Page 45 of Sunset Tides
“It’s more than rude. It’s dangerous. My dad doesn’t take kindly to human fault, and for some reason when he’s on the boat, he becomes even more difficult.”
Lucy frowned. Her history in customer service wasn’t stellar. What kind of havoc could she wreak before being abandoned? “What if I keep my passport sewed into my clothes? Then I can live without fear.”
“That would be something,” Rob said, a half-smile on his lips.
“Or what if I managed to not get fired until we were in the middle of the ocean. What would he do to me then?”
He nodded. “That’s happened, too. He had a helicopter come out and pick the person up.”
“That doesn’t sound so bad. Free helicopter ride.”
“Not free.” Rob stood and walked over to the counter, leaning toward her. “He’d send you the bill.”
“Yikes. Was he one of those dads who made you pay rent when you turned twelve?”
Rob let out a laugh. “No. He wasn’t like that. He was determined to give us the best of everything.”
“But everyone else got treated like crap?”
He stared at the counter for a moment before looking up at her. “No, not everyone. He treated some staff generously. He paid for our nanny’s kids to go to college.”
“Wow.”
Rob nodded. “Yeah. He’s not a bad person. He’s just… strongly principled.”
“I don’t know that purposefully abandoning someone without their passport is principled.”
Rob nodded. “Fair. He’s strict, then. Especially with himself. I can only imagine that he gave us all the stuff he would’ve wanted growing up.”
“What was it you wanted growing up?”
“I just wanted to make him happy,” Rob said with a shrug.
“I see.”
Her view of Rob had evolved. He wasn’t the villain she’d thought he was. He was just an overgrown kid still trying to impress his dad.
Parental relationships were so strange. Lucy often wondered how different she would be if her parents had been alive to raise her instead of Claire.
What mistakes would they have made? What blind spots would they have had? She had a hard time imagining either of them as anything but perfect.
“What about you?” he asked. “What complaints do you have about Claire?”
Lucy made a face. “Complaints?”
“Her flaws,” Rob said.
“Claire doesn’t really have flaws.”
“Oh come on.” Rob straightened, towering over her. “That can’t be true.”
The shirt he had on today was a lighter blue, not quite like a robin’s egg, but in that color family. It made his eyes pop, and it looked so soft. His bicep was just in reach…
Lucy cleared her throat. “She’s a bit of a martyr, I guess. I don’t know if that’s a flaw as much as it is a core trait.”
“You’re making me feel guilty that I made my dad sound so bad.”
Lucy smiled. Maybe his dad justwasbad. Claire would never do anything so cruel to a person, let alone someone who worked for her. Some of the hotel staff walked all over her. “I mean, she’s not perfect. She’s human. We fought a lot when I was a teenager, but who doesn’t fight with their parents at that point?”
