his father’s eyes as if he were just now seeing him for who he really was. “What does that have to do with Lawrence Fontaine?”
“I knew if I ever wanted to make this better, I had to set the record straight with the Fontaine family to get them off your back, so Alexa would quit being selfish and give you the divorce. I had to right all the wrongs, son. Alexa doesn’t know that I’ve been here to see you yet. I thought I could speak to her father first. I told him everything.”
“And he must have passed it all along to Alexa. She got straight in the car and came to find me.”
“I suppose so,” Smash said. “That’s too bad. My hope is that he was trying to explain everything to her, and she just hasn’t calmed down enough to listen.” He got up and walked over to the fireplace, peering into it, his thoughts clearly somewhere else. “I went and did it again. I screwed up, trying to make things better.”
Lila finally spoke in a quiet voice. “You’re too hard on yourself,” she told Smash.
He turned around and offered her a weak smile.
“And Theo, you’ve got to face this. If she tries to smear your name, then we’ll figure it out, but it won’t just go away. And you can’t stay married to her forever.”
Theo took in an aggravated breath. “Why would I want to put myself in the middle of Alexa’s ridiculous world, and get wrapped up in the media circus and negative news coverage that has me painted as some kind of criminal? I was doing perfectly well running the coffee shop on my own and keeping a low profile. I don’t want anything to do with that life anymore.”
“But you can’t start this new life until you end the old one,” Lila said.
He nodded reluctantly. “Clearly, she’s not going to back down. I knew, dating her, that she had a pretty big bite, and I didn’t ever want to be on her bad side. She’ll go to the press… They’ll have a field day. They’ll hound me and make my life a living hell. Not to mention that they will completely overrun this town. I won’t even be able to see Rex for fear that he’d be splashed across the inside of some tabloid with stories of being my illegitimate child or something.” He ran his fingers though his hair in frustration. “And what will they say when they get wind of us?” he asked Lila. “I won’t be able to handle it if they make up lies about you, trying to piece the story of us together.”
Just by what she’d seen of him so far, Lila knew that Theo didn’t like being in the limelight, let alone a negative one. And his concerns were valid. She’d read enough articles about him to know there was a real possibility that not only his but her own life, and the lives of the people he cared about here, could be altered forever if he confronted Alexa. This was going to be quite a battle, from the looks of it. What a mess. But there was no way around it. They needed to handle this together if they wanted to move forward. And this journey began with Theo and Smash. They had to have time to understand each other first.
“I’m going to go see Eleanor and leave you two alone for a little bit,” Lila suggested. “It’s been a long time since you were together, and I think you should have some privacy.”
“Stay,” Theo told her gently.
“It’s okay,” she said, reaching over and giving his hand a squeeze. “I’ll wait for your text.” She grabbed her coat and headed to the door. “Listen to each other. You’ll figure it all out.”
Lila sat at Eleanor’s kitchen table, strewn with playing cards, across from the old woman.
“I’ve got a good hand,” Eleanor said from behind her fanned-out cards. Lila looked on as she set two cards on the table. “And I have a pair of twos.” Eleanor laid two more cards down.
Lila pursed his lips. “I’ve got nothing.” She drew a card.
“The Christmas tree looks so lovely,” Eleanor said. “It should make it really easy to sell when I put it on the market.”
“What?” Lila blurted out.
“It’s okay, Lila,” Eleanor said. “When I sell, I’ll get your investment back to you.”
“That wasn’t what I was thinking,” Lila told her, shocked. “You’re selling?”
“I know originally I didn’t want to sell,