“My mother sent you here.”
“Yes.”
“To set me straight.”
“Right again.”
In other words, if he didn’t have this talk, his mother would make sure she sat him down and did it herself. But for some reason, she’d decided to ask him to do it instead.
“Let’s get this over with.” Ian pulled out a chair and sat down.
His father did the same.
“I have no excuse for what I did. Your mother and I had an arrangement. I not only violated the sanctity of marriage by cheating, but I was a shitty father.”
“To some of us,” Ian muttered.
Robert braced his arms on the table. “To all of you. Savannah knew about your mother. I’m not sure which of the kids knew too, but trust me when I say, they didn’t like me not being married to their mother, and when I told them about all of you—they resented being the illegitimate ones.”
His words gave Ian pause. Not once had he thought about Alex and his siblings getting short shrift. Not. Once.
He pinched the bridge of his nose. “What’s your point?”
“You are not making this easy.” Robert shook his head, but Ian had to give the man credit, he didn’t get up and leave. No, he stuck it out.
“Did you really expect me to?”
“My point is, none of you have good reason to trust or believe in people. The thing is, you underestimate people. You underestimate yourself. Look at what you’ve done for your sisters. For your mother. You’ve been their rock.”
Compliments? From Robert Dare?
“Look at what you’re capable of, and now let me ask you, are you really going to give up on Riley when she needs you the most?”
“Now we get to the point. You really think I’m going to sit and listen to you give me advice on love?”
His father grinned. “At least I know you love her. There’s a place to start.”
Ian sat back in his chair and groaned. “Yes. I love her. But she—”
“No buts, boy. If your mother hadn’t said yes to marrying me, things would have been different. If she hadn’t said, ‘I might love someone else, but my father’s sick so I have to marry a man of my parents’ choosing’…well, I wouldn’t have you wonderful children I don’t deserve. But she’d have the man she really loved.”
Ian’s eyes opened wide at his father’s full knowledge of his mother’s emotions and feelings.
“Don’t look so shocked. I knew I wasn’t it for her. To say we didn’t have a shot? Well, that’s an understatement. But you and Riley? What could possibly be holding you back except for the fact that my behavior left you unable to trust or hold on to a good woman?”
Ian grew dizzy.
A waitress started toward them from across the room, and Robert shook his head. She stepped back.
“What do you know about Riley?” Ian asked, suddenly hungry for information about her. Starved, in fact.
“I only know what your brother told me.”
Ian held back the word half.
“Which is?”
“The concussion’s getting better, and she’s moved back home.”
“Into her piece-of-shit apartment?” His voice rose, and the older couple sitting next to him frowned at him, but Ian didn’t care.
Robert shook his head. “Your brother and I agree about her living arrangements.”
“She got a raise. She can afford a much safer place to live.”
“Therapy costs a lot of money,” his father said. “I didn’t say that out loud, did I?”
Suddenly needing a caffeine boost, Ian gestured to the waitress, who bounced over with a smile. “What can I get for you?”
“Coffee, black, please.”
She glanced at Robert. “Refill on the decaf. Thanks.”
“Decaf, huh?” Ian asked when the waitress had walked away. “I remember Mom always having your coffee ready in a travel mug whether you were leaving for work or for the airport. Strong, black, no sugar.” The memory took him by surprise.
He’d suppressed so many of his early childhood memories, the good and the bad, not wanting any part of his past, because any time he remembered, he hurt. Suddenly the hurt wasn’t as sharp.
It wasn’t the years that had dulled the pain, it was the changes in him. The softening. He knew he had Riley to thank for that.
“Therapy, huh?” he asked his father.
“You didn’t hear it from me. I just thought if you realized how much of an effort she was making to deal with her past, maybe you would do the same. I’d ask you to do it for yourself, but I have a hunch I’d have more success if it was for her.”
Ian frowned. “Because you know me so well?” he asked with no heat to his words. Not anymore. Though he didn’t think he’d ever forgive and forget, holding on to so much hatred had taken so much out of him.
His walls had walls.
And those walls had kept Riley out. Even when he thought he’d let her in, he’d been pushing her away. How the f**k else had he walked out on her in the hospital? Self-loathing filled him at the thought, and Ian rose from his seat.
“Going to get your girl?” his father asked.
“Don’t think this was a bonding moment,” Ian said.
“Wouldn’t dream of it,” his father said, raising his coffee cup in a mock toast.
Ian’s lips turned upward despite himself.
* * *
Riley worked late, not minding since she didn’t have anything to rush home for. She typed up the last report of the day and organized her desk for the morning. But now she was ready to shut her computer and head back to her lonely, empty apartment, when her instant message chime went off.
She glanced at the monitor, hoping Dylan hadn’t found a reason for them to stay even later. She was exhausted. She hadn’t been getting much sleep since the incident with her father. Since she’d left Ian’s and had gone back to sleeping alone in her own bed.
She looked at the screen, and her heart nearly stopped beating in her chest.
Ian: I need to speak to you.
She blinked, certain she was misreading. He’d avoided her since her return to work. She hadn’t bumped into him in the hall nor had he sought her out. He hadn’t called to check on her either. He’d just cut ties, and damned if that didn’t hurt. After the longest month of her life, he was asking for her now?
She knew he couldn’t want anything job related. She didn’t work under him.