The Long Game (Long Game, #1)(120)

“Yes and no,” he admitted quickly. Far too quick for me to process. “I sent you there because Green Oak seemed like an experience you could benefit from. But I’d be lying if I said I didn’t assume you’d put it together.” He shrugged. “I guess I was wrong.”

His words reverberated in my head as I stared into my father’s eyes. They were Josie’s light blue eyes. Only they lacked everything hers had. A powerful emotion rippled through me at the realization, at how obvious it had been, at how he’d just put me down for not piecing it together.

He always did that. Put me down. Hid things.

“You guess you were wrong?” I repeated, something rioting in my chest. Something that had nothing to do with how I’d just been heaving for a breath. “You sent me out there knowing I might find out about a half sister you’ve been hiding from me, knowing I’d interact with her, possibly befriend her, and you shrug it off like that?”

“Once more, I thought that was why you were here,” he said. And God, there was so much noise in my ears. My head. I couldn’t think. I missed Cameron’s hands, anchoring me to the world. “I’ve been expecting this for a while now.”

I briefly closed my eyes, gave myself a few seconds to sieve through the surge of ugly and overpowering emotions climbing up and down. “I was here because I heard rumors of you selling the Flames. To David. Because I know about him using you. Using me. Because I thought I was somehow responsible for him forcing your hand.”

He sighed. “It’s late. Let’s go home and continue this some other time. There’s no stopping the sale of the club anyway, but I’m sure you’ll have questions about that. I’ll ask my driver to drop you off at your apartment.”

The rush of blood in my rib cage, my head, at his words had been so loud that for a second I’d thought I hadn’t heard him right. It was impossible, after all, that someone broke this kind of life-changing news to his own daughter and then followed it up with that. My head lifted, and what had been a scattered mind focused.

“No,” I all but spat, taking in the blank expression on his face. “You’re not dismissing me like this. I’ve given up a lot to be here right now.” I’d let the girls down. Left a heartbroken Cameron behind.

He checked his watch again. “It’s late, Adalyn,” he said slowly. “And you’re clearly rattled and in no shape to have a discussion. I’m doing this for your own good. Just like everything else.”

“You mean hiding I have a sibling or asking David to marry me in exchange for a job, as if I was nothing but cattle being traded?”

His jaw clenched. “That’s an exaggeration.”

A clarity that hadn’t been there all these years crystallized. “What else then? Maybe it was the way you overlooked my efforts to impress you. To earn your approval and respect. Was that for my own good?”

“I never overlooked you, Adalyn.”

“Then why?” I asked him, my voice terrifyingly calm. “Why would you offer your daughter to a horrible man? Why would you let him play us both by not telling me when you should have? I had to find out from his own lips during the anniversary of the club. How is any of that protecting me? How is sending me off, banishing me, doing that? You never checked on me, not once.” I brought my hand to the middle of my chest. “You’re my father.”

My father nodded his head slowly, then let out a chuckle I didn’t understand. “So that’s what made you get like that and attack Sparkles? Good God, Adalyn. It almost cost me the club.”

All semblance of hope still in me vanished.

“That’s all you have to say,” I said, not asked. Because I didn’t need an answer. He’d given me one. I shook my head. “It wasn’t about me, was it? Nothing was.”

“Everything I do is for us,” he said, something getting through to him. “David threatened going to some gossip site with the story of our arrangement if I took the VP position from him. The sponsors too. But that’s water under the bridge. Honestly, I thought you had a little more self-respect than letting this bother you.”

So Dad had never been protecting our relationship. Or me. He’d only protected himself. His name. And that broke my heart. It had been tearing all throughout this conversation, I realized. But it completely shattered now.

Silence fell in the office for a long moment. I couldn’t believe I’d come here, broken the girls’ trust. Missed out on today. I’d taken a hundred steps back, and it made my chest hurt like it never had. I clutched Cameron’s ring in my fist.

“How much in debt is the Vasquez farm in?” I didn’t need to say more. I knew my father understood.

“Big debt.”

I nodded my head. “Josie. How did it even happen?”

My father’s eyes narrowed, and any other time, that look would have been enough to silence me. But I suddenly didn’t care. I didn’t want his respect. I only wanted answers. “I always made sure Josephine was taken care of growing up. I provided for her. I invested in the town so she didn’t have to grow up in the same sad place where I was born.”

He lets people believe he’s from Miami, but he’s not. Those had been Mom’s words.

And that’s how the next and last piece of the puzzle fell into place. Dad was from Green Oak.