Page 25 of Sugar Coated

His hand squeezed my ankle enough that I could tell he was surprised at the question. “Why would you… does me being mayor bother you?” He pulled his hand off me and set it on his lap, his brows drawn together ever so slightly.

Eh, might as well just tell him.

It took me a few seconds to muster up the courage to say it. “Sometimes it just feels like you care more about your job than me.” I hated how weak the sentence made me sound, like I gave a shit one way or another.

Okay, maybe a teeny, tiny part of me did care. Maybe a small part of me was still hurting, just as I’d hurt when I’d been chained to that bed, watching the local news every single day ashe climbed higher and higher in the polls—to the point where his victory was all but promised.

“That’s not true,” my dad was quick to say. “That’s not true at all. What on earth would give you that idea?”

My gaze fell to my lap. I shouldn’t, but… might as well just keep going at this point. “When I was taken, my kidnapper set up a TV for me. I was able to watch the news. I saw the press conferences, the candlelight vigils, the door-to-door search coverage. You rallied the city to find me, and at the same time you made the city fall in love with you. I saw when you walked out of the church the day you married Tessa. You looked so happy. That was the first time it really hit me: maybe he doesn’t miss me. Maybe he doesn’t really care—”

“Laina, honey, no.” My dad scooted along the edge of my bed until he was close enough to me he could reach me and pull me in for a hug. His arms wrapped around me, but I didn’t hug him back. I couldn’t. “I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry you feel that way, but it’s not true. You know I love you more than life itself. Up until a few years ago, it was just you and me against the world. We were a team.”

I pulled away from him as I asked, “Were we? Because from what I remember, I just smiled and went along with whatever you wanted. Once you got into politics, you realized you could use me. A single dad taking care of his daughter.”

“I never used you—”

“Didn’t you? I never wanted to go to any of those meet-and-greets. I didn’t want to be on TV like you did. I just wanted to be a kid, and you wouldn’t let me.”

The look my dad gave me right then made it look like he felt the weight of the entire world on his shoulders. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know you felt that way… why didn’t you ever tell me this?”

“Because you were happy. Because you found a purpose again. Because I… I wanted to be a good daughter and make youproud.” I hated how vulnerable I sounded. It’s funny; I could talk about kidnapping and see Fang rip into someone with his actual teeth and I was fine with it, but having a heart-to-heart with my dad was another story.

The sigh my dad heaved right then was record-setting. “I wish you would have told me this sooner. I never want you to feel like you’re an afterthought or that you don’t matter to me. You mean the world to me, and you always will.”

Don’t think I didn’t notice how he never actually said that he’d walk away from the mayor’s seat if I asked him to. My dad had lots to say, but nothing about that, oddly enough… almost like he wouldn’t ever voluntarily walk away.

Still, the more he talked, the more I couldn’t picture him at the root of my kidnappings.

“Listen, if you want to go out and live your life, that’s fine, but tell me where you’re going and when you’ll be home. I won’t force you to bunker down in this house. Just… be smart about things, please? Kieran is going to be out of the picture for a while, so you need Mike with you, at the very least.”

“I know.”

“And if something looks fishy or you get a weird feeling, no matter where you are or what you’re doing, come straight home.”

“Okay, Dad.”

“Maybe I could assign you a second guard—”

“Mike is fine,” I interrupted him. “I’ll be okay. It’s just… a lot to get used to.”

My dad gave me a gentle smile. “I love you, you know that?”

“I love you, too.”

He patted me on the leg once more before he got up and wandered out of my room, closing the door behind him as he went and thus left me alone to stew in the aftermath of that conversation. I bit the inside of my cheek, replaying it over andover again in my head, going through his responses, how he’d looked at me when I’d told him the truth.

Politicians were good liars. Two-faced. It’s what they did best, no matter what side they were on. I wouldn’t trust any of them with my life or the lives of the people I cared about. My dad, as much as I hated to admit it, was one of them now, and he very well could’ve been one his entire life, a politician in waiting.

Maybe he was lying. Maybe he was just that good. Or maybe I was still hurt that my dad used my kidnapping to further his career. At this point, I gave up trying to make sense of it all.

When sleep finally took me in its embrace, my dreams were only memories. Memories of a time when I was little and it was just me and my dad. Memories of school projects and school plays; things you hated when you were little but somehow they formed core memories anyway. How much fun we had together, how much we used to laugh. How happy I used to be.

Man, how times had changed.

The next day I wanted to visit Lola and see if she got any information out of the guy Mike didn’t kill. I didn’t know exactly which one it was, but he was part of the group who’d kidnapped me from that party, and with any luck he would be more talkative than the man in police custody.

Oh, but before that, I needed to get a replacement phone.

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