“It’s okay. I was a little harsh on him.”
Landon waved him in, and a minute later, my dad parked on the other side of me. He climbed out of his immaculate convertible and ran his hand over his silvered hair. “Rachel.”
“Dad,” I said, keeping Landon’s hand firmly in mine as I turned to face him.
He looked back at Landon and grimaced. “Can we talk alone?”
“I’m just going to tell him what we say anyway.”
He sighed and walked toward us, a manila envelope in his hands. “I’m sorry about what happened this morning,” he said.
“Me, too. And I’m sorry for what Mom did. You don’t deserve that.”
He swallowed, pain flashing across his eyes. “Yeah, well, sometimes it’s the people we love most who hurt us the deepest.” His gaze flickered to Landon, and I knew he was thinking about what had happened years ago. “You need to know that I tried. I won’t say anything more, and I don’t want you to take this out on your mother, but…I tried to make it work, Rachel. We just can’t. I can’t. I had to go.”
I dropped Landon’s hand and went to my dad, hugging him tight. “I’m so sorry, Dad. I shouldn’t have been such a wreck. I was just in shock. It’s always been the three of us, and now…now I don’t know.”
“I know. And we both love you very much. That’s not something you should ever doubt, okay?”
“I don’t,” I told him, giving a tighter squeeze before pulling back.
“And I know this is important to you,” he said, fidgeting with the envelope. “The other papers, I’m not sure where they are. Once your birth certificate was in after your adoption, nothing else ever mattered. We shut the door on how you came to us and concentrated on being the family you were always meant to have. There’s not a lot of information in here, but maybe it will help you feel like you’ve found whatever it is you’re missing.”
I took the envelope from him with a slightly shaky hand. “Thanks, Dad.”
He nodded and looked back at Landon. “I’d really like you to come home with me, Rachel. If not me, then your mother. Anything but here…with him.”
My stomach sank. “Dad, not today. I know you and Landon have some harsh feelings between you, but I seriously don’t think I can take anything else today.”
“He’s not good for you, Rachel.”
“He loves me,” I countered. With everything else that had gone to shit today, it was the one thing I was certain of.
“Not enough,” he said softly, sadly.
“What do you mean?” That sick, nauseating feeling was back in my belly.
“Today has been hard enough on you. Why don’t you just come home with me and we’ll have a good, long talk about it?” he offered.
After this morning, I’d had quite enough of being managed.
“No. You tell me now.”
“Rachel,” Landon said, coming up behind me.
I turned toward him. “What is he talking about?”
Landon looked straight over me to my father. “You really want to hurt her like this?”
“You were the one who didn’t stay away,” Dad snapped. “Someone that willing to walk away in the first place isn’t deserving of my daughter. She’s worth a hundred of you.”
“On that, we agree,” Landon said.
“Dad, Landon and I talked about what happened, and if I can forgive him, then I need you to try.” I got it, he was on overprotective mode, especially with what was going on with him and Mom, but he couldn’t take out his insecurities on Landon.
“So he told you why he left?” Dad challenged, his blue eyes going hard.
“Please don’t,” Landon pleaded quietly. “For both our sakes.”
Dad’s eyes narrowed. “You’d like that, wouldn’t you? The difference between us, Nova, is that I’m firmly ready for my daughter to hate me, if it’s what keeps her out of harm’s way and away from you. Can you say the same?”
My grip tightened on the envelope. “Dad?”
“What did he tell you, sweetheart?”
I didn’t look at Landon. I wasn’t sure I could. “That he had to rejoin the team or they couldn’t put on the competition. It was an all-or-nothing deal.”
“Did he tell you why?”
“Rachel,” Landon whispered.
“Because he left.”
“You’re just going to hurt her more,” Landon said, his voice breaking.
Dad looked over my head at him. “I’d rather hurt her now than her think she can spend her life with someone who can be bought from her side.”
“Bought?” I asked, finally looking up at Landon.
There was so much pain in his eyes, and my first thought was to take it away. How ridiculous was that? “How were you bought?”
He reached for me, but I stepped backward.
“Gremlin pulled the sponsorship of the event, but it wasn’t because I’d left. It was because I was with you.”
I spun and then backed away from them both, moving toward my car. Pieces clicked in my head, the puzzle anything but pretty. “You pulled their funding,” I said to Dad.
He nodded. “I did.”
“And you dumped me to get it back?” I asked Landon, hoping there was another answer, any other way this had gone down.