Sherry nodded and cleared her throat. “Of course. I’ll just . . .” She waved vaguely toward her desk, unsure what she would just do. Sit around and think about everything she’d learned, probably. Try to sort out how many of her life decisions were her own and whether she really wanted to be where she was, or if instead she was where Alexander had wanted her to be.
“Are you sure?” Basil asked with a frown.
Obviously, she hadn’t been convincing, Sherry thought wryly, and straightened her shoulders. “I’m fine. Go ahead and talk to Lucian. I’ll be waiting here when you’re done.”
Basil still looked concerned, but he kissed her gently and then released her face and followed Lucian down into the store. Sherry watched them go, then started to turn toward her desk, but paused as the sound of a vehicle starting and driving away drew her gaze back to the door. Bricker had unlocked it to leave, but couldn’t lock it from the outside. She should do that now, she thought, but paused and glanced toward the door to the store when it opened.
“Sherry?” Elvi called, and then said, “Oh,” when she spotted her at the top of the stairs. “Can I come up?” she asked uncertainly.
“Of course,” Sherry said quietly.
Nodding, Elvi slipped through the door and hurried up the steps to join her on the landing between the two sets of stairs. She hesitated once there, and then pulled her into a hard hug. “I’m so sorry, Sherry. I shouldn’t have said those things. I was just scared that we were going to lose Stephanie. That’s no excuse, I know, but I really am terribly sorry.”
Sherry hugged the woman back without hesitation. “I know. It’s okay. I understand.”
“But can you forgive me?” Elvi asked, easing back. “I was cruel and nasty, and I’m never cruel or nasty.”
“You were a mama bear protecting her cub,” Sherry said, recalling Bricker’s words. She patted Elvi’s shoulder. “Victor explained everything, and I really do understand. Stephanie is like a daughter to you.”
“Yeah. I guess it’s a parent thing,” Elvi said wryly. “We occasionally do stupid things because we care so damned much. But somehow we never expect our parents to be human and mess up too. I mean I don’t know what I would have done if I found out Stephanie was doing drugs. Well, if she was mortal and I could control her, I’d probably do what your father did and just take control and make her stop. Which I suppose is a horrible thing to admit,” she added.
Sherry narrowed her eyes slowly, and then asked without anger, “Reading my mind again?”
“Actually, no,” Elvi said, and when Sherry didn’t hide her disbelief, added, “The intercom was on in the store. We could hear everything.”
“What?” Sherry gasped, and whirled toward her desk. She spotted the intercom panel at the corner of her desk . . . and it was still on. She must have sat on it when she’d perched there early in the conversation with her father, she realized, and now rushed over to shut it off.
“It’s okay,” Elvi said soothingly when Sherry ran her fingers into her hair with a moan. “Decker and Anders took control of your employees and sent them to lunch, then locked the doors and put the Closed sign up so no customers entered and heard anything.”
“But they heard everything,” she said on a sigh. “And so did you and whoever else is down there.”
Elvi nodded apologetically. “Sorry. If I were a better person I would have walked out of the store and waited until it was over before coming back in, but . . .” She shrugged helplessly. “I guess I’m not as good a person as I always thought I was.”
“That or you’re as curious as the rest of the world and couldn’t resist,” Sherry said, and then patted her arm. “Don’t worry, I’m not mad. I probably wouldn’t have been able to make myself leave either. It’s like a wreck on the side of the road—no one can resist slowing to look as they pass.”
“Hmmm.” Elvi nodded, but then pointed out, “On the bright side, though, none of us will be reading your mind on your way out to see what happened.”
Sherry gave a half laugh at that, knowing it was exactly what would have happened if the intercom hadn’t been on. There seemed to be no such thing as privacy among these people. It made her wonder if they had to be better people because of it. She was certainly finding herself editing her thoughts a lot . . . and she didn’t even consider herself a bad person, but she did have thoughts once in a while that could be hurtful or rude if spoken aloud.
“How are you doing?” Elvi asked after a moment. “Finding out all of that stuff about your mother, your conception, and your father . . .” She shrugged. “Are you okay?”
“I don’t know,” Sherry admitted. “The truth is I don’t even know how I should feel.”
“There is no ‘should,’” Elvi said quietly. “You feel how you feel.”
Sherry nodded solemnly.
“I imagine you’re feeling all sorts of things right now. Anger at what he did to your mother, yet confused because it’s the reason you were born.”
“My poor mother,” Sherry said unhappily.
“He didn’t rape her,” Elvi said soothingly. “At least not in the violent, violated way. She was attracted to him and he just mentally veiled her reasons for not sleeping with him, and subdued her conscience. And,” Elvi pointed out, “she got you out of the deal. And while your mother apparently wouldn’t have had an affair with him without his influence, I’m sure she was glad to have you as a daughter, Sherry. Any mother would be. Especially after your brother died.”
“Yes, but maybe if I had really been my dad’s daughter, maybe they wouldn’t have divorced. I mean, that could have been part of it. Maybe he sensed I wasn’t his. If I had been his, maybe they would have worked harder to stay together.”
“Sherry, you could never have been his daughter. There is no way for you to exist but as the daughter of Alexander and your mother,” she pointed out gently, and then added, “And that isn’t a guarantee the marriage would have worked anyway. From what I understand, a lot of couples don’t survive the death of a child. Especially when the couple blame each other for the death, and it sounds like your parents did that.”
“They did,” she admitted, and then added resentfully, “But Alexander also controlled me. Made me do things I didn’t want to do.”