I didn’t bother to tell him that I ate it up with a spoon and sprinkles on top.
Instead my eyes narrowed at him. “You must have really pissed her off between the front door and my office. What the fuck did you say to her?”
He rolled his eyes. “For the love of God,” he said dramatically, “everyone’s so sensitive these days.”
Was is too early for Scotch? I checked the time.
Way too early.
Also, I didn’t want to show or share the good stuff with my dad. Not because I was the least bit cheap or couldn’t afford it. Just because he didn’t deserve it. And of course I was diametrically opposed to sharing anything of value with him.
Eventually and thankfully he left my office to go do God knows what with my stepmommy dearest.
I instantly went to speak to/harass Ro in her office.
She was sitting at her desk, working on her computer. She looked up when I walked in and shut the door. She raised a brow.
“What did he say to you?” I asked her, trying not to sound as upset about the possibilities as I actually was.
She shrugged, her face stoic. “Nothing important. He’s a piece of work.”
“That he is. Please stay far away from him while he’s here.”
“Obviously,” she said and I smiled.
“His wife, Ida, seems nice,” she remarked.
I scowled. “She’s not. Stay away from her, too.”
“What, why?”
I thought about it, wondered why I wanted to tell her, if it was for the warning or because I just liked to share things with her in general, which scared me.
In the end I think I did it because she might find out anyway, and I wanted to see her reaction when she did.
“Ida is my ex-wife,” I told her.
Her reaction was as gratifying as I could have hoped. I’d truly shocked her. Her mouth just kept opening and closing like a fish.
I wanted to stuff something in it. Stuff it deep.
I wanted to know what she had to think more.
“Ex-wife?” she asked finally.
“Ex-wife,” I affirmed with a world of self-disgust.
“You? You have an ex-wife? And she’s your stepmother?”
“Correct,” I said, eating all of her expressions, just gobbling them up.
“How did I not know this?” she asked.
“Not many people do. I don’t like to admit to it. It’s embarrassing as hell. She’s a nightmare, but somehow I thought it would be a great idea to marry her.”
“And then she married your father?”
“Correct.”
“When? How? What was the timeline for all this?”
“I was very young and stupid and met and married her before I understood what that meant. She and my father met and did something very similar.”
“So there was overlap?”
I was perversely gratified at how much disgust there was in her tone. “Not by choice on my end,” I remarked.
She looked so disgruntled and upset that I wanted to hug her. And hump her leg like a dog.
“That’s the most messed up thing I’ve ever heard.”
“Correct,” I said, a laugh in my voice. Only Ro could make me find the whole fiasco of my father and ex-wife just this funny. Her uncharacteristic, involuntary reaction put it all into just the right perspective.
“This isn’t funny,” she scolded me.
Our eyes clashed, both of us sharing a small smile as I said, “Sure it is.”
“They’re horrible,” said Ro sometime later. She’d just been staring off into space, absorbing it all.
I smiled fondly. “I’m glad we agree.”
I remembered that I came to see her for two reasons aside from looking at her adorably mischievous expressions. I got back to the first one. “What did my degenerate father say to you?”
She didn’t answer.
I glared. “Sleep in my room tonight.” I wasn’t joking, but I said it like that just to see her reaction.
She stared, her eyes doing something fascinating.
I smirked. “Not like that. At least, not unless you insist. I just… I don’t trust my dad.”
“You think he’d really try something with me? Something I couldn’t handle?”
“I think he’d make you extremely uncomfortable and then I’d kick his ass. I should probably avoid that, so please sleep in my room. I’ll put on fresh sheets.
“Where will you sleep?”
“There’s a sofa in my room. I’ll camp out on that. I just want you to stay close to me while he’s here, okay?”
She studied me. “You aren’t actually worried I’d be tempted by anything he has to offer, are you?”
I was horrified. The thought hadn’t even crossed my mind, but what I said was, “Of course not. If you can resist me, you can certainly resist that old reprobate.”
She kept studying my face and finally said, “I’ll sleep on your sofa.”
It took me a beat to realize she was agreeing to sleep in my room and after processing my relief of that I said, “No, I will. Thank you for agreeing.”
She shrugged. “You know your loser dad better than I do.”
With that I grabbed my laptop and took to working in her office, locking us in.
“Are you hiding from them?” she asked archly.
“If only. Listen, will you join us for dinner? The housekeeper is coming over to make Beef Wellington. It will all be especially tedious without you.”
“Fine. But only for the food, not to be supportive or anything like that. Perish the thought.”
We shared a smile.
“Softie,” I told her in a taunt.
“Coward,” she taunted back.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
DINNER WAS AS unpleasant as I knew it would be, though Ro did go above and beyond to make it more entertaining in general and made sure it finished on the perfect note.
My dad started in right away when he felt we’d been waiting too long between the first and second course.
“Only a part-time housekeeper these days? And no dedicated wait staff for dinner? Books not selling like they used to?”
“Did you go too long between meals, sunshine?” Ro asked him. “Did you miss your snack time?” She spoke to him in just the perfect way. Her tone was wry but light. She made him sound like a petulant child and a malcontent, both.
He just glared at her.
As we dug into the main course, which was fantastic (My housekeeper is a wonder.), my dad just had to pipe in with his negative two cents.
“It’s a decent Wellington,” he said around a mouthful of food, “but my chef’s is far better. That’s what you get for having a housekeeper cook instead getting yourself a real professional.”
“Hopefully you’ll be able to muscle it down,” Ro told him blandly. “Tell me, with a better Wellington, would you just have inhaled it outright?”
Half his serving was already gone, and I could tell by the way he glanced down at it that she’d made him feel foolish.
And look foolish, of course. And like he had poor manners, to boot.
“I haven’t heard much buzz about your upcoming release. Is it even being promoted? Do you suppose your fifteen minutes are up already?” My father took that dig right after he finished the last bite on his plate. He had cleared it and stopped complaining about the food after Ro’s last comment.