“He worked hard to provide for you.” Even I don’t believe this. Christmas? Birthdays? I’d never miss those for Bea. The bad feeling inside me grows.
“This went far beyond providing for me, and you know it.” She swallows and looks down. “When you aren’t with the team, you’re with Bea.” Her mouth twists into a pained, hurt smile, and my gut sinks. “He was working. He’d find something to do, find some excuse. He wasn’t around. He chose his team, his guys—” She pins me with her gaze, and I know she’s talking about me, “over us. Over me.”
I’m speechless. He didn’t talk about Natalie’s illness and I didn’t pry, but I didn’t realize he wasn’t there. I assumed he was.
Who wouldn’t be?
Some of the anger leaves her eyes. “I think a part of me has been blaming you for years that he chose you again and again but—” She takes a deep breath, and it’s like she lets something go. Something she’s been holding onto. “It isn’t your fault that he always chose someone or something over me, and it’s that simple. That’s Ross Sheridan, Tate. He isn’t there when I need him.”
She holds my eyes, suddenly looking so young. Hurt, too. My heart aches and I rub the back of my neck, looking away.
Coward. That’s the awful word that comes to mind for the man I’ve always considered a role model.
“I didn’t realize. About him not being around while you were growing up.” I swallow, a tight ball forming behind my sternum. “He always talked about you. Bragged about you. Had a photo of you in his wallet.”
Probably still has it.
“I didn’t know,” I say again, for some reason. Because it matters, I guess.
“I know I’m privileged.” She lifts her chin. “I know I’ve had more than most people. Why do you think I pay my bar staff so well? I’m trying to make up for it, Tate. I’m trying to make a positive impact on this planet and not leech off my rich father. I’m trying to make my own way without him.”
“You have.”
She makes a low noise. “Right. Thanks.” Her voice drips with sarcasm.
“I’m serious, Jordan. You run your own business in a city where commercial real estate is through the roof. Living expenses are high and the food and beverage industry isn’t easy. I know that.”
“Yeah, well.” She shrugs, looking away. It’s as close to a realthanksas I’m going to get.
A pause lingers while my mind races with everything I’ve learned and realized in the last five minutes. An ache throbs behind my eyes.
“Your father loves you. Even if he doesn’t know how to show it. I know he does, Jordan.”
“Okay.” Her throat works again. “Maybe he does, in his messed-up way, but it isn’t my responsibility to pick up the slack on his side of things. My mom, she...” She presses her lips in a tight line. “She loved me so much and she showed me that, every day. She was there. Shesmotheredme with love. She wanted to be around me, even when I was a bitchy, moody teenager. I never doubted how much she loved me.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be. She was so...” She sighs, and a little smile tips up on her mouth. “Sparkly. Like pure sunlight, you know? So fun and kind and warm. She would walk into a room and everyone wanted to be her friend and talk to her and know more about her. Andshelovedme.” Her eyes shine but she blinks the emotion away. “So don’t be sorry. Yes, Ross was a shit dad. Ross wasn’t around. Ross would rather coach his guys and mentor his perfectprotegé than talk to his daughter. But I had Natalie.” She shrugs, expression turning blank again. “That was enough.”
An awful sensation rips through me—like the ground tilting beneath my feet. My perspective shifts and an unwelcome realization hits me: I was wrong.
I was wrong about Jordan Hathaway and I was wrong about Ross Sheridan.
“I’m sorry I got upset.” I feel stripped bare, exposed and vulnerable that I lost my cool because of her.
“It’s fine.” She darts a sidelong glance at me. “It was kind of fun, making you lose it like that.”
“I didn’t lose it.”
She snorts. “Oh, you lost it.” Her mouth is flat but her eyes are bright, and I smile.
“Before we go back in,” she says, toying with the ends of her hair, “I need to say one thing. You said Ross and Bea aren’t close, but he has that little hockey stick of hers on his keychain. That’s the kind of thing he never did for me, you know? So it sucks to see him care about your kid more than he cared about me.”
She starts to walk past me but I step in her way.
“Jordan.” My hand comes to her arm. “Bea didn’t give him that hockey stick.”
She frowns at me. “A kid made it. She’s probably the only kid he knows.”
