Page 121 of The Truth of Us

“No, Dad,” my voice broke. “I don’t know if I can do this again.”

His face changed; the mask cracked just for a second. Long enough that I saw the man who had lost everything once and was terrified of watching the world reach for what he had left.

“You won’t.”

“They’re doing it again.” My voice sounded so fragile and young, even to me.

His eyes closed, and I watched the words hit him. Watched grief move through his body like something physical. Then it was gone, no, contained. Put somewhere he could survive it. He reached for my phone, locked the screen, and placed it on the counter above us.

“No more.”

I laughed; it came out jagged. “You can’t stop the internet.”

He looked at me. “Watch me.”

That almost made me cry harder.

Thomas appeared again. “Sir.”

My father’s head turned. “What?”

“The security team is downstairs; they say that there are multiple vehicles outside and they are trying to clear the way for the two of you to head into the offices today.”

“Talk to the lead on today; tell him to double the team.” Thomas nodded, and my father continued, “No access to the townhouse. I want everyone to be clear; no one reaches her without my approval.”

“Understood.”

My father's voice was calm, but that was when Alexander Montgomery was most dangerous. He didn’t yell when he was furious; he didn’t bellow when he was scared. He organized and controlled what most people would assume was uncontrollable.

He stood and helped me to my feet, saying, “We will not hide again, and I will keep you safe.”

The townhouse changed within an hour. Two additional security personnel in the lobby, a black SUV parked out front, my father on calls in the library, voice low and lethal.

I sat at the kitchen island in a sweater too soft for how wrong everything felt and stared at nothing while people moved around me. I had thought I was ready; at the gala, I had believed it. For a few shining hours, I stood beside my father and felt powerful. I felt like maybe visibility didn’t have to be a wound. Then morning came, and the world reminded me what it did with women like me. It turned us into stories. By noon, the articles had multiplied. Some were glowing, others were speculative, and some pretended to be compassionate while picking through my mother’s death like a dinner plate. One had a timeline, a fucking timeline, of my father’s alleged affair. Then they did an hourly play-by-play of the paparazzi frenzy, and my mother retrieving Will from Blackridge. How I was last seen at the funeral, and what my disappearance from public life must have been like for a sad little girl. I made it halfway through before the edges of my vision darkened. I shut the laptop, and then five minutes later, when I tried to open it again, my father was there taking it from me, handing it to an assistant and walking me to his office so he could keep an eye on me. He gave me a new phone and instructed me that an assistant would screen any communication before it came to me, for now.

At three, Thomas entered the library; my father looked up.

“What?”

Thomas’s eyes flicked to me, then back. “Your father is here, sir.”

My father’s face hardened. Every trace of warmth vanished so completely that for one terrifying second I saw the man the world feared.

“No.”

Thomas nodded once. “He says he only wants to help.”

My father stood, slowly, a rough texture to his voice when he said, “Tell him to leave.”

Thomas hesitated, his eyes tracking to me for a moment before saying, “He asked to see Miss Montgomery.”

My grandfather was here for me. The man I remembered mostly in fragments. A harsh voice, the smell of expensive tobacco, my grandmother’s bitter smile, arguments behind closed doors, and my father standing between us even when I didn’t understand why.

I pushed back from the table, and before I could say anything, my father gave a curt “No.”

“He might…” I tried.

“No.” The word cracked through the room.