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“I don’t think you have enough experience with me to make that call. But it’s interesting to hear your opinion, especially because your wife seems to think that’s exactly what happened.”
“Lynn would like to believe it. Then she’d be justified in disliking you.”
Ellen blinked at him. “So...you’refinally going to be honest?”
“I love Lynn,” he said. “I can only say so much, but I’ll give you that.”
“Of course,” she said bitterly. “We wouldn’t want you to lose Lynn, no matter how unfair she’s been to me.”
“She’s brought a lot to my life, a lot that was missing. Maybe I’m an asshole for grabbing hold of that, Ellen, but I’ve been much happier with her than I ever was with your mother.”
“We all have choices to make in life, and you’ve made yours,” she said. “That includes abandoning me for a woman who’s never shown me any kindness.”
“You have every right to be angry,” he said. “I’ve let you down in the worst possible way.”
She said nothing. She wasn’t going to correct him because he was right.
“And now you finally have the chance to take your revenge—on Lynn, if not on me,” he added.
Ellen swallowed hard. She could already feel the burn of tears. Although she was determined not to let them fall, it was so hard to control her emotions where her father was concerned. The second she encountered him, she seemed to turn into the ten-year-old girl who was so devastated when he didn’t love her enough to demand his new wife accept her and treat her right. “If you’re here to ask me not to, you have some nerve,” she said.
“I would never presume that much.”
“So what do you want, exactly?”
“Are you seeing Hendrix?” he asked.
She didn’t know how to answer that question. He’d just called her honest, but the honest answer to that might be more than Hendrix wanted his aunt and uncle to know. “We’ve become...friends,” she hedged.
“He admires you a great deal. I can tell.”
Determined not to give too much away, she didn’t respond to that specifically. “Would it be a problem if wedidstart seeing other?” she asked.
“Not for me.”
“But it would for Lynn, even though we’re both adults and should be able to choose who we want to share our lives with.”
“After all she’s done for him, she’d take it as a personal betrayal. As a matter of fact, she already has. She and Hendrix had a huge argument this morning, and she fired him.”
Her astonishment must’ve shown on her face because he said, “He hasn’t told you?”
“I haven’t heard from him,” she admitted, and now wondered if there was more to that than just being busy. Would Lynn be able to ruin the happiness Ellen had found? She and Hendrix hadn’t been seeing each other long enough to have established strong ties. For all she knew, Lynn had already ruined any chance they had to find out where their relationship might go.
Just the thought of that made her feel sick. But Lynn always won. Why wouldn’t she win now?
Except... Her father wouldn’t be here ifshedidn’t hold at least some power in this situation. Maybe Lynn hadn’t gotten the best of her quite yet.
“I haven’t heard from him, either,” Stuart said. “And he won’t pick up when I call.”
“I haven’t even tried to reach him, but I hope he won’t let your wife manipulate him any longer.”
“Manipulate him...”
“Isn’t holding a job over someone’s head manipulation? Isn’t emotional blackmail manipulation?”
“Maybe it is,” he said, sounding too tired to fight over it. “And that will be Hendrix’s decision.”
“You won’t override Lynn and give Hendrix his job back?”
