Chapter 45
Feeling lighter than she’d ever expected to feel at the start of this conversation, Denise entered her dad’s office at the sound of his gruff, “Come in.” She turned toward the leather sofa adjacent to his desk to sit and skidded to a stop.
Darby was sitting there.
Her arms were folded across her chest, and the expression she wore was a whole new level of smug, even by her standards. Denise narrowed her eyes but said nothing as she took a seat on the opposite end of the sofa.
Her dad stood and shuffled around to the front of his desk with the help of a cane and sat on the edge of the desk.
“Denise, I asked Darby to be here so we can discuss this…” He gritted his teeth, “blackmail situation first.”
“It’s all been taken care of, Uncle Burt,” Darby announced, barely giving him a chance to finish his sentence. “The payment was delivered, and I made it completely clear that our family was not to be disturbed again.”
Her dad’s jaw clenched. “Darby, if you show people like that you’re willing to pay, it’s like blood in the water with sharks. They’ll just keep coming around. Their greed is insatiable. I did not agree to this!”
“Neither did Maddox,” Denise interjected as soon as she had the opening. If she’d had to listen to her dad talk about Maddox like that a minute longer, she would have either lost her temper or gotten sick to her stomach.
“Denise, stay out of this for a minute,” her dad snipped, but Denise shook her head.
“No, Dad. I won’t stay out of this,” Denise answered, sharply enough to catch his attention but not loud enough to be petulant. “Maddox didn’t do anything Darby is saying they did. She’s lying.”
“Oh, Denise,” Darby cooed, as if mollifying a toddler. “It’s understandable that you’d be embarrassed and upset after finding yourself in this situation again, but please don’t lash out at the people who care about you. Not over this…this person who’s practically a juvenile delinquent!”
Denise cringed inwardly. Oh, great. An age crack!
“Maddox is not a criminal, Darby!” Denise growled. “But I wonder if we can say the same thing about your friend Lyle Turner.”
Darby’s eyes widened, and she sank back against the sofa an inch or two. She kept her voice neutral, though, as she said, “I don’t know who you’re talking about.”
“Sure you do,” Denise said. “You remember, he’s the man you persuaded to date my friend Solange for the sole purpose of worming his way into my friend group to get information on what I was doing at the resort.”
Denise twisted on the sofa to face Darby.
“He’s an interesting guy, Lyle. My other friend Trace did some research and found out about a variety of things he was arrested for and even a few the authorities don’t know about yet.
Lyle seems pretty motivated to have it stay that way, so he admitted to the scheme, including the fact that you lied about Maddox trying to exploit us. ”
“Is that true, Darby? Did you really do all that?” her dad demanded.
When Darby’s only response was to sit in silence with a sullen expression on her face, Denise’s dad pressed on. “You were spying on Denise? How could you do something like that, Darby? We’re family!”
“Family!?” Darby leaped to her feet so fast that the sofa wobbled.
“Of course you’d say we’re family when it has to do with coddling your little princess!
You handed her management roles the minute she got out of business school when I’d worked here for years starting with an unpaid internship.
You’ve never trusted me! Ever since I was a kid, you both acted like I was just an extension of my dad, no matter how hard I tried to be different from him.
But the resort deal was the last straw!”
She turned on her uncle. “You gave her free rein with that, and look what happened! She made a ridiculously expensive plan for the expansion all because she was sleeping with the staff!”
“Darby, that’s enough!” Denise’s dad thundered.
“None of that was your place to judge. If you had an issue with my decision to let Denise handle the Middle Waters project, you should have discussed it with me. This isn’t the first time you’ve skirted the rules and snuck around behind my back to suit your purposes, but I’ve been patient with you because you’re talented and smart and my niece.
But no more. Not after this. I want you out of here this afternoon. ”
Darby’s lips trembled the slightest bit before her mouth tightened into a hard, thin line. “Fine.”
She whirled around and stormed out the door.
As Denise watched her go, there was a twinge in her chest. If she were being brutally honest, there was probably some truth in Darby’s complaints.
She and her dad had both held Darby at arms’ length for ages.
Some of that had been because of Darby’s own behavior, but Denise also realized she hadn’t done a good job of trying to understand her.
Why did Denise have to wait until all this resentment had piled up to acknowledge that?
The thought was sobering enough to smooth a few of the sharper edges of the anger she’d felt toward her dad when this discussion began.
Turning to her dad, she found him still staring at the closed door, with a pensive look on his face.
She drew in a long breath and released it. “Dad…even though the whole blackmail story was wrong, I do realize how questionable it was that I got involved with Maddox while the buyout was going on. I didn’t mean for it to happen. I just…”
“Got carried away?” he asked, his face drawn.
Denise blinked and then frowned. “In a way, maybe I did?”
“Like what happened with Carl,” he said in a quiet voice.
“What?” Denise stared at him. “No! This is the exact opposite of Carl.”
He folded his arms and raised a skeptical eyebrow.
“It’s completely different. I mean it!” she insisted. “Maddox is…sweet and funny and smart. And kind. So kind. They truly care about people. Their family, friends, and neighbors. Even strangers.”
She squeezed her hands into fists and then relaxed them before focusing on her dad again.
“Dad, I’m sure Darby didn’t tell you this, even though she certainly knew.
But Maddox—they were the one who found me and got me help that day seven years ago.
When I overdosed. They worked at that hotel at the time.
I had no idea they were at Middle Waters now.
It took me by complete surprise. But we started talking and hanging out and, well, one thing led to another. ”
Her dad’s arms had dropped to his sides as he listened, and now he shuffled across the floor to the sofa and sank down. “Oh, wow.”
He shook his head. “I should have known there were things about Darby’s story that didn’t fit together, but I guess I wasn’t thinking clearly. I kind of…panicked.”
Denise sat up taller, and her eyebrows went up. “Panicked?”
“Yeah. The way Darby made it sound, you’d gone off the deep end over someone who wasn’t trustworthy. I was worried it was a Carl situation again, so I put the brakes on everything.”
That’s what he’d been worried about? She never would have imagined. After he’d gotten her a place at the treatment center not long after the overdose, her dad had never mentioned Carl or that time in her life ever again.
Her dad stared down at his shoes. His shoulders were hunched in a way she’d never seen before, and he spoke slowly.
“That day seven years ago, when I heard what had happened…I was scared. And I was ashamed. What kind of father can’t even protect his own daughter from getting caught up with a jerk like that?
And then everything that happened afterwards.
“So after you got better, I made a vow that I’d never let anything like that happen to you again. But the only way I could think to do that was to keep you close by.”
Denise’s mind swirled as she gaped at her father. “That’s what all this was about this whole time? Persuading me to work here, all the bribing and cajoling to get me to stay longer? You were trying to protect me?”
He didn’t glance up, but his face reddened. “Look, I know it was a lot, but I didn’t know what else to do. I was just afraid of losing you.”
“Dad…” Her heart clenched. She’d truly believed he’d simply put her overdose out of his mind to pretend it never happened. It had never resonated with her how worried he’d been. Slowly, she reached over and set her hand on top of his. “I think I understand you.”
Maybe for the first time.
She swallowed. “And, Dad, I get scared too sometimes. I worry about falling into that space all over again and losing myself. But I’m not the same person I was then. I have a life and things I care about and people in my life I can reach out to when things get heavy.”
A hint of a fond smile tickled the corners of her lips. Maddox had said something similar to her only a few days ago. God, she was glad they were one of the people in her life now.
She blinked and refocused on the conversation at hand. “And even though I didn’t appreciate it at the time, your giving me work here was good for me. It’s given me purpose and experience, and I’ve even found parts I enjoy about it.”
Something closer to his usual smile returned at that.
“That’s awful nice to hear. You have talent.
When you gave me the rough sketch of your plan for the new Ozarks park, I knew they had promise.
Later, I got some more details from Jeremy and a few of the others you worked with.
Some of the cost will be a little high, but there are ways to manage it.
Otherwise, it’s a really good project. I can feel it. ”
A surprising bundle of fuzzy warmth settled into her chest. For once, she could actually sense her dad’s sincerity in his praise. It felt good. “Does that mean we can move ahead with it after all?”
He eyed her carefully. “Are you still willing to take the lead on it?”
“Yes, with a team. Like you, I don’t believe in micromanaging if I have people I can trust to help. And I’d still like to have some freedom to pursue other interests.”
“That…seems reasonable,” he answered with a thoughtful nod. Then his face reddened again. “And while I see how wrong I was about this Maddox, if she—”
“They,” Denise corrected.
He nodded again. “Right. If they stay in your life while being employed by our company, that could create complications—for work, for you, and for them.”
“I realize that. Truly. But I think the two of us can figure it out.”
“Okay, I trust you.”
That warm, fuzzy bundle expanded, and she was startled to feel the pinprick sensation of tears in the corners of her eyes once again. “So, how about we move ahead with all this and trust each other?”
He sat taller and shifted on the sofa to face her more fully. A broad grin slowly spread over his face. “You’ve turned into quite the negotiator.”
“I come by it honestly,” she answered with a grin of her own before extending her hand. “Ready to move forward?”
He beamed as he took her hand and gave it a firm shake. “Ready.”