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“Dani, I’m sorry.” I say it only to her, throwing every bit of my sincerity into it.
Her eyes grow dark. “I don’t care.” She stands up from the table and her chair legs drag loudly across the wooden floor. “I can’t do this right now. I’m going upstairs.”
“No, wait. Dani—” I stand but she holds up her hand.
“Leave me alone, Fox.”
She charges through to the main hall and Smith follows her out.
Bennett rises to his feet. “You heard her, kid.”
My mother pulls herself up, but her eyes stay low. “I just need a minute…”
“Mom…”
She doesn’t stop for me. I listen to her shoes clack across the front hall toward the stairs, leaving me alone with Bennett.
“You’re making a mistake,” I say. “She’s not safe here and your little rent-a-cop isn’t going to do a damn thing to protect her.”
“I’ll get more of them,” he says.
“It won’t be enough.”
He laughs like a man chuckling at his kid for still believing in monsters under his bed. “I’ll decide what’s enough when it comes to protecting my daughter. Not you,” he growls. “Obviously, I need to remind you about our little arrangement.”
“Arrangement?” I lower my voice. “I wouldn’t call you telling me to get the hell out your house an arrangement.”
“I find it a little bit suspicious that the second something bad happens to her, you’re suddenly back from the dead, Fox.”
“This has nothing to do with feelings I may have had for her—”
“May havehad?” He scoffs. “Please, kid. I saw the way you were looking at her. It’s the same way I caught you looking at her five years ago and I will not have you coming back into her life and mucking it up all over again. She’s a good girl with a good career and your little crush isn’t going to ruin that.”
“You mean it won’t ruin your little money factory.”
He flexes his jaw. “You’re out of line, Fox.”
“That’s all she ever was to you.”
“She’s my daughter.”
“Then, let me protect her! She won’t be lining your pockets anymore if she’s dead.”
“Get the hell out of my house, Fox. And this time, don’t come back.”
Fucking idiot.
Bennett has always been overprotective of Dani but in all the wrong ways. He treats her the way a real estate mogul values a new subdivision. She’s an asset to him, not family. Sure, he likes to throw the d-word around as much as possible but it’s a novelty, nothing more.
“You’re going to regret this, Bennett.”
I step back into the front hall and my shoes echo across the marble floor. My pace slows as I pass the stairs, like a bit of muscle memory wanting to charge them. I look at the top and see the door to my old room at the top. I’ve always wondered if Mom kept it the way it was or if Bennett had it converted into a home gym that never gets used.
She’s up there. Now. I feel the urge to veer off course and run up the stairs to appeal to her myself but there wouldn’t be enough time before Bennett broke the damn door down.
As I step outside, I see the flashing bulbs down the driveway. The paparazzi. I should be more concerned about my face getting plastered all over the internet. Who is this mysterious man going in and out of Roxie Robert’s childhood home? Is there a new love affair on the horizon?
I keep my head down and throw myself into my rental car, but I didn’t come all the way home just to be booted out after an awkward twenty minutes. I can’t just pack it in and go back to Mrs. Clark’s guest house.
