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“I’m sorry.” In that moment I hated my father all over again.
“You have nothing to be sorry about. I shouldn’t even care at this point, but I swear it’s like a wound being reopened.” She smiled at me, but it was sad, distant. “I wanted to be here with you when you found out.”
Not only had he cheated on my mother, ran off with his too-young wife, but every time his happiness came rising back up, it was like a slap in my mother’s face.
“He’s an asshole,” I said, and she looked over at me and gave me a sad smile.
“He’s your father. I don’t want you thinking badly of him.”
“Then he shouldn’t have cheated on you and abandoned us for a piece of ass.” This anger rose in me so violently I felt my hands shake.
“It was wrong of me to come here, to burden you. But I wanted to tell you the news in person. I’m sure he’ll call you tomorrow.”
I could only shake my head. “He told you today?”
She shook her head. “No, I was talking with Cheryl, and she said she overheard Bob talking to your father on the phone.”
Cheryl had lived next to us nearly my entire life. After the divorce, Cheryl had washed her hands of my dad, but her husband, Bob, still kept in contact, apparently.
“She thought I knew already when she brought it up.” She glanced at me then. “Not that I expected Michael to call me and tell me, and honestly I’m glad he didn’t, but to hear it secondhand from the neighbor?” She snorted.
I hated that he was still controlling her emotions, that he had this effect on her. It was hard for her to even have her own life because I knew she still loved him. How could she not?
Even betrayal couldn’t stop somebody from caring. Even heartache couldn’t make those emotions vanish.
“Everything will be fine, Mom. He’s not worth it. Father or not, he hurt both of us, and at this point I don’t want him in my life.”
“Oh, honey. Don’t say that. He divorced me, not you.”
I shook my head. “The way he went about all of this was underhanded in the worst kind of way.” My mother didn’t say anything, and instead I held her as we both sat there in silence, the atmosphere heavy and thick.
He’d done this to her and me, and all I wanted to do was shout and scream at him, to tell him how much I hated him, how seeing the pain he caused in my mom made me loathe him.
But I didn’t need that in my life. Neither of us did. All we could do now was move on.
All we could do now was live this new life.
And all I could think about on the heels of that thought was how I wanted that new life to be with Lucian.
ChapterTwenty-Three
Professor Goode
The more time I spent with Grace, the more I realized that my concentration on anything that didn’t concern her was pretty much impossible. I ran a hand over my jaw, a day’s worth of scruff scraping over my palm. I tried to focus on the papers that had been turned in from my students, yet my obsession with Grace made everything else dim in comparison.
I just wanted to be with her, to spend every waking moment with her. It was this ache inside of me that grew daily, beckoning this swarm that wouldn’t be tamed.
I leaned back in my chair and stared at the ceiling. Although I’d seen her in class, we hadn’t had a free moment to be together. And it was slowly eating at me. I realized I needed her in my life in every conceivable way. I needed to touch her, kiss her, just hold her every day.
I stood, not able to sit any longer, and walked over to the window. I leaned against the wall and crossed my arms over my chest as I stared out at the university grounds. I could see the parking lot, the student lounge beside that. There was a large grassy area where, during the warmer months, students sat out and studied.
Although I didn’t care if people knew about my relationship with Grace, I knew she worried. It was on my mind; how they’d react, if they’d see her in a different light. It was the latter that worried me the most, because I knew people could be heartless bastards. I knew they might spread rumors, say shit about her, think badly of her. That’s what I was concerned about if people found out.
My job, my reputation … just things in this world that didn’t mean shit compared to the big picture.
And that big picture was Grace.
There was a knock on my door, and I turned and looked over my shoulder, not moving from the spot. “Come in,” I said, my voice booming in the small interior of the office. I assumed it was Ashley, my TA, but a pleasurable surprise filled me when I saw that it was Grace.
