Reeves frowned. “Do you think I associate with kidnappers?”
“I don’t think you associate with anybody youknowto be a kidnapper. But whoever this is, they’re targeting your family. Don't you wonder why that is? They must have a reason. It doesn’t seem likely to be random,” she said sensibly. “Whoever this is, it’s someone who has a problem with you, Reeves. It’s someone who wants to punish you through your daughter. That’s my theory, anyway. Do you have any enemies?”
So, she was saying this was his fault? That it had only happened because of him?
Reeves turned away from her. He couldn’t even bear to look at her. Not after hearing her say that.
There was a long silence.
“Reeves,” Bridget said quietly. “You know I’m only trying to help. I’m not trying to be argumentative.”
“You don’t need to tell me that what happened to Emma was my fault,” he said, his tone dark. “I know it happened because of me. I’ve known that all along.”
“What do you mean?” she whispered.
“It’s the reason she won’t talk to me,” Reeves said. These thoughts had plagued him from the moment he’d recovered his daughter, but saying them out loud made him feel worse than ever. Still, he kept going. It was like extracting a poison. Maybe if he forced himself to say it, it would finally stop hurting as badly as it did.
“She isn’t talking to anybody, Reeves,” Bridget said. “You can’t think that’s about you.”
He turned to face her. Her eyes were wide, her hands at her sides. It took him slightly aback. He’d expected a more defensive stance.
“It is about me,” he said. The words threatened to choke him. “You know it is. That’s the reason you wanted to come back here in the first place. It’s the reason you aren’t willing to leave now. You know she’s more comfortable with you than she is with me. It didn’t seem so odd at first, when she had only just been savedand was used to being at the orphanage, but now she’s back at home. She ought to know she’s safe here. She ought to feel more at ease. Don’t you ask yourself why that hasn’t happened?”
“These things take as long as they take, Reeves.” She took a step closer to him, and Reeves tensed. “I’ve told you not to rush her.”
“But why is she so much more comfortable around you than she is around me?” He shook his head. “You don’t have to answer. I know the reason. It’s because her kidnapping was my fault. Because I didn’t protect her. The night she was taken… I made her angry. She ran away from me, and that’s when she was grabbed. If I had protected her, it wouldn’t have happened. She would never have been frightened or hurt. And what she’s learned is that she can’t rely on her own father to keep her safe.” He shivered as he said it. He had been carrying this pain for a long time.
Bridget stared up at him. “That isn’t true,” she said, her voice quiet but steady. “That isn’t what’s happening here, Reeves.”
“Do you know that? Did shetellyou that?” His tone was sharper than he’d intended it to be, but he didn’t apologize for it. He was too upset to be responsible right now.
“You know she didn’t,” Bridget said evenly. “But you also know I have experience with these things. If what you’re saying were true, she would be acting differently toward you than she is acting toward other people. This isn’t a case of Emma blaming you for what happened, Reeves.”
“She is acting differently toward me,” Reeves growled. “She’s treating you like a kind stranger she just met—exactly what you are, in other words. But she isn’t treating me like her father. You didn’t know us before all this, Bridget. You don’t know what things were like between us. You have to trust me when I tell you that this is abnormal. She has never been like this toward me, and the only conclusion I can draw is that she knows what I know. She knows that trusting me was a mistake. She knows to never put her trust in me again, because when it comes to keeping her safe, I’ve failed radically. She sees the truth, and she isn’t going to allow herself to put her faith in someone who has let her down.” He sighed. “The truth is that I wouldn’t want her to. I want her to protect herself from people who fail her, even if that means me.”
“But, Reeves…”
She was going to argue with him again, he could tell. And he couldn’t bear it. He couldn’t stand here and listen to her say that he was wrong about all this. Not now that he had finally managed to get these words out.
He held up a hand. “Leave me be,” he said. “Let me focus on preparing for the ball. I truly believe this is the best way to move forward—the best way to ensure that the person who attacked my family is finally caught.”
She regarded him for a moment, and he wondered if she was going to press the issue and try to go on arguing—but at length she sighed and turned away, leaving Reeves alone with the cacophony of his thoughts.
CHAPTER 22
Reeves spent the remainder of the morning on his own, throwing himself into preparations for the ball. It seemed like the only thing he was capable of doing, the only thing that stood a chance at helping him get his life back on track.
It wasn’t until after lunch—a meal he ate standing up so that he wouldn’t have to leave his work even for a moment—that Bridget came to him again.
“I need a bit of your time,” she said.
It was a mark of the fact that they were getting to know one another better that he wasn’t shocked at her audacity. He was growing used to this sort of thing from her. And though he wanted to tell her firmly that she couldn’t insist on things from him, he had been through this enough times to know how that was going to go.
“Very well,” he said. “I was thinking of taking a break anyway.”
She nodded and led him from the ballroom out into the foyer, and then toward the front door. He frowned as they made their way to it. “Are we going outdoors?”
“Yes,” she said.
