Burned Hearts (Burned 3)

I gave him the phone back. “Dad, that’s disgusting.” I was sure my mother-to-be radiance died on the vine. “She seriously got around.”

“While you were still in diapers.”

I blanched. “She started that early in your marriage?”

“Fool on me, right?”

“Dad, no.” I was infuriated. I got to my swollen feet and started to pace. “I knew she’d cheated because of your arguments, but from the beginning? And with how many men in total? No.” I raised a hand. “Don’t tell me. I don’t want to know; you don’t want to say it out loud. Damn, Dad. This is such crap.” I shook my head. My fists balled at my sides. “I get that it’s somehow cool these days for nannies and porn stars to Tweet and Facebook about their celebrity affairs, even if the celebrity is married. Somehow there’s no backlash for them when they start shopping their tell-all books. So what does my mother have to lose?”

“I didn’t come here to upset you, Ari. Sit down.”

“No, Dad. I’m not upset—I’m livid. Because she came to me claiming that she’d write a book about her exploits and she demanded money to keep her quiet.”

“Aria.” He eyed me with that concerned-father look that made my heart hurt. “Do not tell me you gave her a penny. Not one red cent.”

“Dad.” I plopped back onto the sofa. “What else could I do? Let her launch her tales so that everyone on the planet found out she betrayed you? No way.”

He suddenly sprang to his feet, anger rolling off him in waves. “I only came to give you a head’s-up. This is not yours to deal with, Ari.”

“Yes, it is, Dad. When she’s trying to attack you and there’s the tiniest bit of hope that I can thwart her, of course I’m going to do whatever I can. It’s just never enough.” I stood again, thoroughly irritated. How could I even be related to this woman? “Look, when she first knocked on my door, it was for five grand. I gave it to her.”

“Sweets.” His eyes squeezed shut briefly. “That is no

t your responsibility.”

“You’re my dad,” I countered as fury and pain rose within me. Along with the shame that my mother should feel over her adulterous actions—but which she clearly considered juicy and scintillating instead. Not embarrassing or slutty, at all. Because of the famous names she could associate herself with; somehow they elevated her above scarlet-letter status?

I asked, “What was I going to do? Let her gut you all over again? No. I lived with your agony. For years. If there is anything I can do to keep her from tormenting you once more, I’ll do it. In a heartbeat. But this is her third attempt, Dad—”

“What?” He stared at me, incredulous.

I forced myself to unclench my fists. No simple task.

“Number three, Dad. And we’re going to have to figure out how to make it her final attempt. There has to be something we can do. Soon. Because if she ever finds out I’m married to Dane she’ll never stop coming at us.”

He lifted his hands in the air and said, “So maybe I just need to say it doesn’t matter, Ari.”

“What doesn’t matter?”

“If she wants to tell the world what a whore she is, let her.” I knew that one word hurt him greatly—because he’d been in love with my mother. Yet he accurately called the spade a spade.

“Dad, as much as I appreciate your desire to simplify this, that viewpoint isn’t what’s really at stake. No one’s going to balk at how many professional athletes she slept with—the egg will be on your face, not hers. And I can’t let that happen.”

“Just because I was married to her at the time—”

“It’s all about the fact that you were married to her at the time. Despite how solid you were in the relationship, she’ll twist the cheating around to be a woe is me thing. He left me lonely; what else was I to do? or some such shit. You know her. That’s her favorite device. She excels at evoking sympathy. In the long run, you’ll be the heel and she’ll reap all the reward.”

It was all I could do not to erupt in a fit of rage, but my dad didn’t need that at the moment. What he needed was the reassurance I could give him.

“I’ll take care of it.”

“Ari, this isn’t your—”

“Dad, just let me do this. I have the money. I can give her more than her greedy little mind could possibly fathom and then—”

“You said you tried that before.”

“It’ll be different this time. I’ll put Jackson on this. Trust me, when he’s done with Mommie Dearest we won’t hear from her ever again.”