Page 16 of Thick and Thin

But already I was wheeling the cart away.

Shit. The rocky road ice cream. Turning, I peeked in the case and noticed the most expensive brand practically staring me in the face. Well, dad was worth it—and so was I. I wasn’t about to go backwards. Pulling the door open, I grabbed it and said, “Nice to see you, Mr. Sherwood. Take care.”

“Alan,” he insisted, but I was already rolling down the aisle toward checkout.

I’d never been so angry in my entire life.

Maybe it was because dad was tired or maybe I’d become a better actress (meaning liar) since living in Sinclair’s mansion. Or maybe it was the meal itself combined with his fatigue—but my father hadn’t had a clue that I felt angry and betrayed. I really had put on a good act, and I’d been able to take out my anger on the eggs I’d beaten before adding them to the cheese mixture.

It was the kind of meal that took a lot of wind out of me so that, by the time I called Sinclair, I was fairly calm.

Fairly.

He’d been expecting my call because I’d sent him a text message letting him know I needed to talk to him. Because we hadn’t spoken the night before, he might have thought I was simply giving him an update on dad’s progress.

Once dad was in bed, I stepped into the backyard. Unlike the night I’d taken a walk to speak to him on the phone, I suspected my voice might get a little louder—and with the way people in this town felt about my dad and me, I didn’t need to give them any reason to report me to the police. The windows to dad’s bedroom were on the side and front of the house, so I hoped he would never be the wiser.

But this conversation had to happen.

When Sinclair answered the phone, he asked, “How’s your father?”

“Tired but recovering. But that’s not why I called.”

“Oh?” His voice had a tinge of curiosity and even a little expectation.

Clearly he hadn’t read my tone. Or maybe I really was becoming better at hiding my feelings. I knew, though, that I’d had plenty of practice growing up, never wanting kids knowing how much they’d hurt me, hoping that would make it less fun for them picking on me. And I’d been honing those skills since moving into Sinclair’s mansion. “I ran into one of my professors today at the grocery store. He said the simulation lab at WCC’s been finished since August.”

“It has.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

His voice was as calm as mine, but I could hear something in the tone changing—and I could almost picture his face. I imagined his cold blue eyes turning steely, his brow furrowing. “Would that have changed anything?”

“It changes everything. You lied to me!”

“I didn’t lie. I simply didn’t tell you the whole truth.”

My anger was shifting to hurt—betrayal and pain—and that helped me turn up the anger. “But why?”

“Because it didn’t change anything, Lise. The repairs had to be done—and, by getting them done so quickly, the college is able to make money, not to mention that it’s up and running for dozens of students who could benefit from it. Leona had crews working round the clock so it could be ready by Monday morning of the fall semester.”

“Did the repairs cost as much as you’d projected?” I’d already spent the evening crunching various numbers in my head. Over and over when this had first happened, they’d told me the project cost well over a million dollars—but something I’d failed to consider was how much it would cost to repair. For all I knew, it wouldn’t cost as much.

Something I’d considered after my conversation with Mr. Sherwood.

“We got lucky. They didn’t cost as much as anticipated.”

“How much?” But did the actual amount really matter? “Do I really owe you ten years’ worth of work?”

“I thought we’d moved past that. You’ll be going to school and—”

But it all rushed through my head so quickly: the damned contract, the humiliation and thousands of tears I’d cried, feeling like I was a square peg, a misfit—and I wondered: was this all simply so he could toy with me? Not just for sex but for power?

For revenge?

“Really? Moved past that? I was the one who ripped up the contract, not you.”

“When is the last time I referred to it?”

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