I sat back and put my hot, sweating palms to my cool, bloodless cheeks. Why had they done it?Why?
I stayed seated in that chair for a long time. Emma came down from her room and tried to get me to turn on the TV for her, but I couldn’t move. She was on the verge of a tantrum when we heard the front door open. Robert and Mom were home. Still, I couldn’t move. They came in and found me sitting there. I didn’t even try to hide what was on the screen.
Instead, I turned to them slowly. The swivel of the chair creaked. Emma looked at my white face and reconsidered her meltdown. My mother looked at my face and frowned. “What’s wrong with you?”
Robert looked at my face, then at the screen behind me, and knew.
“Elyna, take Emma into the other room,” he said quietly.
“I was just about to–”
“Elyna,” Robert repeated firmly. “Take Emma into the other room. Now, please.”
My mother’s eyes widened, and she turned to look at Robert. She was still debating whether to push back, but what she saw on his face made up her mind. “Come on, darling.” She held her hand out to Emma, who took it. They both left, glancing back over their shoulders with identical expressions of confused interest.
Robert came into the room, pulling up another chair until we were practically knee to knee. I was looking right at him, but I couldn’tseehim. Not the man I’d known and loved for twenty years anyway. Who was this awkwardly tall, aristocratically gaunt man peering into my face, saying words that were jumbling up and not making any sense. He was always so well spoken.
“I mean, itiswhat you think,” he fumbled, “but it’s also not. Do you understand, Cami?”
I shook my head slowly, hearing the buzzing intensify as I turned my head one way and then the other before coming back to rest on the focal point of his face. “I don’t understand at all,” I said hoarsely. “Why did you do it? Does my mother know?”
“No,” Robert said immediately. “Elyna has no idea.”
He sounded convincing, but I didn’t believe him. He would say anything to protect her.
“Why?” I asked again. I hated how pathetically small my voice sounded, like I’d reverted to being the seven-year-old child I’d been when Robert came into my life.
Robert’s eyes dropped to the floor, and that was when I was sure my mother had been behind this. That she was the one who held the why. Neither would ever admit it though. Not for anything.
“To protect you,” Robert said quietly.
“Protectme?” Unbelievably, I laughed, a short, sharp, unamused sound that turned into a sob.
“Yes,” he said, raising his head to look at me steadily. “Landon isn’t good for you. He isn’t goodenoughfor you. It’s one thing to have him in Emma’s life, but we – I – had to get you away from him before he ruined yours.”
The unspokenlike he did beforehovered in the air.
“You were worried aboutLandonruining my life?” I gathered my hair up in my hands, like I was going to put it in a ponytail, but I didn’t have a holder. That was fine. I just wanted something to do with my hands other than reaching out to throttle my stepfather. “You terrorized me. Made me think I was running for my daughter’slife, but you’re worried about Landon?”
“I admit that my methods were extreme, but they were necessary. You wouldn’t have left him for anything less than Emma’s safety.”
That was true enough, but it didn’t justify what Robert and my mother had done. Nothing could.
“I’m not a child,” I said, my voice shaking with outrage. “If Landon turns out to be a mistake, it’smymistake to make. My decision.”
Robert’s voice was filled with love, but there was a patronizing undertone when he said, “But it’s not just your life now. It’s Emma’s.”
I didn’t think it was possible, but my fury became even more incandescent. “Don’t youdareimply that I’m a bad mother. I’d do anything for Emma, and you know it.”
“Of course you would, but that doesn’t mean you’ll always do the right thing.” Robert spread his hands, palm up. “Parents make mistakes. You can see that I made a colossal one. If someone had steered me away from this mistake, I’d have been grateful.” His face was so open, so sincere. He believed every word he was saying. Even if he was covering for my mother, he’d supported her plan. He’d helped facilitate it. And now he’d take the fall for it.
Because he loved her that blindly.
I felt pity soften the edges of my anger. I didn’t love Landon blindly, and I didn’t want to. I always wanted to keep his attributes and flaws in clear view becausethiswas the result of closing your eyes. He was a hard, stubborn man who was too cynical for his own good, but we would balance each other out.
If he would just forgive me.
“I have to go.” I stood abruptly, knocking into Robert’s knobby knees. “Emma and I are leaving.”