“How was your lunch?” she asks.
“It was really good. I wish you both could’ve joined us.”
“I know, we’re sorry,” my mother says. “Your father and I were well overdue for our skin checks. We’ll definitely come along next time.”
“I’ll hold you to that.”
“And where’s Adrian?” my father asks, still not looking up from his screen.
“He’s golfing with Gavin.”
He grunts, almost in annoyance. “Typical coward,” he mumbles under his breath, but loud enough for me to hear.
“Dad! Please don’t start,” I warn him.
He flicks his gaze to me, chin tipped down as he peers over the rims of his glasses. “Sweetheart, I’m not trying to start anything. But he’d be a fool to think we don’t notice him avoiding time with us. He’s already taken you and Zac so far away, and yet he can’t even show the decency or respect to be here with us.”
“He’s avoidingyou, Dad,” I emphasise. “And can you really blame him? You haven’t exactly been the most welcoming towards him.”
“Eh! Then he can man up and tell me himself instead of always running away like a scared little boy.”
“Frank!” my mother bellows. “That’s enough. You’re too old to be holding onto grudges like that. What they do in their family is their business. He’s a wonderful husband and father, and he’s proved that time and time again. So, stop interfering.”
“I’m not interfering, Justine. I’m simply looking out for my daughter and grandson’s best interests, because clearly, Adrian is only looking out for himself. I’ll never understandwhy he pushed his family to leave in a hurry and start a new life in a town where they know no one.”
He glances my way once again. “There was nothing wrong with your lives here. You were thriving. So I don’t believe for a second that it was because of a better job opportunity. I know there’s more behind his sudden decision to move you all away. And I’m going to get to the bottom of it.”
“Adrian didn’t force us into anything we didn’t want to do, okay? We were more than ready to move.”
He shifts slightly in his chair until he’s fully facing me, his tone now sharper. “Then tell me, my sweet girl—are you honestly happy where you are? Or are you just going to stand there and pretend everything’s perfectly fine, like you always do when it comes to your husband’s poor, idiotic choices?”
“You know what? I think I’ll go for a walk.”
“Oh, honey. Your dad’s just in one of his grumpy moods again. Pay him no mind,” my mother says as she glares at my father.
“I’m not, actually. I’m happy as Larry right now. It doesn’t change the fact that I still think her husband’s a tool.”
“Oh my God! I’m going for my walk before I say something I’m going to regret. Watch Zac for me, please. I’ll be back in forty minutes.”
Before either of my parents can utter another word, I spin on my heels and walk out of the room, straight through the front door. I don’t even bother slipping on my sneakers—walking in flats is a small sacrifice if it means I don’t have to spend another minute listening to my father talk about howshit of a husband Adrian is. I’ve heard enough of it over the years to write an entire novel.
But even as I stroll along the pond, the soft splashes and quacks of ducks filling the air, I can’t shake the unease left by that conversation with my father.
If there’s one thing he’s always been good at, it’s sensing when something doesn’t add up—and when someone isn’t telling the whole truth.
Chapter 9
Kaden
The words on the computer screen blur into a meaningless jumble, letters strung together without order or sense. No matter how hard I try to focus, my mind keeps drifting back to Adrian and his family, the image of them outside Jason’s restaurant lingering with me, five days on, refusing to loosen its grip.
It’s consumed my thoughts all week, so much so, that not even my side projects or journaling have been enough to distract me from it. And now, sitting in my office at work, staring at the endless stream of emails flooding my inbox, I find myself struggling to concentrate on anything else at all.
I still can’t believe I saw him—the man I’d only known from a distance until a few days ago, a face I’d never expected to see in real life. And seeing his wife and child alongside him, wrapped in what looked like a loving, picture-perfect moment as a family, has my blood simmering even now.
Adrian continues to live his lie, while the people closest to him still see him as a hero, someone incapable of the kind of deception he’s committed. I’d bet good money he thinks he’s escaped unscathed, that there will be no consequences for his betrayal. That his wife will never know the truth about the man she’s built her life around.
It makes me wonder how he’s managed to get away with it for so long, and worse, how much longer he plans to keep stringing his family along. My thoughts drift, inevitably, to Skylar, and the sharp ache that comes with remembering how deeply I hurt her by doing something very similar.
