The Right Choice(46)
Author: Carly Phillips

“No, I’m not.” His easy agreement surprised her, and she studied him more closely. His light hair was now more silver than tawny in color, and the dark circles beneath his eyes were a bit more prominent. But overall he looked well.

She couldn’t have this conversation standing up, so she gestured toward the couch and chairs in the center of the room. She chose her favorite seat as a child, an oversized, beat-up leather club chair and ottoman. Her father sat on the matching chair beside her.

“So…” She curled her feet beneath her.

“So. If you’re here, there’s a reason. What can I do to make it better?” he asked.

“What do you mean?”

“I’m assuming you need something. Or someone to talk to, and picked me.”

“Why would you think that?” Her relationship with Mike, such as it was, and her fear of passion and commitment weren’t things she’d expect her father to be aware of. Funny how she’d accused Mike of being incapable of commitment when she suffered from the same thing herself. She just hadn’t known it at the time. Commitment to Peter wasn’t the same as commitment to someone she loved with her whole heart and soul. That frightened her to death.

Roger cleared his throat. “We had a company cocktail party a few nights ago. Peter mentioned that his brother was back overseas.”

Carly tensed. “So?”

“So, I met with Mike. He’s nothing like his brother.”

She smiled. “I know.”

“Judging by that glowing look on your face, I’d say that’s a good thing. You can’t be happy he’s gone.”

“And you think I’m here to talk about my love life?”

He shifted uncomfortably in his seat and a sheepish look crossed his face. “When you called, I didn’t know what to think. But I knew if I didn’t push, we wouldn’t make any progress. I’m sorry if I’m prying.” Apparently after all this time, father-daughter talks didn’t come easy for him either.

She sighed. “You’re not. I’m here, so we might as well say what’s on our minds.”

“Well, Pete seems to think you sent Mike away because of the pain he had caused you. He tends to ramble on when he has my ear, but I wondered.”

Laughter bubbled inside her, breaking some of her inner tension. Startled, her father’s shocked gaze met hers. “Who else but Peter would think so highly of himself?” she asked. “As if my whole life was affected by what he did.”

Her father chuckled but sobered fast. “I know better than to think that. Your whole life was affected by what I did. And I wish it was ego talking, but it isn’t.”

Leave it to her father, the straight-talking attorney, to force the issue and conversation to the real reason she’d come. “Well, knowing Peter, he probably believes I lost endless nights of sleep mourning him.”

Roger smiled back at her. “In his favor, I think he was trying to make amends between us by feeding me information I could use to approach you.”

“Always look for an ulterior motive,” she cautioned, still smiling. To her surprise, she and Roger were sharing an honest father-daughter moment. A rarity in her life. “I’ll bet he even thinks I turned to Mike on the rebound.”

“You didn’t.” More statement than question, Roger looked Carly in the eye.

“No,” she whispered. But she’d turned him away, and her father’s indiscretion had been the catalyst. She’d been afraid to commit to Mike. Not because she feared repeating Roger’s affair, but because, as Mike had once said, she was afraid of repeating Roger’s mistakes in his marriage.

So she’d come to face her father’s past in order to move forward with her own. “Why didn’t you? Approach me, I mean? When Peter gave you all that information, why didn’t you come talk to me?”

He had the grace to look ashamed. “Because I knew you would turn me away. At least I feared you would.”

Her hand rested on the armrest of the brown leather chair, and her father covered her hand with his own. The comforting touch soothed her, making her wonder why she’d waited so long to come to the one man she’d needed so badly in her life.

That was one mistake she didn’t want to repeat again with Mike… if he ever returned to the States.

“He was much more than rebound, wasn’t he?” Roger asked quietly.

“He was. I mean, he is.”

“So what are you going to do about it?”

Carly bit back a sigh. It was one thing to talk about their family, another to discuss her relationship with Mike. It felt awkward and uncomfortable, but she should have known her father would be persistent. He was a trial lawyer, after all.

“You know, this all strikes me as hypocritical. You weren’t willing to talk when I needed you. Why should I open up to you now?”

“Because after all these years, you came to me. And because after all these years, you deserve an explanation. Whether your mother approves or not.”

“I’m not sure if I do or not, but it needs to be said,” Anne said as she walked into the room. The three of them faced each other—three individuals who hadn’t been a family for too long.

Anne’s early return caught Carly by surprise, and she glanced at her father’s guilty face. He’d called her mother home for this meeting. Well, better all at once than one at a time, she supposed. Still, her stomach churned in nervous anticipation.

Anne sat on the couch and Roger joined her, clasping her hand in his. Carly narrowed her eyes, seeing reality as if for the first time. Had her parents done more than made peace with their lives? Had they truly come together after all this time? Carly shook her head. They’d obviously done more than made peace, but it hadn’t happened overnight. She’d just closed them out of her life and shut her eyes to the progress they’d made in the years following the scandal and her lonely childhood.

Carly sat alone. She faced her parents, who now sat together on the sofa, united in a way she hadn’t understood until now.

“We didn’t talk about things because I insisted. I thought if we just put it behind us, it would go away.” Anne fiddled with a ring on her hand, twisting it in a nervous gesture.

“If you don’t acknowledge things, they can’t hurt you,” Carly murmured in repetition of the phrase her mother had ingrained in her over the years. Only now did Carly realize that that philosophy had taught her to avoid personal confrontation and dealing with reality.