“I adore it. Don’t you love yours?”
Did he love his? Ethan frowned. It was a question he hadn’t asked himself in a long time. “Love is probably the wrong word. It’s satisfying. Challenging. So now your sister is working from the Hamptons? You weren’t tempted to join her?”
“No. I love Manhattan. I love the Hamptons too, but I wouldn’t want to live there. I’ve worked with some of my clients for eight years. They feel like family. And this place feels like home.” She took Madi to her crate and the dog settled down without argument.
“What about your real family? Are your parents still alive?”
She stroked Madi’s head. “They’re divorced. My mom is traveling right now so I don’t see much of her.”
“And your father?” The moment he asked the question he knew it was the wrong one.
Her smile faded like a light bulb on a dimmer switch. “I don’t see him, either. Good night, Ethan.” She stood up and walked toward the stairs without looking back, leaving him with the uncomfor
table knowledge that he’d just asked the wrong question.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
HARRIET TOOK A shower and slid into bed, even though she knew there was no chance of sleeping. Her mind was churning like the inside of a washing machine.
He’d asked her a question, that was all. Not even a particularly personal question.
And what had she done? Had she shifted the conversation to more comfortable territory? No. She’d bolted like Madi after a stick in the park.
His question might not have been personal, but she’d taken it personally. She’d let it release a flock of insecurities.
Infuriated and stressed, she reached for the book she’d tucked under her pillow.
Why was she so bad at conversation?
And why did she find it so awkward to talk about her parents?
Plenty of people had parents who were divorced. They’re divorced. That was all she needed to say. She didn’t need to deliver any more details. Ethan hadn’t wanted her life history, just a normal to and fro exchange of words.
But, no. She’d had to overreact.
Still clutching the book, she rolled onto her back and stared up at the ceiling.
It had been more than a decade since she’d left home.
The mere mention of her father shouldn’t send her pulse rate thumping and she certainly shouldn’t find it awkward to talk about it.
Why should it bother her that she didn’t see him? Why did she find that detail embarrassing?
But she knew the answer to that. Because she believed, deep in her heart, that family was something worth fighting for. That no circumstances, however dark, should succeed in tearing a family apart. And yet theirs had been torn apart and even the knowledge that it had been her father who had done the tearing didn’t comfort her. If anything it made it worse, as if his desire for no contact somehow reflected on her and made her less of a person.
The truth was, her father didn’t like her and she had spent her lifetime trying to adjust to that reality. But how did you adjust to something that felt so wrong? It wasn’t right for a parent not to love a child. In the universe she inhabited in her head, parents loved their children unconditionally. They didn’t find them irritating and seek every reason not to spend time with them.
She knew she wasn’t the only one with issues.
Fliss had spent her life battling against their father’s negative opinion. She’d found it almost impossible to shake off the cloak he’d draped her with when she was young.
Harriet was the same.
It didn’t matter how many times she reminded herself that it was his choice, not hers, his choice to cut all contact from his family was upsetting.
It was something she hated admitting to people, afraid that in saying my father doesn’t want to be in touch with me, what she was really telling them was I’m not worth knowing.
She didn’t believe that, not really, so she didn’t understand why telling people felt so personal. It seemed like a failure.