Blue-Eyed Devil (Travis Family #2)(87)

I shook my head. "No way. I'm not talking to you about him. Whatever it is you want to know, I'm not — "

"I'm not asking for information, Haven. I know something about him. Something you need to hear."

Every instinct urged me to leave right then. I knew my father kept tabs on everyone and would have had no compunction about digging up dirt from Hardy's past. I didn't need or want to hear anything that Hardy wasn't ready to confide. Besides, I was pretty sure I knew what Dad was going to tell me: about Hardy's father, and his prison time, and the DUI arrest. So I decided to stay and hear Dad out, and put him in his place.

The room was quiet except for the whirring of mechanical gears and rollers. I summoned a cool smile. "All right, tell me."

"I warned you about him," Dad said, "and I was right. He sold you out, honey. So it's best to put him out of your mind and go find someone else. Someone who'll be good to you."

"Sold me out?" I stared at him in bewilderment. "What are you talking about?"

"T.J. Bolt gave me a call after he saw you with Cates on Friday night. He asked me what I thought, about you taking up with a rascal like Cates, and I told him."

"What a pair of busybodies," I said in annoyance. "Good Lord, with all the time and money each of you has, you can't think of any thing better to talk about than my love life?"

"T.J. had an idea to expose Cates for what he is . . . to show you what kind of man you're keeping company with. And after he told me about it, I agreed. So T.J. called Cates yesterday — "

"Oh, hell," I whispered.

" — and offered him a deal. He said he'd sign the lease contract Cates offered him a while back, and forgo the bonus completely. If Cates promised to drop you for good. No dating, no socializing of any kind."

"And Hardy told T.J. to go screw himself," I said.

My father gave me a pitying glance. "No. Cates took the deal." He leaned back in his massage chair, while I absorbed the information.

My skin was prickling and crawling. My mind rejected it — Hardy would never have taken such a deal. Not after the night we'd spent together. I knew he had feelings for me. I knew he needed me. It didn't make sense for Hardy to throw it all away. Not for some leases he would have probably gotten in time, anyway.

What the hell was going on in Hardy's head? I had to find out. But first . . .

"You manipulative old coot," I said. "Why do you have to go messing around in my private life?"

"Because I love you."

"Love means respecting someone else's rights and boundaries! I'm not a child. I'm . . . no, you don't even think of me as a child, you think of me as a dog you can lead around on a leash and control in any way you — "

"I don't think of you as a dog," Dad interrupted, scowling, "Now, settle down and — "

"I'm not going to settle down! I have every right to be furious. Tell me, would you pull this kind of crap with Gage or Jack or Joe?"

"They're my sons. They're men. You're a daughter who's already gone through one bad marriage and was likely headed for another."

"Until you can treat me like a human being, Dad, our relationship is over. I've had it." I stood and slung my bag over my shoulder.

"I've done you a favor," Dad said irritably. "I just showed you that Hardy Cates isn't good enough for you. Everyone knows it. He knows it. And if you weren't so hardheaded, you'd admit it too."

"If he really agreed to this deal with T.J.," I said, "then he doesn't deserve me. But neither do you, for doing something so rotten in the first place."

"You're going to shoot the messenger?"

"Yeah, Dad, if the messenger can't learn to keep his interfering ass out of my business." I walked toward the doorway.

"Well," I heard my father mutter, "at least you're through with Hardy Cates."

I turned back to scowl at him over my shoulder. "I'm not through with him yet. I won't be gotten rid of without finding out the reason. A real reason, not some half-baked business deal you and T.J came up with."

There was no one I could talk to. I had been warned by everyone, including Todd, that this was exactly what I should expect from Hardy Cates. I couldn't even call Liberty, because he had done something similar to her once and she couldn't say it was out of character. And I felt like such an idiot, because I still loved him.

Part of me wanted to curl up into a ball and cry. Another part was ripping mad. And another part was busy analyzing the situation and trying to figure out the best way to handle it. I decided to cool down before I confronted Hardy. I would call him tomorrow after work, and we would talk everything out. If he wanted to break everything off between us, I would deal with it. But at least it wouldn't be done third-party, by a couple of manipulative old geezers.

The office was unusually subdued when I went in at eight on Monday morning. The employees were quiet and busy. No one seemed inclined to share details about their weekend as we usually did. No water-cooler gossip, no friendly chitchat.

As lunchtime approached, I went to Samantha's cubicle to ask if she wanted to go get a sandwich with me.

Samantha, usually so vivacious, looked shrunken and despondent as she sat behind her desk. Her father had died about two weeks earlier, so I knew it would take some time before she was back to her old self.