Page 108 of Bad Luck Club

“Do you want him here, Addy?” Lee asked her quietly.

Indecision flickered on her face, something he understood all too well. She so desperately wanted their father to be there to give her his approval, but that was never, ever going to happen. For any of them. The sooner they stopped searching for it, the happier they all would be. They needed to learn to be enough for one another.

Prescott headed directly to Adalia, but right before he reached her, Lee stepped in his path.

“Dad,” he said with a grunt.

“I can’t believe you had the nerve to show up in public,” Prescott sneered. “I heard you’ve been up and down the eastern seaboard begging for a job. You even took an interview with our competition.” He laughed at Lee’s surprised look. “Jeremy Rousseau called me for a reference. I told him you were a mediocre salesman at best, but you’d do adequately if he could stomach having a traitor on his team.”

In the past, a statement like that might have filled Lee with outrage. But all he felt now was disgust. What kind of father treated his son that way?

What kind of person treatedanyonethat way?

“If you can’t have me, then no one can,” Lee said, realizing the irony.

Jeremy felt the exact same way about Blue.

Had he gotten it wrong? Had Jeremy found out about them somehow and offered him a job to keep them apart? Sorting back through the angry words Remy and Blue had exchanged, it seemed likely. But would Jeremy Rousseau really go to so much trouble to hurt his ex-wife?

Hadn’t he previously done so much worse?

He felt nauseated again.

But his father was staring at him in disdain. “I neverwantedyou, Junior. You are weak and stupid, always have been. I merely tolerated you because I had no one else.”

Georgie and Adalia gasped behind him, and he had to steady his breathing to ride through the pain of his father’s cruel words. But Lee suspected Prescott was just getting started. He’d come here to cut down all of them—he wouldn’t be satisfied with hurting only Lee. Not on Adalia’s special night.

“You need to go,” Lee said, his voice deep and commanding.

Finn, River, and Jack joined him in a line, blocking Prescott from Adalia.

“You heard the man,” Finn said. He was usually a happy-go-lucky guy, but he looked like he wanted to rip off Prescott’s head and drop-kick it down the street.

“I’m here for Adalia,” Prescott said with a grin. He was loving every minute of this. He wanted to hurt her—to ruin her show and make it about him—but Lee would be damned if he’d let that happen.

“Bullshit,” he scoffed, grabbing one of Prescott’s arms while Finn grabbed the other. They forced him to the back entrance as Jack opened the door in preparation.

“Time to take out the trash,” Jack said with a cold look Lee wasn’t used to seeing on his brother’s face.

They carted him outside and into the back alley, Lee giving him a hard shove. Prescott stumbled backward, fury filling his eyes. “You can’t manhandle me this way.”

“Go home,” Lee said, sounding as weary as he felt. “You’re not wanted here.”

“Can’t a father come to his daughter’s art exhibit?”

“Yes,” Lee said carefully. “A father can and would. But you are no father to her. You never were and you never will be. So please, for the love of God, do one good thing in your life and let her be happy.”

Prescott stared at him in disbelief.

“In fact,” Lee said, “letallof us be happy. Me, Georgie, Addy, and Jack. We all wanted your blessing, but we’re done begging for scraps. We don’t need anything from you. We only need each other.”

“And Dottie,” Jack added.

Lee shot him a glance and nodded before turning back to Prescott. “And Dottie.”

“That crazy old woman?” Prescott asked with a laugh. “You can’t be serious.”

“That crazy old woman has been a better parent to me in the past two months than you have in your entire life,” Lee snapped. “Your power over us is gone. We no longer give a single shit what you think.”

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