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“Your wife has made it clear how unwelcome I am, Dad. And frankly, you’ve done little to help me think otherwise.”
“Ella Bell,” he said in a pleading way. “Come on.”
“No, Dad. You hurt me. Stina hurts me. So I’ve stayed away.”
I’d never been so open with him before, but it was definitely time.
“I thought since you continued working for her that things were okay.”
I released a pained laugh.
I couldn’t bring myself to sit, and Dad hadn’t, either. We stood like opposite poles on a planet, each on one end of the room.
“I worked for her for so long because I felt like this job was a better fit for my goals than any other I could find. The truth was, I’d just been stuck in a rut. I knew itwould cause me some flak if I quit, and I didn’t want to deal with that. But dealing with Stina is worse.”
Dad’s mouth thinned. “If you don’t want to work for her anymore, then I’m glad you quit.”
“You are?” I hadn’t expected to hear that.
Dad clasped his fingertips together. Then he lowered his hands.
I felt his gaze on me, and when I ultimately looked his way, sure enough, he was watching me.
“I want you to come visit me whenever you want,” he said.
“As long as Pris is living there at your house, I’m not coming over.” She was ten times worse than her mom.
“Pris is engaged,” he said. “To Derek Cummins. I guess it happened Christmas Eve.”
“Good for her.” Did that proposal happen before or after she’d been escorted from the building for attacking me? If only there had been a way to permanently exclude her from entering the building again. Then none of this would have happened.
He settled onto the couch, looking perplexed. “I don’t get it. What do you have against Pris?”
What was I supposed to be? Happy for her?
How could he not have seen the odds she and I’d been at since we’d met?
“She set me up, Dad,” I said, unable to believe I had to even explain this. “Pris must have stolen those items and planted them in my locker. She had to have hired someone to alter that company security feed.”
Even Hawk thought so.
“Pris?” Dad sounded as though he were in disbelief.
“Who else? She’s had this weird idea that I’m going to steal Derek from her or something. And she overheard Hawk Danielson ask me out—so she probably wanted to do everything she could to sabotage things for me with him.
“Pris wouldn’t do that.”
My tone grew argumentative. “She told me he couldn’t be with me. She attacked me. Threw a drink in my face! All because she wanted to ensure I never had anything good.”
Dad stared at his fingers. “That’s taking things a little far.”
“Me, or Pris?”
“Pris,” he said. “She really attacked you at the ball?”
No way. He was listening to me? He was believing me?
“Yes.”
