“Bailey.” He waited. Then, “Look at me. Please.”
I did, but I didn’t want to. I didn’t have the emotions in check, and a tear slid down my face.
I heard Chrissy gasp as she was rounding the pool, too.
Hayes women didn’t cry. We endured. We were tough. We kept going.
We did not cry.
Except these eye things kept leaking. They were broken.
“What the hell?” There was my mama bear, growling. “What’d you say to her?” But she wasn’t accusing Victoria. Her words were directed at Peter, her finger in the air.
He threw his head up, an incredulous look on his face. “Keep your hate in check, woman. I’m trying to make things right, for once. And I’m done waiting around.” He swept the entire pool area in a gaze, his eyes falling and pinning to me. He spoke up. “Labor Day is in a week and a half. We will be having a party that day.”
Quinn came forward. “Honey?”
Matt frowned. “Dad?”
His jaw clenched. “It’s time I announce my daughter to the world.”
He wasn’t done.
He turned to my mom. “I am never letting her go, not again. Do not push me on this, and do not make this difficult. I will take you on if I have to.”
“She’s an adult. No one’s got custody of her,” Quinn was saying, coming forward in her own high heels and wearing an outfit remarkably similar to Victoria’s. “She can make her own decisions—”
“Exactly!” He was skewering his wife and my mother at the same time, with the same look. “She’s a part of this family from now on. I will hear nothing against this, do you both understand?”
I was confused. Not about Quinn, but my mom. Chrissy hadn’t been trying to talk me into leaving. She had stayed. She was just as locked in with Seraphina, Matt, and Cyclone as I was. But I still saw that guilt. That was there for a reason.
A hand came to my back. Kash. He slid it up to my nape. “Security will have to be tight.”
Some of the fight left Peter, and he dipped his head in an abrupt nod. He raked a hand through his hair, rubbing it briskly over his face, but his other hand was still in a fist. “Yes. We’ll put together a protocol.” He said to me, “I hope you’re okay with this, but you are my daughter. You have always been my daughter, and it’s time everyone realized how your place is here with us and should’ve always been.” He glowered at Victoria once more, but she had faded from my side, starting to turn so she was hidden behind her friends.
He stalked off after that. Quinn went after him.
My mom faltered, watching me, and I shook my head. I didn’t want to hear whatever she was going to say. My mom always meant well, but maybe she wasn’t always the right person to listen to.
Kash then clipped out, “What did she say to you?”
FIFTY-ONE
I was a mess.
The ten days had gone by so fast. So much happened when everyone was getting ready for the party. It was a big to-do. My alerts had been going nuts from people posting about it. Security was going to be insane. They had a helicopter going over the property. I was trying not to focus on all the speculation or how livid Martha had been when Peter told her his plan. He hadn’t cared. He said it was happening and she needed to adjust her plan, so she did. She was proficient, if anyone needed one word to describe her.
The Bonham poisoning affair/pending divorce scandal was nipped in the bud and, instead, glowing stories came out about me. They talked about things I had forgotten had happened, like awards I won in elementary school or how I applied for and won so many Phoenix Tech scholarships when it wasn’t known I was his daughter. I had earned those on my own, and the competition for them had been stiff.
They talked about my photographic memory, the graduate program I was attending, and how even that was prestigious. The wow factor was in full effect. All these people coming to the party were now coming not only because they were nosey a-holes who wanted to see the ins and outs of Peter Francis’s family but also because they were curious about me.
Another person being buzzed about in the papers: Kash’s grandfather. The financial papers reported he was in the United States and traveling to our area.
Camille Story wasn’t