Of course he cared, only not in the way she was implying. “I told you. I’ve been wanting to show you off since day one.”
She rolled her eyes at that but didn’t actively call bullshit.
And maybe he was pressing. He grabbed her arm, stopping her before they could go any farther. Pulling her around until she was facing him. “Seriously, though. What changed?”
She hesitated, her gaze going to the side before returning to him. Even then, it focused somewhere to the right of his ear. “I don’t know. I just…” She shrugged, no affectation to it at all. Her defenses were so low he could hardly see how they were continuing to fall, but they were. For him. Standing straighter, she looked him in the eye. “I didn’t want to be afraid anymore.”
His beautiful, brave girl.
He leaned in, cupping a hand around her cheek. Laughing. “I’ve never met anybody less afraid than you.”
He wanted to prove to her just how courageous, how amazing he thought she was, but before he could take that last step forward to catch her lips with his, a voice sounded out from the other end of the hall.
“Ms. Kramer! There you are.”
They turned as one to find P.J. peeking out of the doorway that led toward the telescope control room. Her expression was oddly expectant. Like she’d been waiting for Jo to drop by.
Jo curled her hand around Adam’s and drew it down, away from her face without letting it go. “Dr. Galloway?”
“Oh, and you’ve brought Mr. McCay with you. Lovely. Come along. We’re in here.” P.J. waved them to follow her. Adam looked to Jo questioningly, but she seemed as mystified as he was. P.J. held the door to the control room open for them, saying, “I wasn’t sure if you’d get my message, but we were able to squeeze in some observation time, and I was sure you’d want to see—”
P.J. cut off as Jo froze. Her palm went clammy in Adam’s, and when he turned, it was to find her suddenly, shockingly pale.
“Jo?”
Jo’s throat worked convulsively before she choked out, “What’s he doing here?”
Adam frowned, following her gaze to the bank of monitors. To the same chairs where he and Jo had sat together just a handful of nights before. A woman Adam had never met sat scrolling through the data, while to the side, near the racks of servers, stood a man. He was a little shorter than Adam, dressed in a black collared shirt and khakis, his hair going gray at the temples.
At the sound of their voices, he looked over his shoulder at them, eyes sharp and dark. His chin lifted, his shoulders drawing back. He was staring right at Jo.
P.J. faltered, and a sinking feeling crept into Adam’s gut.
“Jo?” he repeated. “What’s going on?”
“The hell if I know.”
The man at the other end of the room took a single step forward. “Josephine.” He looked her up and down. “What on earth are you wearing?”
Jo flinched, and Adam did, too. Gripping her tighter, Adam asked, “Jo? Who is that?”
She pulled her hand from his.
Voice wavering, speaking only loud enough for Adam to hear, she said, “My dad.”
Oh, of course, her—
“Wait, what?” For a second, all Adam could do was stand there, gawking between the two of them, absorbing all the things he’d missed the first time around. The shape of the man’s nose and the set of his eyes. The way he carried himself.
A low, sudden burst of rage rolled through him.
In this very room, Jo had told him about this man. Adam didn’t pretend to know the half of it, but he knew that this was the guy who’d made Jo feel like crap about herself for most of her life. The guy who’d made her feel like she wasn’t enough.
It took everything he had in him not to walk right up to him and punch him in the face.
But while he’d been wrapping his head around it all, Jo had taken a step away. And then another. She turned on her heels. Adam made to reach for her and pull her back, calling her name, but she shrugged him off and shouldered her way through the door.
It felt like he’d been slapped.
By the time he came to his senses, the door was slamming closed.
And Jo was gone.
Chapter Seventeen
Jo stormed down the hallway, scarcely seeing where she was going and not even giving a flying fuck.
It wasn’t fair.
Here. Her father was here. Just when Jo had finally managed to make these huge strides in her life, the very day she’d opened up and let her goddamned guard down. Let herself stand in the ocean half naked, let her boyfriend kiss her in the surf—even fallen asleep on his shoulder. Just when she’d allowed herself to actually have fun for once, surrounded by these people who had become her friends.
He had to show up here. Now. When for one fraction of a second she’d managed to be happy.
The unfairness made her want to scream and stamp her feet like a fucking five-year-old.
And oh God. The things Dr. Galloway had been saying as she’d beckoned Jo to join her. They hadn’t made any sense at the time, but they came together now, forming an ugly picture she could hardly stand to look at without spitting bile.
She’d assumed Jo knew he was here. Of course.
Jo turned the corner, out of sight, and put her back against the wall, rubbing the heels of her hands into her eyes until it hurt, until she saw stars, and she could claw them right out. A barking mockery of a laugh burned her throat, choking her like smoke. Like the ashes of the last twenty-one years. Because any normal father would tell his kid he was coming a few thousand miles to end up at the same tiny point on the map where he knew she was going to be.
She’d told him. In an e-mail, the same way she communicated anything in the rare instances she had to. She’d gotten a terse acknowledgment, so he’d seen it all right. And shit. Fuck. She skated her hands to her hair and tugged, hard, yanked until her eyes watered, but her stupid brain still wouldn’t shut up.
She’d done everything she was supposed to. Followed him into the sciences and kicked ass at it, even if she was a girl and it was so goddamn hard. She hadn’t meant to, but she’d even picked astronomy, because she loved it, because it made sense to her. Not even out of any idiotic desire to prove something to him or to herself.
And yet. Deep beneath it all, beneath the tattoos and piercings and bitch boots and everything else that told people to stay the hell away from her, she’d hoped. Hadn’t she?
Still hoped, somewhere in the softest, most useless part of herself, that he’d… what? Be proud?
She’d been so stupid.
Dr. Galloway had said it herself. Her dad was here to do some observations. Not for her. Never, ever for her.
And yet she still managed to be surprised.
He’d insisted on calling her by her full name. Worse, the only thing he’d had to say to her beyond that was to ask her about her clothes. She tore her hands from her face and glanced down at herself, and hell, of course he had. She was grimy and covered in salt, her hair a wreck, and she wanted to tear these awful trunks off her body. She’d walk the whole way home buttfuck naked for all she cared. Because that would be better, wouldn’t it? At least that would make it clear exactly what she was.
Back the way she’d come, a door opened, the sound of it followed by the rapid thuds of footfalls against linoleum tile. She calculated in her head. Probably Adam, but it could be her dad, and her heart rate soared. Neither option was good. Lord knew what she’d say to her father, and if it was Adam…
No way could she handle that. She was falling to pieces here, and he’d want to, what? Hold her? No. Absolutely not. He already knew too much, and if he saw her like this… Just the idea of it had her muscles going taut. Not that it mattered. She was shaking. She’d been such a fool to let him see as much as he had already.