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All He Really Needs(41)

By:Emily McKay


Sydney was looking at him with raised eyebrows and an arch expression. Her tone and words were teasing, but he could see in her eyes that she wasn’t about to back down on this. He was struck by the sudden urge to pull over the car and…and what? Demand she get out and mind her own business? Or maybe just kiss her senseless so that they’d both remember where the boundaries of their relationship were. This was supposed to be about sex and pleasure. Not about prying painful childhood memories out into the light.

When he didn’t say anything—because, God, what could he say?—she kept talking.

“You know, if it was me, I might feel guilty that my father treated her so badly.”

“Who said he treated her badly?”

“I inferred it from the fact that your father hates Sheppard Capital and has tried to destroy them financially. If that’s not horrible treatment, I don’t know what is.”

“Yeah,” he muttered, his voice gruff. “Good point.”

She had him so distracted he’d actually forgotten the conversation they’d had less than an hour ago. Or maybe he’d just blocked it out. He wasn’t used to talking about his family with other people.

“Yeah, that’s a nice theory, but I’m well past the age where I feel like I have to justify my father’s behavior. He’s an ass. There’s no point in me apologizing for that.”

“And yet you clearly feel guilty for how Sharlene was treated. If you’re not apologizing for his behavior, then for whose?” She was silent for a minute, then abruptly she swiveled in her seat so that she was looking at him straight on. “You can’t feel badly about how you treated her when she broke up with your father.”

He shrugged, not entirely sure what to say, partly because it hadn’t occurred to him until just then that he even felt guilty about it.

“She was like part of the family. Like my stepmom or something. Then, all of a sudden, she was gone from our lives.”

“You were, what? Nine?”

“Ten.”

“Look, Griffin, your father’s love life is clearly all kinds of messed up. It was wrong that he had a mistress for all those years and acted like it was normal for her to spend time with you and be your friend. It was wrong for them to put a kid in the middle of all that. You were ten. You shouldn’t have even known what was going on between them, let alone felt guilty for not sticking up for her or something.”

“Maybe not. But I knew she’d been treated badly. Maybe I shouldn’t have done something when I was kid. But I’ve been an adult now for twelve years. That’s long enough that I should have found the time to apologize.”

She seemed to be considering him seriously, but then she gave a snort of derision. “If you were acting like an adult at eighteen, then you’re a better person than I was at eighteen.”

He thought about what he knew about her—the things she’d told him and the things he’d learned on his own. “Yeah, I don’t believe that for a minute. At eighteen, you were what? In college, taking eighteen hours a semester and working two jobs to pay your way.”

He knew he’d slipped up the second the words were out of his mouth. Suddenly he found himself wishing the traffic would clear. Mere moments ago, he was glad for the traffic because it allowed him to postpone the inevitable. Now he wished he was already there.

She hadn’t seemed to have realized his gaff yet, but she was smart and—unlike so many people he knew—she actually listened to what others were saying. He figured he only had a few more seconds before—

“Wait a second.”

And there it was.

“Okay, I know I’ve mentioned college. But I never said anything about two jobs.”

He faked causal. “I was guessing. You’re not the type who would want to incur a lot of debt. You’re not the type who would have let your foster mom pay for you.” He glanced in her direction, but her gaze was still narrowed and suspicious. “It was a lucky guess.”

“Were you guessing about me having a foster mom, too? If you had to ‘guess’—” she made air quotes “—what college do you think I would have attended while I was working these two jobs?”

Five semesters at Houston Community College and another four at the University of Houston. “How would I know?”

“Yeah. That’s what I’m wondering. How would you know?”

He kept his gaze on the bumper of the white Ford in front of him. Damn traffic.

After a second, he glanced over at her. “How much trouble am I in here?”

She seemed to be considering him, but there was a playful gleam in her eyes. “I haven’t decided yet. I guess it depends on how invasively you’ve invaded my privacy.”