As the others took their assigned seats, Blake pulled out a chair for her, oddly next to his mother. Lady Helen smiled as Rhonda sat.
“I requested that you sit by me. Normally it would be Blake, but he's not in my good books these days, and I'd like to get to know you better.”
Oh goodie, she was going to have to lie even more. Could she feel any worse? To top it off, Sarah tossed another evil glare her way. Ah yes, they were going to be the best of friends.
“Mother, don't hound her. You know what we do is confidential,” Blake said, making any questions about work off limits.
Wow, she hadn't thought of that. A good thing he had.
“Blake, darling, the last thing a mother wants to hear is all about the dangers her son puts himself in. Now sit down and be quiet.”
“Yes, Blake.” Colin commented from the opposite side of the table. “Be a good boy and allow Mother to interrogate the poor woman.”
“Don't listen to my sons, dear. I should have let their father take the switch to them, instead of interfering.”
The dowager harrumphed, but to her credit said nothing.
“Where in New York do you live?” Lady Helen asked, as one of the servants ladled soup into her bowl.
She reminded herself not to slurp. “I don't. I live in Las Vegas.”
“Oh?”
Had all of Blake's games made Lady Helen think they lived together? Clearly everyone had, because the relief on Sarah's face was almost comical. But Colin shared the disappointment with his mother. His grandmother was unreadable. If she'd known it would have this effect, she'd have mentioned where she lived sooner.
Luckily, Lady Helen was more curious about Vegas than anything else, and dinner conversation was limited to life in what the grandmother considered one of the gaudiest cities in the world. Rhonda didn't take too much offense. She wasn't that far off. But it wasn't fair to confuse the tourist trade with the entire city. Vegas had many good points.
The second course was a shrimp cup with shrimp the size of a child's fist.
“How are you liking Scotland?” Sarah asked, lowering herself to speak to Rhonda since the first course had been served.
She'd opened her mouth to answer, when the grandmother answered for her. This family had a bad habit of doing that.
“They only flew in this morning,” she snapped. “Miss Deagan hasn't seen anything of consequence.”
Rhonda would beg to differ. What she had seen was breathtaking, but she kept her mouth shut.
“Oh yes, of course, I apologize.” Sarah shot an additional dagger Rhonda's way.
Whatânow it was her fault she got yelled at?
“Don't apologize for asking a simple question,” Blake jumped in, being civil to Sarah for the first time all evening. “It was all I could do to keep Rhonda in the car on the drive up. She was practically jumping up and down.”
“I was not.” She was.
“Yes, you were. I'd say what you saw, she liked. Didn't you?”
Rhonda grinned from ear to ear, recalling the landscape. “God's country,” she exclaimed. “I've never seen anything so breathtaking.” She bit into a shrimp and chewed. She wasn't much into seafood, but this was good.
“Were you born in Las Vegas?” Colin asked.
“I was born in Los Angeles. My father moved us so we could live with my grandmother.”
“Are your parents divorced?” the grandmother asked, clearly not liking the idea.
“No.” She wanted to wipe that disapproving look off the old woman's face. “My mother was murdered by a drunk driver when I was three. My father never got over it.”
The duchess stiffened. She didn't appreciate being put in her place. Rhonda should feel bad. She didn't. And apparently neither did anyone else. Sarah was definitely hiding a smile behind her napkin, and if Colin bit his lower lip any harder, he'd draw blood.
“When one marries it should be for life,” the dowager said, defending her behavior. “Divorce is such a distasteful thing.”
“So is dying,” Blake pointed out.
“Of course,” she agreed, then turned her attention back to Rhonda. “Your father should be commended for raising you alone as long as he did. Being a single parent I'm certain wasn't easy, but for a widower it would have been much harder.”
“Yes,” Rhonda said. “Much harder.” But it was no excuse. He'd had a daughter to think about, a very young daughter. Instead, he chose to drown his sorrows in a bottle. Who the hell did he think was going to raise her? Why hadn't he loved her enough to do what fathers were supposed to do? The fork in Rhonda's hand clattered in her empty dish, drawing everyone's attention. Embarrassed, she wiped her mouth with her napkin. Where had that come from? Her father loved her. Of course he loved her.
He
did
love her. He told her every day, drunk or sober. But did she believe him? If he loved her, why couldn't he stop drinking? Yes, the love of his life had died, but he had a childâher child. What kind of a father wouldn't make that a priority? He'd forsaken everything in his life, his job, his faith and the one thing no parent shouldâhis daughter. Rhonda blinked and realized her empty shrimp cup had been switched out for a clean plate. She looked up to see everyone staring at her.
“Are you all right, dear?” Lady Helen asked.
“Yes. Jet lag,” she offered by way of excuse. “The person seated beside me snored the entire time, and I didn't get much sleep,” she joked, and tried not to think about her father.
“I sat beside you,” Blake said.
“Blake doesn't snore.”
All heads turned to Sarah, including her husband's. He didn't look too pleased about his wife knowing such a fact.
Blake on the other hand, ever so coolly ignored her. “You plied me with liquor. I was only breathing heavily.”
“Is that what you call it? Back home we call it snoring.” Rhonda nodded at the waiter when he offered her beef. “And I didn't ply you with anything. You needed sleep and I suggested a drink. He was up all night before, partying with women,” she said to his mother. “He can be a real cad.” She was starting to like that word.
“Blake?” Lady Helen chastised.
“Seriously, who are you going to believe, a woman you just met, or your own son?”
“Rhonda,” his mother and brother agreed in unison.
Blake shook his head, conceding this round to Rhonda.
She didn't say much for the rest of the meal. Her thoughts returned to her father. Exactly where she didn't want them to be, in the company of Blake's family. After dinner, she blamed jet lag and excused herself, grateful to get away from all those assessing eyes.
Her window overlooked the gardens and although it was dark, ground lighting illuminated pathways throughout the grounds. Before she went home, she promised herself a walk through the manicured lawns and hedges. She'd read about homes like this in books, never imagining she'd get to see one in person. Who would have thought the girl from the wrong side of the tracks, hell, from the wrong side of life, would be staying in a home whose history could be traced back centuries? Certainly not her, but despite her father, here she stood. For now, she'd forget about the fact that she didn't belong.
Bone tired, she'd just started to unzip her dress when someone knocked.
She padded across the hardwood floor and opened the door, to find Blake.
“Hi.”
“Hi, yourself,” she said, at odds with wanting to see him and wanting to be alone.
“Can I come in?”
She peeked into the hall and saw no one. “Sure.”
“I have news,” he said, entering the room. “Ryan received another call from mother Russia. Apparently Sorrentino has gone into hiding. They're trying to flush him out. So far, no luck.”
“What does all of that mean?” Was it over?
“I'm not sure, but I'd guess Sorrentino knows the jig is up and needs to figure out what's worse: doing more time or having the Russian mob pissed at him. If he's hiding, I assume he's running from what's behind door number two.”
“Good,” Rhonda said. “Maybe he'll keep running.”
“Sorrentino isn't the only reason I'm here. I wanted to apologize for what my grandmother said early into the dinner. The woman doesn't see the need to filter her comments.”
She closed the door behind him with a soft click.
“My nosy grandmother hit a sore spot and she's too full of herself to see it . . . or care.”
“It's not her fault. I just . . . I realized something about my father I hadn't wanted to face before. And it caught me off guard.”
“What?”
“I guess something I didn't want to believe . . . everything I did and sacrificed was wasted on a man who didn't love me.” Or didn't care enough to make the effort.
“You said he told you every day how much he loved you.”
“Words.” She sat on the edge of the bed. Tucking her feet beneath her, she leaned on one hand. “What are words, Blake, with nothing behind them? If he loved me, why didn't he stop drinking?”
“Your dad had demons, ones that he obviously couldn't conquer.”
“No, I get that. Not everyone can battle addiction and win, not if you don't want it badly enough.”
“Rhonda, you must know it's not that simple. You think your dad liked being an alcoholic?”
They say you have to admit a problem before you can fix it. “I think you can know you have a problem and choose to ignore it. It's a copout to blame everyone and everything for your problems. And the only thing stopping you is you. My dad liked being drunk. He chose to be drunk. He got comfortable in the numbness, then the addiction took over and it was easier just to let it take him. I was partly to blame. I took care of him, made sure he ate . . . gave him what he needed to stay alive. I enabled him. I know that, but by the time I was old enough to figure it out, it was too late.”
“You were a kid. You can't blame yourself.”
“I don't. At least not anymore. It is, however, one of the reasons I started stripping. We needed money, but if I hadn't enabled him, maybe things would have been different. So I had to do everything I could to keep him alive. Even if it meant hurting myself. Maggie helped me see that my father's drinking wasn't my fault. But what I realized, downstairs at dinner, isâwhy did he start drinking in the first place?”
“He wanted to dull the pain. Losing your mother must have killed him inside.” The bed dipped as Blake sat beside her.
“I don't know how many nights I found him sleeping with her portrait. But why didn't he love me that much?”
“I'm sure he did.”
“Really? Because it's one thing to get drunk for a couple of days, weeks maybe, to help you get through the funeral, the shock of losing your wife. It's another to forget your baby girl needs a daddy. The love you have for your children you'd think is deeper than romantic love.” She would love a baby enough to know she wasn't the best thing for it. “He loved my mom so much he refused to face losing her. Why didn't he love
me
that way? Why risk losing me?”
Her arm started to fall asleep, so she let her feet drop to the floor and put her hands in her lap. “Do you know, when I was six, I'd set my alarm clock to get him up for work. By the time I was seven, I never wanted to see another can of baked beans, so I learned to cook. Then he lost his job and I tricked the social workers into thinking we were fine, so they wouldn't ship me to foster care. He'd lost my mom. I couldn't let him lose me too, because he
told
me he loved me. He didn't
know
what he'd do if he lost me too. I was a kid who wanted to be loved, so I believed him.”
Blake took her face in his hands. With his thumbs he wiped away the tears she didn't know she'd shed. “Your father had his demons It doesn't mean he didn't love you.”
“Your grandmother is a bitch. Doesn't mean she doesn't love you.”
He dropped his hands. “That wasn't fair.”
“Maybe not.” She shrugged. “But you see my point?”
“No, my grandmother's sunny disposition wasn't brought on by great loss. She was born that way.”
“Maybe, maybe not. Maybe her parents drilled title, title, title into her head, and it's all she knows.”
“Hardly. The title was my grandfather's. She married into it.”
“Doesn't mean her parents didn't push her to find someone with a title.”
“Why are you defending her? She's been nothing but rude to you.”
“She's rude to everyone. I should be grateful that she treats me the same as everybody else. And maybe you don't talk about her family for a reason. Maybe they were horrible people.”
“We're getting off topic,” he said.
“Okay. Truth is I made a huge sacrifice for that man. What if he didn't deserve it? What if I screwed up my life for nothing?”
“Is that how you see it? That you screwed up your life?”
“I gave everything up for him. I was doing something important. I was helping to save lives. Instead, I give men an excuse to go whack off in bathroom stalls.”
“You are a kind and caring person,” he said, raising his voice.
“You reach out and help even when you don't want to because you can't walk away.”
“Oh good. We can add spineless to my list.”
“You slugged a killer with a wig, then threw yourself out of a broken window. That took guts. Having a good heart doesn't make you spineless. A spineless person would have walked away from a drunken father.”