Page 28 of Contempt

Before.

Purposely.

“What did it, anyway?” her dad asked.

“Huh?”

“Guilt from your brother, or …?”

Oh.

He thought she came here because John emotionally blackmailed her into it. That was so far from the truth, it wasn’t even funny. Sure, she might not have known that their father was sick had John not let her in on the secret, but she came home because of something else her brother had said.

She had enough time.

It was enough.

“I came because I wanted to come,” Lucia said, smiling a little. “That’s all, Daddy.”

“I’m going to be fine, Lucia.”

“I know.”

She was sure he would.

He was her dad.

How could he not?

“But while you are here,” her father said, “maybe we could work on … well, us.”

She blinked.

Yeah, there it was.

“Maybe,” she whispered.

“You still can’t forgive me, then?”

“I forgive you.”

The lie came out easily.

Maybe that was the guilt.

Lucian laughed under his breath, and hugged her a little tighter. “You don’t, and I know it. You might look like your mother, Lucia, but God knows you are just like me.”

Yeah.

She really was.

“Okay, then I want to forgive you,” she said. “Or get to that point.”

That was not a lie.

She didn’t want to live forever in a constant hurricane of contempt and pain that she had created by forcing distance between her and Lucian. She didn’t want to feel like she hated him whenever he crossed her mind.

She loved her dad.