She said nothing. David reached out to take Jenn’s hand, both of them wide-eyed.
“You were also thePthat Yvette went to twenty years ago,” Nico said. “Did she ask for the money or did you offer it to keep her away?”
“It was you?” repeated Roger. “You did that with Dad, behind my back? Lied for thirty years about knowing I had a child?”
“It was the right decision,” she said. “Dad knew it would ruin your life to be saddled with that girl.”
“I had achild. You had no right to keep this from me.”
“You only knew Yvette for a summer,” Penny snapped.
“I was in love!”
“You might have had a crush back then, but now you’re in love with an image. A perception based on nostalgia.”
Roger looked at her with what Nico at first thought was contempt, but it morphed into pity. “I can see why you think that,” he said. “You don’t understand love can simply happen. You’ve never known its magic.”
“Stop talking like a teenage girl. What magic? You don’t know what would have happened with her.” Penny sounded infuriated. “I bet the baby was to trap you. You could have broken up the next day.”
“It doesn’t matter what might have happened,” said Roger. “You took away my opportunity to find out.”
“Roger, we’re Badgertons. I wasn’t going to let my children lose out on their rightful inheritance to her, the same way Dad wasn’t going to let her take our name.”
“Fuck the money. My daughter is a Badgerton as well, and thanks to you, I missed her entire life.” Roger stared at Penny as if he didn’t recognize her. “I want you gone. Now.”
“I live here.”
“I saidnow. I can’t stand the sight of you. I might be a father but you stole my chance to be a dad.” He didn’t raise his voice or change his tone, but there was so much hurt and anger coming off him that it choked the room.
Penny glanced around the shocked faces and decided to make a graceful retreat. “I’ll talk to you when you’ve calmed down.” Penny turned on Valerie. “Look what you’ve done.”
“You’re just like Dad,” said David softly.
Her back stiffened. “I’ll take that as a compliment.”
He shook his head. “You shouldn’t.”
She left and Roger sat down heavily on the chair as Alice came up to give him a hug.
Nico took a few deep breaths to try to flush out the emotions. It made him uncomfortable to witness a rawness that was usually covered by the veneer of civility. He felt a deep pity for Roger, and none forPenny. The room was silent, and when Valerie took the opportunity to escape, Nico didn’t hesitate to follow her out the door. This had nothing to do with him.
After all, it was a family matter, and he wasn’t family.
That was fine by him.
Thirty-Three
Valerie was in the bunkie, packing as fast as she could. She should have known this summer would turn out to be a mess. Shehadknown, but as usual, she hadn’t listened to herself. She sat on the bed with her legs crossed and tried not to cry. She’d wanted to be liked by Penny so badly. She’d thought she was, or at least that Penny had warmed to her. Why was she such a poor judge of people?
She’d ignored all the bad feelings under the Badgertons’ happy facade, as usual trying to fool herself into thinking it was fine so she wouldn’t have to deal with it.
Look where that got her. In total disregard of Ruth’s Rule 5: Trust your gut. “We’re animals but we like to think we’re not,” Ruth had once said after they’d headed off a fight between two guests. “The gut is more sensitive than the brain.”
Valerie had always thought trusting her gut too much was what got her into these muddles, but was it? She’d known this Badgerton thing was going to be bad, the same way she’dknownhiring Alexis was bad, or kissing Nico was good. The gut always knew but it was her brain thatled her wrong. Her brain said she needed to keep other people happy but her gut said she mattered as well.
Her phone buzzed and she grabbed it, hoping for a message from Roger or Nico. It was a wall of text from Alexis, asking when she was going to be in Toronto so they could sign the partnership papers.I’ve already updated the website, she wrote.Good thing I had the passwords so I don’t have to waste more time waiting for you.
In the mess of the Badgertons, she’d forgotten she had to deal with Alexis. Her stomach tightened as she read through the text, then looked at the new Ad Astra website, which promised unique prewedding experiences for busy brides in an eye-aching magenta cursive font. She’d had multiple chances to stop this. Now she could simply go with it, the way she always had, to her own detriment and out of shame she hadn’t been brave enough to speak up sooner, or she could put an end to it.
