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ChapterFive
Maybe it was wrong to pawn the responsibility of her father’s eulogy off on Oz, but considering her own emotional state due to the circumstances, Devon felt she was far too focused on her father’s last moments with another woman to write of favorite childhood memories, accolades, and love.
She couldn’t praise the man’s good deeds when she drowned in the depths of his betrayal, especially in light of her mother’s inability to cope.
Regardless, Oz agreed to do the chore, and she left him in her father’s study while she went to her bedroom and pulled out her phone to call Ted.
She needed to hear Ted’s voice. Needed to talk to him. Especially after the hugs she’d received from Oz had made her angrier that Ted wasn’t there to offer comfort as she’d asked him to be.
And all the feelings and emotions dredged up by Oz’s touch? Proximity. That was all.
“Hello? Dev, is that you?”
“Yeah. Hi,” she said simply.
“Sorry, babe. I’ve been meaning to call all morning but things got hectic.”
“They’ve been a little hectic here, too,” she said, unable to keep her voice as even as she’d have liked. “Dad passed last night.”
“Yeah, I heard.”
So he had heard—but he couldn’t take two seconds out of his day to call? “When are you coming down? You’ll have a few days to make plans. They have to do an autopsy first and then release the body to the funeral home.”
“Devon, have you seen the papers?”
“Papers?”
“Who’s the guy?”
“What guy?”
“The guy holding you in the pictures?”
Her mind flashed to the scene at the hospital when the reporters had burst into the waiting area. “Oh. Ted, that wasn’t what it looked like. They literally captured the moment we learned that Dad passed. Oz was… just being a friend.”
“Your ex-fiancé, Oz?”
She grimaced. “He’s a longtime family friend,” she said to Ted. “It wasn’t like that. I promise. He was just… He gave me a hug. Had you been there, it would’ve been you,” she said, hoping the statement would hit home. “Ted… I don’t want to fight. I want you here, with me. Please?”
“We talked about this. You know I can’t.”
Can’t? “My father died. Are you seriously saying you can’t come to the funeral because of how it might reflect on you?”
“Justin is working twenty hours a day doing damage control,” Ted said, referring to his campaign manager. “And that picture of you with your ex certainly didn’t help. He’s heard the comment like father, like daughter more than once.”
Were people really so petty? “So let’s show the world it was nothing by giving them a united front with you at my side as I bury my father.”
“Babe, you know I can’t drop everything and leave. I have meetings and events I can’t miss.”
“That’s why I stressed the fact that you have a few days to prepare and rearrange your schedule,” she said softly.
“I’m sorry about your loss, but the best thing for you to do is steer clear of Oz and come home,” he said. “We’ll show a united front here, okay? Yeah, yeah, I’m coming,” he said to someone. “Devon, I gotta run. Flowers are on the way. I’ll try to call you tonight.”
The phone clicked in her ear without so much as a goodbye or love you from her fiancé. She thought of the ring in her upstairs dresser, now hidden from anyone who might wander by and see it lying about.
Reality set in with the weight of an anchor dragging the bottom of the ocean. She didn’t like it. She didn’t like it at all.
She redialed the number but of course Ted didn’t answer. “You didn’t call me even though you knew my father had passed, and now you’re too busy to be with me when I need you the most. More than I’ve ever needed your support. That says a lot, Ted. Too much, in fact. If protecting your image is more important than being here for me for my father’s funeral then… this will never work. We will never work. I’ll return the ring when I get back to New York.”
