a rat hole than make up with his stepfather. And here she was forcing him to buckle under for everything she wanted.
Of course, she was doing it for Bella.
She ambled toward the grill. She continually pushed him because Bella needed good care, but she didn’t have to be a shrew. She pointed at the sandwiches. “You wouldn’t want to share those, would you?”
“If my mother taught me anything, it was to share. I’m a great host.”
“I’d set the table as repayment.”
“I suppose that could be a deal.”
“Great.”
She rummaged until she found plates and cups, set the table and made a pot of coffee. He heated soup to go with the sandwiches and they sat at the table to eat, with Bella happily chattering in the high chair beside them.
“So how does a preppy boy survive living in a rat hole?”
He stopped his spoon halfway to his mouth. His lips quirked a bit. “Not easily.”
“I can imagine.”
“I don’t think you can. I’d never actually seen a bug indoors before, so cockroaches scared the hell out of me.”
She burst out laughing. “Good grief!”
“The walls of my apartment were paper thin. I froze in the winter and sweltered in the summer.” He smiled, almost wistfully. “It certainly taught me a lot about life.” He caught her gaze. “Real life. Not the sheltered existence I had as Cedric Patterson’s son.”
“I’ll bet.” She cocked her head. If he’d survived that, learning to care for Bella should be a piece of cake. But now wasn’t the time to remind him of that. They were making up after their argument and she would do her part. She would share a little about herself, too, so he wouldn’t feel he was always the one giving. “I actually did about the same thing.”
He frowned. “Really? You left the lap of luxury for a rat hole?”
“Maybe not the lap of luxury, but a very comfortable home. I was angry with my dad because he just never seemed to want me around, so I refused to take his money for tuition.” She shook her head. “Actually, that’s not totally true. I never asked him for money for tuition to see if he’d remember that I needed it. He didn’t. All the deadlines passed and suddenly I had a twenty-thousand-dollar tuition bill that needed to be paid immediately and no money. And I was too angry to ask my dad to please remember he had a daughter.”
Matt’s face softened as he said, “What did you do?”
“I went to the bank and withdrew my savings and paid it.”
“Ouch.”
“At least I had savings. I had the first semester’s tuition and enough for a good bit of the second semester, but I was furious. He never even considered that I’d need money. I was getting an allowance, but it wasn’t enough for tuition and books and the dorm. Just basics like one meal a day and shampoo. And I realized he didn’t even care enough about me to ask.” She swallowed back the wave of emotion that clogged her throat. “So I decided the hell with him and I went job hunting.”
“That’s when you became a nanny.”
“Yep. Changed my classes to night classes and lived in with the families I worked for so I didn’t have to worry about the dorm. And became my own woman.”
His brow furrowed. “So, we’re sort of alike.”
“A little, but my story doesn’t end as happily as yours.”
He sent her a look, encouraging her to explain. Unsure if she should, she sucked in a breath. But in the end, she decided that if she intended to push him past his boundaries, the least she could do was be honest with him.
“My dad died my third year at university. All the money he made, all the money that kept him from me, meant nothing. He had a heart attack when he was alone and, with no one to help him or even call an ambulance, he died.”
Matt reached across the table and covered her hand with his. “I’m so sorry.”
“If he’d paid one whit of attention to me, I would have been there. He wouldn’t have died. But he’d treated me like an afterthought and I genuinely believed he didn’t want me around.” Bottled up feelings began to pop free, making her voice shaky and her eyes water. “But do you want to know the real punch line of this story? All his money came to me. All that money that kept him from me.” She paused to take a cleansing breath. “I didn’t want it. But I wasn’t so foolish as to flush it down a toilet.”
He barked a short laugh, one of acknowledgment, but with very little humor.
“I bought a new car and my condo and gave the rest to charity.”
He studied her from across the table. “You gave your inheritance to charity?”
“I didn’t want it. I took enough for a decent start on life, then let it go. I didn’t want the money that had stolen my dad from me.”
“And that’s why you’re not impressed with money.”
She inclined her head, not able to speak. Now she wasn’t just remembering her time at university. Memories of her lonely years as a little girl had also floated to the surface. Memories of how much she’d wanted her father’s love, and how stubborn she’d gotten as a teenager, staying out of the house on weekends that she’d known he’d be home because she feared he’d only spend his time working and ignore her. And she couldn’t handle the pain of his silent rejection anymore.
Tears filled her eyes and the lump of emotion came back to her throat. She missed her dad. But, then again, it seemed she’d spent her whole life missing her dad.
“That’s why you want me to be a good dad for Bella.”
She nodded.
He pulled his hand away and scrubbed it down his face. “I’m sorry.”
“I’m sorry, too.” Her voice broke. They were finally genuinely getting to know each other. He wasn’t apologizing for bringing up a sensitive subject any more than she was apologizing for getting hurt over his sniping at her. Their apologies were for their misconceptions about each other up to this point. All the same, it was the first time she’d spoken about her dad with anyone and emotions she hadn’t expected overwhelmed her.
“Sometimes I look back on the years I was in school being stubborn and headstrong over my dad’s ‘slights’ and I realize that if I’d pushed for his attention things might have been very different.”
To her embarrassment, her tears spilled over. She’d cried about her dad before, but never so honestly and certainly never with another person. But she could talk about this with Matt because she knew he understood. He hadn’t gotten along with his stepfather any better than she’d gotten along with her father. But that didn’t make it hurt any less. It also didn’t take away the guilt. She’d been twenty-one when her dad died. Surely, she could have been mature enough to go to his house and say, “Let’s have dinner?”
Fresh
