she went to register, they said it was closed.”

“They must be so upset.” My mom’s older sister, Jackie, and my cousin, Ruth—eight years older than me—all attended Wawa in their youth. Robert would have been the third generation of my mother’s family to attend. “Do you know why?”

Mom shrugs. “Time to move on, maybe? I’ve asked my agent to keep an eye on the property, in case they put it up for sale.” She smiles secretively behind a sip of her wine. “Wouldn’t that be something? I could buy it just to spite your father.”

“Not a bad idea.” I clink my glass with hers. “Maybe we can go in on it together, so if I end up back with Kyle and I’m forced to leave Calloway Group, we can run the camp.” Dating a starving writer was one thing; Dad would never be able to stomach his daughter settling down with our building’s security guard, let alone one with the Miller gene pool’s rap sheet lingering in the shadows.

“I really hope it doesn’t come to that.” Her lips purse in thought. “I know it sounds harsh, but I think you need to consider the positives about what your father did. You were only sixteen and you still had a lot of growing up to do. Think about it . . . Brown, then Wharton, and the internships to get you where you are now. How would you have managed keeping your priorities straight while carrying on with a boy like this Kyle? I mean, you were fired from your summer job because of him, Piper.”

“Don’t blame Kyle. That was as much my fault as it was his. And what’s going on with you? It sounds like you’re making excuses for Dad’s shady behavior.”

“No.” She holds her manicured hand in the air. “I most certainly am not excusing your father’s behavior. I’m just trying to help you see past your anger and think about this logically.” She offers me a sympathetic smile. “We’re your parents. We only ever want you to be happy. But we’re also human and have our own set of experiences that have shaped how we see life. Our own pitfalls that we’ve tumbled into. Sometimes it’s hard to stand by and let your children learn the hard way. And sometimes we screw up. But I promise you, whatever your father did, it wasn’t through selfish or malicious intent. He has always had your best interests in mind.” She shrugs. “And it sounds like his methods, however twisted they may have been, helped this boy in the long run, too.”

“Yeah, they did,” I admit reluctantly. Kyle did say that he doesn’t hold a grudge against my father, that the money changed his life for the better. Knowing that does temper my anger a touch. Just a touch, because there would have been better ways to help a boy in need than to threaten him.

I sigh. “I can’t just move on. Not without knowing whether we could work.”

Mom seems to mull that over. “You two weren’t ready for the kind of feelings you’d fallen into back then, but maybe you are now.”

I frown. “You’re confusing me. Are you suggesting that Kyle and I should be together?” Because everything she’s said up until now has sounded like the exact opposite.

“It is confusing, isn’t it? Life? To be so sure of something in your head but unable to ignore what’s in your heart.” Her eyes narrow on her fork tines in thought. “I think that if you and this boy . . . this man, now . . . really want this to work despite the challenges, then you’ll find a way.” She offers my hand a reassuring pat. “You are your father’s daughter, after all. And when he married me, I didn’t have two pennies to rub together.”

“But your looks and your charm were priceless.”

Her soft, musical laughter soothes me. “If I remember correctly, this boy was rather cute, despite the funny hair. How did he turn out?”

“He turned out just fine.” I give her a knowing look.

“A security guard, you said?” She smiles secretively through a sip of wine. “Do they use handcuffs?”

I cringe. “Mom!”

“Seventeen Cherry Lane. This is it.” The cab driver squints as he peers over his steering wheel to take in the condominium, the six o’clock evening sun bouncing off the windows. It isn’t one of the buildings we developed, but it’s nice, all the same.

Seventeen cherries.

I hand the driver a wad of cash for the fare plus a healthy tip for putting up with the stops we made on the way here. “Just wait here a minute, in case they’re not home, okay?”

“You got it.”

I slide out of the backseat of the taxi and make my way through the glass doors. The intercom is to the left. I promptly punch in 717.

And wait.

Disappointment begins to swell as it rings three . . . four . . . five times, until a male voice answers on the sixth ring. “Yeah?”