11. Travis
TRAVIS
“T hen, we went to the Empire State Building,” Sofia pronounced the words crisply, clearly, giving them the importance they deserved. “And Daddy held me up so I could see everything.”
Mom hadn’t stopped smiling since Sofia came downstairs for dinner. She wiped her mouth with her napkin before gracefully draping it across her lap. “That sounds like so much fun. You are such a lucky girl.”
“And today, I had a playdate with my friend, Ava, and?—”
I cleared my throat to get her attention. “Maybe you should give Nana the chance to get a word in edgewise,” I suggested. “She might have things she wants to tell you about too.”
“I love to hear all about everything you do,” Mom insisted, tapping one manicured nail against the tip of Sofia’s nose.
She offered a radiant smile that did strange, painful things with my heart.
Out of everything I lost three years ago, being able to see her more frequently was one that left me aching worst of all.
Sofia had only been one when it all unraveled, and that fact made the ache even sharper.
Not only for my sake but for Sofia’s. For Mom, too, since she obviously craved being able to see her granddaughter.
But given that I’d rather light myself on fire than walk into the family home again, it made things tricky.
The elephant in the room had not been addressed.
Every time I glanced Penny’s way, she looked a little more distressed.
She was obviously humiliated, being found the way we were when Mom pulled her surprise attack from the patio door.
“ I knocked at the front door, ” she’d explained after the requisite hug and kiss on my cheek.
“ Nobody answered. I didn’t want to ring the bell since I was hoping to surprise Sofia. ”
Well, Sofia wasn’t the only one surprised. Aside from a few meaningful looks my way when Sofia wasn’t paying attention, Mom played off the entire situation with her typical grace and good manners.
And once again, as I sipped from a glass of rich merlot, I asked myself how the hell she had spent so many years with the cold-hearted son of a bitch she had yet to divorce.
It couldn’t be love keeping her with him—the man was about as lovable as a cactus and would inflict more pain on anyone who made the mistake of getting too close.
Her quiet gentleness was in direct contrast with his arrogance, the way he strutted around.
The self-important prick. The thought of him tightened my chest and left me clenching my fist in my lap.
“Clearly, Sofia loves you.” Mom turned her smile toward Penny, who, at the moment, looked like she might have swallowed her tongue.
She had no reason to be so nervous, but then that was easy for me to say.
I wasn’t the younger employee in this situation—all the more reason why I had no business acting like a horny teenager as soon as the coast was clear.
I had spent most of the day lost in fantasy, and by the time I’d pulled up in the driveway, my dick might as well have been leading the way.
“She’s the best,” Penny insisted with the closest thing to a genuine smile she had worn since Mom showed up. They were on common ground now, speaking the same language. “I’m lucky to be here.”
“And we’re lucky to have her,” I added before realizing exactly what I said. “As a nanny,”
I added because yes, that would help things. That cleared it all up.
Penny’s porcelain cheeks went red, and she suddenly became deeply interested in scraping a bit of cheese off her plate. Mom, in typical fashion, pretended not to notice anything awkward.
“I have a question for my granddaughter.” Mom turned to her, eyes twinkling. “How would you like to do something special for me for my birthday?”
“Yeah!” Sofia agreed. “Like what? Do you wanna have a party?”
“Something like that,” Mom said with a smile. “But nothing too fancy. Just a nice dinner at home.”
That’s what this was all about? I set my glass down, settling back in my chair.
I loved her, I was sorry she got caught up in the ugliness between Dad and me, but I didn’t appreciate her tactics.
“Wasn’t this something we could’ve discussed between the two of us?
” I asked as evenly as I could for Sofia’s sake.
“You’re right. Because it is so easy to get a hold of you,” Mom said gently, with a grin, but she wasn’t joking. Yet another little trick she had picked up through years of living with that bastard. Finding inoffensive ways to express her true thoughts.
The fact that she would have to do that in front of me, that she even thought she had to handle me the way she handled him, made me wish I hadn’t eaten so much of Penny’s delicious lasagna.
My stomach was churning by the time I replied, “If I knew it was something like this, I would’ve made it a point to speak to you directly and politely decline. ”
“What does that mean?” Sofia asked Penny, who sat silent, watching all of this unfold.
Why did she have to be here for this? We had never talked about it.
I went out of my way to avoid the topic of Dad beyond the night I explained why it meant so much to bury him professionally.
That was merely a sliver of the entire story.
This was not how she needed to find out just why I was determined to keep my personal life off the internet.
“It means I don’t think we can go to dinner at Nana and Grandpa’s house.
” I pointedly ignored the way Penny’s eyebrows shot up at my announcement.
“I would be happy to take Nana out to dinner wherever she wants to go for her birthday. We can all go together and make a big deal out of it. But not at the house,” I concluded.
No doubt Penny had a million questions and thought I was acting like an ass, but she didn’t know.
For that matter, neither did my mother. It was one thing we had agreed upon, Dad and me.
Making sure she never knew what he did. How deeply, thoroughly, and unforgivably he had betrayed me.
There were still times I wondered if it wasn’t his way of getting back at me for throwing his job offer in his face years ago.
Not that it mattered. The result was the same.
He had broken our family irreparably. There was no going back.
Which meant looking like an asshole in moments like this, when the sight of Mom's disappointed face was a knife to my chest. It was a sacrifice I would have to make. Telling her the truth would be so much worse. I wouldn’t crush her that way.
Her disappointment would have been bad enough. It was Sofia who turned to me, crestfallen. “But I want to see Nana’s house. You never took me there.”
I stared across the table at my mother, who I loved but at the moment would have happily thrown out on her ass for putting me in this position. She knew damn well what my answer would be, so she showed up in person and got Sofia on her side.
“It’s all I want for my birthday,” she insisted. “Just that. Dinner at home with you and Sofia. And you can bring Penny,” she added, smiling at the girl who was so nervous she barely moved. Only her eyes darted back and forth like she was watching a tennis match.
“No.” It came out of me like a shotgun blast. “That’s not going to happen.” Penny’s face fell, but I would have to make it up to her. It wasn’t personal. It had nothing to do with how I felt about her.
Or maybe it did because the idea of introducing her to him nauseated me. She was too good. He didn’t deserve to breathe the same air she did.
It was a silent standoff between Mom and me, gazing at each other, both of us expressing a thousand words without speaking a single one.
“Please,” Mom whispered. “I only want us to be together again for one night. He’s never met her,” she added like I needed to be reminded. Like that wasn’t deliberate.
Sofia tugged my sleeve. “Can we go, Daddy? I’ll be good, I promise.”
“That’s not what bothers me, sweetie.” She sat to my right at the square kitchen table. I reached out and ran a hand over her curls. “I know you would be.”
“Then how come we can’t go?”
“You know what?” Penny pushed back from the table, wearing one of her patented, beaming smiles. “Let’s go up to your art studio and find your new painting so we can bring it down and show your Nana. I know she would like to see it.”
“I would love to,” Mom assured them.
Thank God for Penny and the short attention span of a four-year-old. Sofia was out of her chair in the blink of an eye, tossing her napkin onto the chair before scurrying out of the room. “I’ll be right back, Nana!” she called out as she ran. Penny shot me a single, panicked look as she followed.
That left the two of us. I could drop the act I only kept up for Sofia’s sake, but Mom got the first word in.
“I’m so happy to see you opening up again after all that ugliness,” she murmured, obviously referring to my ruined marriage.
Because why would she not twist the poker she’d skewered through my chest?
“It’s not like that at all,” I quickly corrected.
“Don’t get ahead of yourself.” Though the reminder of my past couldn’t have come at a better time.
I couldn’t afford to tie my future to Penny or any woman.
It was purely physical, no matter how comfortable we got with each other.
“Stop trying to distract me,” I murmured, shaking my head.
“When you know damn well I’m furious with you for using your granddaughter against me. ”
“Why do you think that’s what this is about?” she asked. “All right, so my methods might be a little sneaky.”
“I could think of a few other words to describe them,” I muttered under my breath.
“But Travis. Think about it. I’m a grandmother whose granddaughter has never stepped foot in her house. Your father has never met her.”
“Which I’m sure breaks his heart,” I retorted.
She rarely scowled, but my attitude inspired one. “You don’t know how he feels because you refuse to speak to him.”
Shifting on the chair, I replied, “I have my reasons.”
Please, please, stop pushing me. I’m doing this for you.
“Those reasons have fueled three years of a cold war?” she countered. “Can’t you let it go for one night after nursing your grudge for so long? All I want is a single dinner in my home with my son and my granddaughter. It’s my only wish. I don't think it’s too much to ask, Travis.”
“I’ll do anything else you want. Not this.”
“Sweetheart.” She pushed her plate aside and folded her hands on the table.
Her seven-carat diamond sparkled brilliantly.
“I’m not going to be here forever. I don’t ask you for anything.
When you told me Sofia would never step foot in my house, I was hurt, but I accepted it.
I know better than to try to change your mind when you’ve made it up. ”
“Yet here you sit, doing exactly that,” I pointed out.
“Which I suppose means this is very important to me. None of us has unlimited birthdays.”
A chill went down my spine at her choice of words.
“Are you trying to tell me something?” I asked, thinking about Lex and his father.
Alexander Landry had kept his cancer diagnosis secret at first, though by all reports, he was doing very well.
But it was a wake-up call of sorts. There was no such thing as forever.
Except when it came to how long I would hate my father. That, I could see lasting until my final breath.
“Oh, now,” she insisted with a gentle laugh, waving a hand. “I’m not trying to alarm you. I’m only reminding you of a simple fact. Please. This one night for my sixty-fifth birthday. All I want is dinner at home with my family. Can you please do that for me?”
“Nana! Look at my painting!” Sofia acted as Penny’s hype woman, leading the way while Penny brought up the rear with a canvas in her hands.
“That is beautiful!” Mom clapped her hands to the sides of her face. “My goodness! I think you have a real future as a painter!”
“I’ve been thinking the same thing,” Penny agreed as she set the canvas up on the counter using that god-awful cookie jar to prop it up from behind. “She just… gets it, you know? It’s hard to explain.”
“No, I see what you mean. There’s so much detail.
” Meanwhile, Sofia just about burst with pride.
I was content to sit back and leave them to it as I silently seethed.
She had me between a rock and a hard place, and she knew it.
Sofia was thrilled at the idea of going, and Penny wouldn’t understand my refusal unless I sacked up and confessed the part of the story I didn’t tell her.
Part of the story no one knew except me, Dad, and the mother of my child.
Otherwise, my pride wouldn’t let me admit it.
What he did. What I found them doing together.
And there was Penny, the opposite of that vile bitch in every way imaginable. How was I supposed to explain this because she would want an explanation, I knew that much damn well. Could I trust her with the most humiliating secret of my life?
Or would I only regret it the way I regretted almost everything about my ill-fated, short-lived marriage? Everything but Sofia, who hopped up and down with excitement as she described her painting to Mom.
No matter how I looked at it, I was fucked. I could be the villain who wouldn’t give my mother her one simple wish, or I could be the villain who told her the reason Nicola and I split up was the fact that I found her fucking Dad in his home study. I would lose out either way.
Mom laughed happily when Sofia threw her arms around her legs. She patted the top of Sofia’s head, smiling down at her before turning that smile my way. One full of hope. Silently pleading.
“Fine,” I mouthed, watching her smile widen, hoping like hell I wouldn’t regret this. That he wouldn’t make me regret it.