Page 130 of The Legend (Rivers Wilde 2)

“I cared very much about your mother. I met her when I was going through a very difficult time. She was far too young, and I was far too old, you see. I could have gone to jail. I had a business, a family. I just couldn’t risk everything for a lapse in judgment.” He doesn’t even sound sorry. He’s just telling me the facts.

“So you abandoned her. And me.” My tone is biting, and he casts his eyes to his lap.

“Yes. I did,” he admits and somehow, it doesn’t hurt as much to hear it as I had imagined.

“I see.”

“You have to understand. My wife and son both died in a horrific car crash about a year before your mother came to see me

about you—after you got in all that trouble. I wanted to help, so I gave her the bookstore. But I couldn’t do more than that, Kalilah. When I looked at her, all I saw was my karma. I had convinced myself I lost them because I betrayed my wife. It was irrational, but I was grieving. So, I kept my distance. But every time she’s asked me for it, I’ve helped her. But, I’ve had my own struggles.”

He sounds like he expects me to feel sorry for him. And I guess on a basic human level, I do.

I glance around the room and imagine how different my life would have been if I had grown up in this house.

I may have had a nicer roof over my head, but this man wouldn’t ever have been the father I needed. His explanation sounds more like excuses and they leave me cold.

They’re also not what I want from him.

“Mr. Lister, I came here today because I want the bookstore. And I want you to give it to me.”

CONVERSATION THREE

“Kal, this is some shit,” Kelli says, her tone thoroughly scandalized by what I’ve just told her.

“Trust me, I know. I am ankle deep in it and sinking further every day.”

“Oooh wheeee, honey. You know how to fuck up, right! You go big or go home.” She chortles.

“You’re not helping, Kelli.” I moan miserably. I have a low-level thrumming of panic inside of my head. I called her because she knows what’s at stake, in a way that no one else does.

“I’m sorry. Let me just make sure I’ve got this completely straight, okay?” she says soberly.

“Okay.”

“So, you didn’t know he was the story when you went to see him, right?”

“Right.”

“Now you’re lying to Jules to buy time to find an angle that doesn’t include him because she stuck her neck out for you. But also, you’re moving back to Houston to run a bookstore some dude just gave you.”

“Right.”

“So, what about this story? Is it not newsworthy?” she asks.

“Of course it is. But I can’t be the one to tell it.”

“So, you’re going to let someone else get this huge scoop on the man you love and write it instead?”

“I don’t know if anyone else will get the scoop.”

“If Jules sent you down to Houston to chase this story, then trust me, it’s a big enough scoop that you’re not the only one with it in your sights. Someone will write it. But that someone won’t be you.”

The thought unnerves me.

“Kal. Tell him about the assignment. Ask him if he’ll consider giving you the story. This could be his chance to get ahead of a story you can’t bury.”

“Yes! Oh my God, Kelli. You’re right. I mean, he’s very private, but if he could have some assurances about the story and maybe…”

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