Thanksgiving was just another workday for Sophie, with the exception of letting herself sleep in for as long as she wanted to before she got down to business. That’s why she was confused when she awoke to someone ringing her doorbell … again.
Her first thought was of Nate, but there was no way it was him, she knew. Iona was the only other person who might be out and about on a holiday and who knew where she lived.
The condo was chilly, so Sophie threw on a sweatshirt over her pajama pants and camisole. As she hurried to the door, she twisted her hair through an elastic band to the back of her head. Glancing toward the kitchen on her way, she figured she could whip up some scrambled eggs and toast for an impromptu Thanksgiving brunch if Iona stayed for a while.
She opened the door without looking — a mistake she’d learn to never make again.
“Oh,” she said, stopping short.
“Sophie, don’t slam the door, please,” her father said. He held out a bouquet of light pink tulips. “May I come in?”
Sophie stared at him for seconds, dumbfounded. She scowled and started to close the door.
“Sweetheart, wait.” He held a hand out against the door, stopping her.
“First thing, do not call me sweetheart. Second thing, how the hell did you find out where I live?”
He looked up and down the hallway. “It wasn’t that hard to track down. Could I please come in for fifteen minutes? Then if you want me to leave, I will.”
She stared at the thinning dark hair that matched the color of hers, at the lines that traversed his face — no laugh lines or crinkles from smiling too much — and saw a weary, old, unfamiliar man.
“Fine. Fifteen minutes.” There was no if. He would leave the second his time was up.
She opened the door and stood back, wishing herself a happy fucking Thanksgiving.
“Where to?” he asked, gazing around her apartment like a spy.
“Right here’s fine.”
He held up the flowers. “Got a vase?”
She didn’t want anything that would remind her of him, but skipping the argument would get him out of here faster. She took the bunch and slapped them onto the pass-through to the kitchen.
“Sophie,” he said when she turned back around, “I am the world’s worst father.”
She leaned against the wall and crossed her arms over her chest.
“I owe you an apology.”
“I stopped waiting for anything you might owe me years ago,” she said, not bothering to hide the bitterness from her tone.
“I deserve that.” He nodded. “I don’t blame you for hating me, but I’m wondering … I’d like to try to earn your forgiveness.”
He looked at her imploringly, and she merely raised her brows. Being such a bitch was almost uncomfortable, but this was the father who’d deserted her family, she reminded herself. The father who had turned his back yet again, for the last time, two weeks after her mother had died, when Sophie had dropped every last bit of her pride and asked him for help paying for college. Had money been the issue, she would’ve held it against him less, but his reason had been that he had a new family and hadn’t wanted to “rock the boat,” as he’d said.
“You can’t earn forgiveness,” she said.
“Well, I sure can’t get it without apologizing, so I’d like to start there. Sophie, I am sorry as hell for the way you grew up. I’m so, so sorry I never took your brother’s problems seriously.”
After all these years… She’d waited for so long for her dad to acknowledge any kind of problem, even before he’d walked out on the family. For as long as she could remember, she’d been the afterthought. Her brother had been the attention hog, with their mother tirelessly trying to get him psychological help and her father endlessly belittling her mother for being unable to handle a “rowdy, attention-seeking boy.”
There’d been a time, eons ago, when his apology would have changed things for her, but now … it was so little and so very, very late. Her heart had hardened, and she couldn’t just thaw it on a moment’s notice.
“You thought Mom was nuts,” she pointed out.
“I couldn’t acknowledge that my son, a child who came from my genetics, might have serious problems. I can see now that’s due to my own insecurity, but Sophie, after figuring out what he did to you—”
“What do you mean, figuring out? He confessed.”
