Page 172 of The Perfect Wrong

I feel so vulnerable out here like this with nothing under my skirt.

But if there’s any man alive who makes me feel secure when I’m naked, it’s him.

And tonight, Mr. Anything gets what he wants.

* * *

Later that week,I’m eating with Evie and Dad for the first time in ages.

It’s a typically awkward dinner with superficial small talk floating back and forth—that is, whenever anyone bothers speaking at all.

Dad keeps the conversation light and focused on the airlines, some recent ups and downs in his stock prices making the shareholders nervous.

Basically the usual big-shot CEO worries I’ve heard a million times since I was a little girl.

Evie picks at her food, nodding along and muttering single syllable answers.

Freaking ouch.

I fill my wineglass for the third time. That sweet red blend is the only reason I don’t go off and yell at her until she acknowledges my poor dad exists.

He’s the only reason you’re eating dinner with us and you’re not stuffed away in a rehab place.

Can’t you see how hard he’s trying, how much he’s investing, you ungrateful—

Yeah.

The two-week stint she spent in that clinic wasn’t nearly long enough.

Honestly, the cold, detached shell of a person she’s become since returning home is just killing him in slow motion. It hurts to watch, and the worst is he doesn’t know what else to do.

Still, Dad soldiers on.

He’s just that kind of lovestruck, stubborn buffalo.

He can’t take another failure.

So I look on sadly, feeling like I’m reliving the final hospice days of our family life before Mom ran out with another man and left my father this desperate, broken man.

“Ladies, I’ll be at the North American division conference I told you about next week,” he says with a strained smile. “I trust you’ll both be able to make do without me? I’ve made the usual arrangements with the staff. Oh, and Cordelia, if you’d like to have any friends over, please respect Evie’s space. We certainly don’t want anyone barging in and bothering her.”

Evie slams her fork down, looking up with interest for the first time. Her cutting glance could strip the bark off a tree.

“God, do you ever shut up and stop worrying, Bruce?” she spits. “You really think she’ll drag one of her little friends upstairs and wake me up with some obnoxious fuck session? Are you that oblivious?”

Oh, no.

Time stalls as I stare at her, hating how her eyes flick over to me and never let go.

She sighs slowly before she says, “Cordelia’s too busy riding my son for any interest in other boys, and they’re already loud enough to wake the dead.”

Shit!

I almost drop my empty wineglass.

Dad gives me this glassy-eyed look of dumbstruck horror.

Yikes.

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