They both froze. There was a knock, and just before Maddison entered, Teagan slid off Colin and threw the covers up over her head.
“Dad?” Maddison asked, clearly onto the fact that some mischief was afoot—or under the covers as it were. “What are you doing?”
“Ah.” Colin soundedcaught red-handedguilty. “Just catching up on some work.”
“Really?” Maddison was no fool. “Because you’re sweating a little. Since when does patient care make you sweat so much you lose your shirt?”
“It’s a really hard case,” he said, and Teagan snorted because his case was fully hard.
“Why am I not surprised?” Maddison sounded oddly calm and collected. As if she were the parent who’d walked in on two horny teens. “I guess this is the part where you tell me you can have sex but I can’t.”
“I’m an adult.”
“So am I, but I’m the only one acting like it right now.”
Teagan had to agree. Where Colin sounded defensive, Maddison sounded low-key. “Can you tell the other adult hiding under the covers she has a visitor at her own house, where her own bed and her own husband are waiting for her.”
“Husband?” Panic flooded her, and that post-sex glow she’d been basking in vanished, turning to dread. There were only so many reasons Frank could be in Pacific Cove—none of them good. And all posing potential harm to her girls.
Blanket carefully tucked under her armpits, she popped her head out. Maddison was leaning against the doorjamb, arms crossed, expression dialed to bored. “Frank is here? Like next door?”
Maddison looked at her as if she was not only a hypocrite but a traitor. “He seemedsuperconcerned when no one knew where you were.”
“Of course he did.” Like he was the one put out.
Reaching with a single arm, she felt around for her bra, which was—shit, downstairs. Knowing thatthatwasn’t going to work, she snagged her tank from the foot of the bed and dove back under the covers to put it on. Way harder than it looked in the movies.
“Seriously,” Maddison said, sounding grossed out. “I’m right here.” And that’s when Teagan realized it looked as if she was giving Colin a blowie.
Tank in place, Teagan poked her head back out. “I’m getting dressed!”
“Whatever the kids are calling it these days,” Maddison said.
Teagan slipped her hand out from under the covers to grab her skirt and, with her daffodil panties and bra MIA, stood and headed out the door. She heard Colin fumbling around behind her.
“Wait up! Let me walk you home,” he called out.
Exactly the kind of chivalry she did not need at this particular moment. “Not necessary.” She picked up the pace, hoping to outrun him.
“You can run,” she heard from behind, “but I’m still walking you to your door, Bianchi.”
“Great.”Just great.Because having her past and present collide was exactly how she wanted to end this mind-blowing night.
When she’d walked through his front door, she’d known what she was agreeing to. When he’d sweetly and romantically asked her out on a date, she’d allowed herself to hope that he’d felt the shift toward something potentially amazing. But knowing what was awaiting her next door, and the father-daughter conversation awaiting Colin, Teagan worried that maybe they’d moved too fast without considering the repercussions.
* * *
If life was an adventure in forgiveness, then Teagan needed a new tour guide. Because there wasn’t just one traitorous adult lounging on the couch sipping her expensive scotch in a tumbler like a character in a noir film, but two.
“What are you doing?” she asked Harley.
Her sister looked back and forth between Teagan and Frank before carefully answering, “Being a gracious host.”
“You can practice being a gracious host when you have your own house, Martha Stewart.”
Harley went quiet and Teagan turned to Frank, who had apparently escaped rehab, two months early, with a girl on each knee, sitting there like he hadn’t missed a day. Like he hadn’t turned her world upside down.
Like he hadn’t completely fucked her over.
