“Is that what’s happening right now?”

“Yes. She barges into my office and room unannounced, throwing accusations in my face. She’s walked in on two dates I’ve had since coming here. Shattered two of my sculptures. Then there’s what she did to Lenny and Poppy, of course. I knew that. I knew. That’s why I kept my distance from them. I told myself it would all be over in a few short months, and things would go back to normal.”

“Bullshit. Lenny and I both heard you in your room,” I challenged. “You told her to get off of you. You had sex.”

“She was trying to seduce me!” he shouted. “She gets into fits where she tries to have sex with me, but I always push her off. I’ve called her father a few times. Her sister, too. They said I deserve it for what I did to their family. She’s a martyr, dragging me through every single sin I supposedly committed.”

“Why are you allowing her to spend so much time with you, then?” He didn’t seem the type to bone a teenager, but I was still skeptical.

He swallowed hard. “More time with her means less time for her to target Lenny. Children shouldn’t suffer for their parents’ misdeeds. I’m humoring Arabella’s destructive side until her time here is up. But I am not touching her, and I am horrified that my daughter would think that. Does she not know me at all?”

“Have you taken the time to get to know her recently?” I retorted.

His head hung low, like a half-mast flag.

“Has she shared this with Poppy?” He sighed.

I shook my head. Len hadn’t gathered the strength to upset her older sister. When you care about someone—and at this point there was no point denying I cared for Lenora—you really don’t want to be the bearer of shitty news to them.

“Thank God.”

“Don’t thank God, thank your daughter. You have to make amends with her.” I pointed a warning finger at him from across the room.

“I don’t know, Vaughn. Parenting is bloody hard, okay?”

He wiped sweat from his brow, dragging his massive back against the wall and squatting down. I did the same, crouching across from him, on the other side of the room.

“The truth is, kids don’t come with a manual. I’m not always sure when she’s acting up because she needs to, because it’s normal, and when it’s serious. Lenora has always been so inherently good. Both my daughters are, really. But Lenny has loads of common sense and a spine for miles. I’d never been particularly worried about her. I thought I was merely allowing her a rebellious period, thinking she was mad about the internship again.”

The internship. I almost winced. That one was all on me.

“You need to talk to her today. Set the record straight. Tell her exactly what’s up.”

He nodded.

“As for the internship…” I continued, the words leaving my mouth of their own accord. “The plan has changed. I need your help with something.”

Edgar frowned. “You’re still going to show the sculpture, right?”

Of course. Edgar loved Len so much. That’s what she didn’t know. She thought him giving me the internship was him disregarding her. She didn’t know he’d made the greatest sacrifice for her. It was me who’d deceived them. At first, anyway.

I’d told Edgar I would make his daughter fall in love with me and get her out of her emotional funk. That I would court her, love her, cherish her, and be a friend to her. He, in return, sold her dreams to buy her happiness. With me.

We’d both lied to get what we wanted, and it had blown up in our faces in a spectacular fashion.

“I’m not showing the statue.” I flicked my Zippo, letting the flame lick up and pressing it to the tip of my tongue, fully aware he was going to put me on fucking blast. The secret to extinguishing fire with your tongue is a lot of saliva. And very little fucking common sense. “But we are going to show them something, all right.”

My meeting with Edgar somehow bled into late afternoon. I gave him careful instructions on how to handle everything with Len. It felt like placing your toddler in the irresponsible hands of an untrained monkey, but I knew I had to get the hell out of there, and fast, after I executed my plan.

When I finally returned to my room, all I wanted was to kick my boots off, close my eyes, and pretend tonight was going to be just another night of me sneaking into Good Girl’s room.

But of course it wasn’t.

As it also happened, I had a surprise waiting for me in my bedroom, which had nothing to do with my two asshole friends.

“Evening, son.” My father turned around in the recliner by the window, his movements smooth and nonchalant. There was an unlit cigar tucked between his teeth, and a glass of something strong in his hand.

“What are you doing here?” I felt my jaw ticking with irritation.

Talk about shitty timing. The last thing I needed was another distraction. With my luck, my mother was here, too, along with the entire goddamn family.

“Sit your ass down.” He jerked his chin toward my unmade bed.

“Or?” I draped a muscular arm against the wall, challenging.

“That’s an easy one,” he sneered. “Or I will stand up and make you very goddamn uncomfortable by hugging your ass. Because that’s what you need right now, isn’t it, Vaughn?” He slanted his head sideways. “A hug?”

I sat down, resting one boot over his recliner in my small room. I’d been hugged by my dad more than a fucking tree in Woodstock, but there was something about his expression that threw me off. He knew something.

“Here. Sitting down. I’ll ask again—what are you doing here?”

“You’ve been ignoring my calls.”

“I spoke to Mom every day. You never took the phone. Gotta hand it to you. You know how to master the hard-to-get act.”

That was the strangest thing about the entire Dad ordeal, but also precisely what made me not answer his calls. He was on to something, and whatever it was, he didn’t want Mom to hear it.

Dad sat back, but he didn’t look smug. A pang of worry pinched my chest. He had the constant air of someone who’d just fucked your wife, emptied your safe, and taken a shit in your bed. Now he looked surprisingly somber. Somber meant trouble.

“We had to talk privately,” he said.

“Clearly.” I scanned his face, looking for clues.

“I figured it all out, son. I’m sorry. I’m so. Fucking. Sorry.” His voice broke midway, and he turned his face away, his jaw clenching like mine did. His throat bobbed.

No.

No.

I dropped my head into my hands, elbows on my knees, and shook it.

“Troy Brennan?” I asked. It had to be that fixer he’d hooked me up with. How the fuck else did he figure that out?

“No. I made a promise and kept it.”

“Jaime, then?” I snorted in false amusement. He must’ve told Dad I was in some kind of trouble. I didn’t even have it in me to be mad at him. It was the logical thing to do. Still, shitty as hell. He’d signed a contract.

“No,” Dad said, standing up and taking the necessary half-step toward me.

I didn’t want any of what he was about to offer—not the pity, the pain, the shame, the feeling that accompanied those things. Still, he sat next to me on the bed.