Page 46 of The Banned Books Club

“Do you really want me to tell you?” she asked, but she was trying to resist a smile, so he could tell she was only joking.

It was good to see that she had a sense of humor. And she seemed to like Duke, who’d followed them and was sitting dutifully at her side. Maybe they could find some common ground, after all. “Wow, and here I thought you’d come over to help me call a truce.”

“We haven’t been fighting. It was your sister who had the nerve to call my mother.”

“Something I’m embarrassed about,” he said. “But still, there’s work to be done. We definitely haven’t been friends.”

Her eyes narrowed. “Is that what this is about? Becoming friends?”

He pulled the mug he’d filled with milk from the microwave and added a packet of hot chocolate mix. “It’s about conflict resolution.”

“You hate me for ruining your father’s life. How are we ever going to resolve that?”

She scratched Duke behind the ears, and the dog moved even closer to her. Apparently, he didn’t understand she wasn’t to be trusted.

“Traitor,” Cormac grumbled to Duke and saw Gia’s lips twitch, as if she wanted to smile again.

“Apparently, he’s a better judge of character than you are,” she quipped.

He arched an eyebrow. “He likes my dad, too.”

“Never mind,” she muttered.

He chuckled. “Actually, Duke’s not that keen on him,” he admitted. “And if my dad did what you claim he did, he ruined his own life, right?”

“Whoa! Those are words I never dreamed I’d hearyousay,” she replied. “But that was my therapist’s take on it, yes. And he was a professional.”

She’d had to go to a therapist? He was beginning to feel even worse about what he’d believed—or chosen to believe—in the past. “That would be my take, too,” he said. “Even though I don’t have the same credentials as a therapist.”

She frowned. “Problem is...you’re still using ‘if,’ and I don’t know how to convince you that it really happened.”

The levity he’d felt drained away as he stirred her hot chocolate before sliding it across the granite countertop. “I’m afraid you already have.”

She sat up taller in her seat. “How’d I do that—after so long?”

Feeling like a traitor simply for admitting what was going through his mind, he blew out a sigh. “I think I was afraid of it almost from the beginning. Well, not in high school, of course. I was as shocked and outraged as anyone—”

“I remember,” she broke in, sending him a sulky look.

“I’m sorry I... I verbally attacked you at your locker. Especially because the way my father’s lived his life since then hasn’t built much credibility.”

“Wait. You’re not blaming me for the way he’s lived his life since then, too? Your sisters think I broke him, that he would’ve continued to be a stellar husband, father and teacher had I not ‘lied’ about him.” She used fingers to make quotation marks around “lied.”

“I know. But the more I’ve watched him, the more I’ve had to face the fact that he isn’t the man I once believed him to be. Maybe if he’d never met you—”

“Met me! I was his student!” she cut in.

He lifted a hand to signal he wasn’t finished. “I was pointing out that part of it might simply be bad luck. He ran into someone he craved badly enough to break every rule in the book.”

“I was his student,” she repeated. “And you’re blaming it on bad luck instead of his character.”

“I’m saying you were young and beautiful, and I believe he fell in love with you. That would explain why he never did that kind of thing to anyone else. It’s not an excuse, it’s—” he shook his head “—it’s just trying to understand how it occurred.”

“You mean how he could do what he did?”

He nodded. “I guess that’s what I mean.”

“So you invited me over to apologize?”

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