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‘All right, well, let me give you a rundown. The resort’s facilities are basically luxury log cabins arranged in secluded settings throughout the two-hundred-acre property, which borders the Great Smoky Mountains National Park.’ He reeled off the information he’d been reviewing on the plane while she slept. There was no pool, but she didn’t need to know that just yet. ‘Monroe guarantees privacy and high-end spec for his mostly celebrity and/or super-rich and gullible clientele.’ Nope, not gonna rise to the pissy tone. At all. ‘His method of therapy, such as it is, seems to be based on a standard cognitive behavioural approach.’
‘Hang on a minute. Therapy? What do you mean therapy? You said this was just a glorified holiday.’ She sounded horrified. So horrified he almost smiled.
Did she think he was a masochist? As if he would have suggested spending two weeks in couples’ therapy with a woman he hadn’t spoken to in sixteen years? As tempting as it was to string her along for a few minutes, though, and watch her freak out entirely, he was way too knackered to handle another hissy fit.
‘I said his method of therapy. There’s no actual therapy involved. Which is convenient given that from my research I can’t find any evidence of couples’ resolution training on his part. What he calls therapy is basically just active participation in “bonding exercises”.’
She sighed, her relief palpable as she muttered something under her breath that sounded very religious for a woman who had never gone to church to his knowledge.
‘So how exactly am I supposed to fit into all this?’ The pissy tone had downgraded to tense, which Luke took as a good sign. ‘We don’t want to repair our relationship. In fact, we don’t even have a relationship to repair,’ she continued in an incredulous tone. ‘And if you brought me here to pretend we do, then you can forget it, because Oscar-worthy acting was not part of the agreement I signed.’
OK, maybe not completely un-pissy.
‘No acting required. Because we do have a relationship that could use some work.’ He let the assertion echo in the car above the twang of Hank Williams Sr’s guitar.
The Lexus slipped round another bend before she finally spoke. ‘And what relationship would that be?’ Scepticism dripped from every word.
‘Our relationship as Lizzie’s parents.’
Hank Sr wailed melodically about cheating hearts and crying all night over the purr of the car’s engine. To her credit, when Halle finally replied, she didn’t sound pissy, she sounded astonished.
‘Lizzie’s eighteen. You walked out when she was two and a half. Why on earth would Monroe believe after all these years we would suddenly want to repair our relationship as her parents?’
Good question. When they could have sorted it out years ago if she had been prepared to stop sulking and actually communicate with him about their daughter.
Unfortunately, having that showdown would have to wait until his brain didn’t feel as if it were turning to mush.
‘If Monroe asks, I’ll do the talking,’ he said, stowing his resentment for the time being. He’d waited sixteen years to set Halle straight about his role as Lizzie’s dad. He could wait a couple more days. ‘But I doubt he will,’ he added, feeling suitably magnanimous.
He’d dragged Halle out here to do the right thing for Lizzie. And possibly win a Pulitzer. Not to rehash their past.
‘If I’m right about this guy, all he’s interested in is the bottom line,’ he continued. ‘Which in this case is the chance of some great publicity.’
‘He knows you’re a journalist?’
‘Of course he does. He thinks I’m writing a puff piece. The best cover stories are the ones that don’t deviate too far from the truth.’
‘So he knows who I am, too?’
‘Don’t worry, he offers his clients complete confidentiality. I checked,’ he said, heading off the latest hissy fit at the pass.
‘All right, but what happens to your article if he does fix it?’
‘Fix our relationship, you mean?’ He risked a look away from the road, feeling light-headed. And not just from exhaustion. Was she actually going to admit how counterproductive her sixteen-year sulk had been so soon? ‘So we can finally start to communicate amicably with each other about what’s best for our daughter?’ he added.
‘I certainly hope that’s not what you asked him to do.’ She slanted a look that didn’t exactly scream contrite—or amicable. ‘Because then you really aren’t going to have much of an article on your hands.’
‘How do you figure that?’ he said, confused now.
‘Well, it’s hardly a rigorous test of his methods or abilities now, is it?’
‘Why not? You’ve refused to talk to me for sixteen years except through your solicitor, despite repeated requests from me.’ Forget nudging. ‘If you’re still pissed off about what I did, I don’t see how we’re supposed to get past that if you won’t speak to me.’ And sod magnanimous, too. ‘If Monroe can put a stop to your epic sulk, I’d not only be impressed, I’d be totally bloody gobsmacked.’ Which was exactly why he wasn’t about to leave it to Monroe.
‘I don’t doubt you would be, because it would involve him getting me to do what you want, without you having to get your hands dirty,’ Halle replied. ‘Which has always been your preferred rule of engagement.’
‘What the hell’s that supposed to mean?’ he shouted, sixteen years of resentment finally blasting through the last of his composure—and his good intentions.
He was getting his bloody hands dirty. In fact, they were good and filthy. The shit he’d had thrown at him already included the sad truth he wasn’t as immune to Halle as he should be—not to mention their pointless return trip to the humiliations of his youth on the plane. And they weren’t even at the bloody resort yet.
