Her heart in her throat, she crossed the distance to his table. With the last few steps, her gait faltered, but she lifted her chin and threw her shoulders back. She slipped into the chair across from him and felt like her lungs were squeezing her.
Her father’s gaze darted up, a casual glance before he buried it again in the text splayed out across his tablet. But before Jo could curse herself or rise or say something stupid, he raised his head in a near-comical double take that he barely managed to recover from. “Josephine.”
She bristled, but no. She was here to be a reasonable person, or as close to one as she got. “I prefer Jo.”
“It’s not what your mother named you.”
Yeah, because that wasn’t a fucking cheap shot. “No. It’s not.”
The past was a thing that happened. You could be hemmed in by it forever. Or you could redefine yourself, choose over and over and over again to be someone better. Someone new.
He gave a suppressed little snort and turned the screen of his tablet off, then leaned back in his chair and grasped his mug. “You’re looking better than you did last night.”
She was feeling better, too. Still, the way his eyes took her in said he didn’t think her appearance was all that much improved.
She made a conscious effort of shrugging. “We’d been at the beach all day and hadn’t had a chance to get cleaned up.”
“The beach?”
She’d ask if that was really so hard to believe if she weren’t entirely aware that it was. “It was nice.”
“Good.”
Neither of them spoke for a long moment. It would’ve been so easy to just let it go at that. To tell him to have a nice rest of his trip and head to work. The worst of the awkwardness would be over, on the off chance they did have to see each other again.
She’d be able to say she hadn’t run.
Except that wasn’t what she was here for.
She sucked her lip ring between her teeth and worried it with her tongue. Then she lifted her gaze from the table, and for the first time in she didn’t even know how long, she looked her father straight in the eye. “What are you doing here?”
She wanted to punch herself for the way her voice wavered at the end, but damn it all, she should be able to show some emotion here. It didn’t have to be a sign of weakness that his answer mattered.
His mouth darted down toward a frown. “We observe here regularly. It’s got the best sensors for the objects we’re studying. You know that.”
And she did. Of course she did. But… “That’s it?”
“What else would there be?”
“Oh, I don’t know.” A low ball of fire sparked in her lungs, a tightness she’d been trying for so long to deny. A single ember flew loose and fought its way into her throat. “Maybe something about your freaking daughter being here.”
“Josephine—”
“You couldn’t have told me? Sent an e-mail, or hell, had one of your lab monkeys send one? Anything?”
“I didn’t think…” He had the balls to look genuinely confused.
In a flash, the flames licked upward and spread. “You didn’t think. Of course you didn’t think. What kind of dad would possibly even dream of thinking about their only damn kid and how she might feel if her father just showed up at her job out of the blue. Not because he”—shit, she was actually going to say this out loud—“wanted to see her or anything. But because he had regularly scheduled work to do.”
“That’s not fair.”
“None of this is fair!” How many times had she screamed that into her pillow at night. It isn’t fair, it isn’t fair, it isn’t fair. Even last night, it’d been one of the first thoughts to come to mind. “It isn’t fair that you blindsided me like that or that the first goddamn thing you said to me in person after two years is that you didn’t like what I was wearing. You haven’t even asked me how I am—” She cut herself off, an ugly choked sound that tasted like bile in her mouth. Because that was what burned the most.
He stared at her as if he’d never seen her before, and maybe, in a lot of ways, he hadn’t. “You haven’t exactly invited a conversation.”
Somewhere in the distance, a seven-year-old’s heart shattered and broke. “Why should I have to?”
She’d gone through so many different rationales over the course of her life. She’d explained it to herself that he was sad and in mourning, or that he was angry, or that he just didn’t care. That she was unlovable, and her best defense was to never give anyone the chance to not love her again.
But maybe it’d never occurred to him.
Maybe he’d never realized he should care. Maybe it’d never been her at all.
Her ribs were the circle carved into the ground, the line of scorched earth, laid waste to keep the flames at bay, and inside, she was a conflagration. She rose, scarcely able to breathe for the smoke in her lungs.
“I’m sorry,” she said, because she was. Sorry she’d ever imagined this could be worth her time. “I can’t do this.”
Except…
Did you ever talk about it with him?
Instead of storming off like she wanted to, she rounded on him. “I’m sorry your wife died, and I’m sorry you didn’t get to have the son you always wanted. But I’m not sorry I didn’t ‘invite a conversation.’ That was your job, twenty-one years ago, and you sucked at it. I don’t care why. I don’t even want to know. I just. I tried so hard to make you happy, and it was all a waste, wasn’t it? Because you were never going to be.” She drew in a ragged, burning breath. “You were never going to be proud of me.”
She picked up her coffee with shaking hands. “So I’m done. I’m going to live my life, and it’s amazing. I’m doing so damn well, Dad. I may have gone into science to impress you, but I love it, and I kick ass at it. I have top grades, and the best summer job in the world, and I’m going to go to a better grad school than you did. I have a… a fantastic boyfriend. And I’m just… I’m going to be fine. I’m going to be great. All on my own.”
But not alone. Not anymore.
Adam had been right after all. She’d been holding on to that hurt for so long. She filled her lungs with air, and it was cool water, dousing the flames. All that was left inside of her was ash, but that was fine. Ash was the soil from which new things grew.
She was really going to be okay.
As satisfied as she was ever going to be, she turned around. Her father’s gaze bore into her, but she kept on walking, her head held high.
“Josephine… Jo.”
She wasn’t going to stop, but the nickname caught her by surprise. She paused, heart pounding, still facing away. Closing her eyes, she waited. Listening. He had until the count of ten and then she was walking, moving on with her day and her life and—
“I know you’re great. I know you’re… incredible.”
It was the last thing in the world she’d ever expected to hear, much less in that tone of voice. Screaming at herself in her head, telling herself not to invite this kind of trouble, she looked backward over her shoulder.
She blinked and blinked again, because instead of the powerful, unapproachable lord of the manor who’d presided over her home, there sat an old man. Not ancient, but tired, his spine bent, hair graying.
He caught her gaze and seemed to realize his chance. “Will you sit down again? Please?” He glanced toward the serving area. It was still mostly empty, but a couple of people had started trickling in.
Maybe it was cowardice, helping him avoid making a scene—or any more of one, in any case. But she had to work here a few more weeks, too. Feet leaden, she crossed the distance to him and perched on the edge of her seat, ready to go if he said one more wrong thing.
He hesitated for a moment, thumb moving against the rim of his mug. “You’re right. You have no reason to be sorry.” Well, at least he was off to a good start. “I was a miserable excuse for a father while you were growing up, and I never figured out a way to fix it. You don’t want to hear my excuses, so I won’t give them to you. But believe me. I know.”