Page 40 of Selfless

I pace back and forth, running my hands through my hair as she tells me about how she called my father crying ‘cause she had run into Conner at a Starbucks and how he then called Jaycent.

I come to a stop and turn to face her. “He what? When was this?”

She goes to open her mouth but shuts it the moment that my office door opens. “Ryder, what in the hell …?” My father cuts himself off as he spots my sister. “Becca, what are you doing here?” he asks, trying to hide his surprise.

“I needed to talk to Ryder,” she says, sniffing and then wiping her wet cheeks. “I’ll go ...”

“No,” I tell her. “You’re fine. You can stay as long as you want.”

She shakes her head. “I need to go. I’m meeting Jaycent for lunch.” She walks over to me and gives me a big hug, whispering, “Thank you, Ryder. For everything.” And then she pulls away, giving me a small smile, and it’s the first smile I’ve seen on her face in a while. “I love you,” she says, walking to the door.

“I love you too,” I tell her, watching her hug our father and promising to call him later.

She comes to a stop at the door and turns back to face me. “I’m here to help you, Ryder. Let me know what I can do.”

I know she means with Ashlyn, so I just nod, and then she leaves, closing the door behind her.

“So you finally found out about Jaycent,” my father says.

“No thanks to you,” I snap.

He shrugs. “I knew she would tell you when she was ready.”

“Well, she didn’t,” I say. “I caught them.”

He smiles at that. “So I’m going to assume that Jaycent was the one who gave you the shiner,” he muses as his eyes look over my left cheek.

I look away from him, hiding that side of my face. “What do you want, Dad?”

“I was wondering why you canceled two very important meetings and weren’t taking my phone calls.”

I gesture to the door that my sister just walked out of. “Well, now you know.”

“And Ashlyn?” he asks curiously.

“What about her?”

“Have you patched that up as well? She seemed pretty pissed when she took over the meeting the other day.”

I sigh. “Nope.”

“Too bad.”

I laugh at all the craziness that has become my life. “You sound like you actually care.”

He nods. “I do.”

I snort. “This coming from the man who lied to me.” He had the perfect opportunity to tell me what was going on when we were on his plane on the way back from Philadelphia, but instead, he chose not to.

He goes on. “Just so there’s no confusion and you don’t come to me later on pissed off at me for keeping secrets from you, Ashlyn has found out that O’Kane’s is buying Talia’s, and she put in her two weeks’ notice.”

“What?” I demand. “When the hell did this happen?”

“I spoke with her last week about it,” he says with a careless shrug. “I talked her into giving me a month. Told her this process would take time and not to throw in the towel so soon.”

“That doesn’t make any sense, Dad. The auction is weeks away. The moment we buy it, you’re tearing it down. So where does that leave her?” I growl.

“It leaves her here with you.” He slaps me on the shoulder. “So you’d better come up with a way to keep her here before she packs up and heads back home. Word on the street is that that’s the plan.” Then he turns away from me.

---