fiancé do to her what you’d done to me our entire life—disappoint and then make her feel like it was her fault.
She shrugged. “I guess because she’s not happy.”
Daphne felt the movement behind her before Ellery spoke. “For your information, Mother, I don’t need your fucking sympathy, and I don’t need your stupid made-up job, either.”
“Ellery.” Daphne turned to find their outraged daughter behind her. Ellery looked beautiful in a pair of skinny jeans, a slouchy sweater, and UGGs. She also looked pissed, with tears glistening in her eyes. “Honey, Dad and I were having a private conversation.”
“Oh, it’s real private.” Ellery glanced around, her eyes glittering with rage. “You want me to be an adult, but you still treat me like a child. Like this whole divorce thing. What broke you and Dad up isn’t some big, dark secret. You wanted a different life. You wanted fame and fortune . . . and nothing from your old life. Oh, and don’t think I don’t know about your trip to Chicago, the one where you slept with someone else. See, Dad told me everything because he knows I’m a fucking adult and can handle it.”
Ellery might as well have taken the sledgehammer Daphne almost jokingly requested from the waitress and slammed it into her. Slept with someone else? “What are you talking about? Rex, what’s she talking about?”
Her ex-husband looked like a dog caught eating the Christmas goose. “Uh, now, Elle. I said I thought . . . uh . . . I never said that it was for sure—”
“You told our daughter that I slept with a guy in Chicago? Who did you think I slept with? My agent? Paul is nearly seventy years old. Why would you tell her something like that?” But even as Daphne said it, she knew. Rex had been angry that Daphne hadn’t fallen in line when he’d come groveling back. He also didn’t want to be the bad guy and have their daughter think the end of the marriage was because he’d walked away first.
“I never said specifically that you physically cheated. It was more like emotional cheating. You gave your heart to your career, which was as much a betrayal as if you had given your physical self to someone else.” Rex seemed to be addressing his orange-juice glass.
“What kind of psychobabble bullshit have you been peddling to people? I can’t believe you, Rex. First you accuse me of emotional abandonment because I dared to pursue something other than getting stains out of your T-shirts, then you tell our daughter that I cheated on you? Oh, and let’s not mention that you asked me for a loan because you decided to go to Belize instead of paying your taxes. Have you lost your damned mind?” Daphne knew people were looking at them, but she didn’t care.
Ellery no longer looked pissed. Instead she looked like someone had slapped her. “Mom, I didn’t know . . . I thought . . .”
Daphne stood, shoving her barely touched plate back, her chair banging into the table behind her. “What did you think? That I cheated on your father? That’s what you think of me? That I’m an adulterer who went to Chicago to get sexed up? Really, Ellery? Really?” Daphne could feel tears slipping down her cheeks. She always cried when she was mad, a bad side effect of her emotions running rampant.
“Mom, I’m sorry. I didn’t know. I mean, all of a sudden you were so busy with your new career, and it was like you were a different person, someone I didn’t even know. You wouldn’t talk to me about the divorce. It affected me, too, you know. I lost my family.”
She stared at her daughter, realizing she, too, was making this about her. The apple didn’t fall far from Rex’s tree. “You didn’t lose your family. It just changed.”
“But it’s like you want to erase everything from before. I mean, you’re selling our house. You’re signing up for online dating. You’re just a different person now,” Ellery said, her hands open in a plea.
“I am not a different person. I’m the person I always was. You”—she pointed at Rex—“and you”—she pointed at Ellery—“never saw me as anything other than someone to fix things for you. But I’m more than that.”
Daphne angrily swiped at her face and looked for her purse. Where was her damned purse? She finally saw it under Rex’s foot. She must have kicked it toward him at some point,