She shook her head. "No, I told you. I was going on vacation. So, actually, you saved me a ton on the hotel I'm not staying at." She flashed a grin as if to reassure him she wasn't upset about missing her trip. "And don't forget, Jenna's paying me the same as the photographer who trotted off to Milan."
"Still, I'm sorry. I just assumed you could afford it."
She pressed her hand over his. "It's fine. But, yeah, my dad cut me off. No more resources from him from the day I filed for divorce from David. And everything in his estate went to charity, with the exception of some boxes of family memorabilia."
Tyree cringed, despising the man even more than he already did.
"That's where I found the letter from him confessing that he'd only pretended you were dead. And the letter wasn't even to me. I guess he just wanted to clear his conscience. And there were five letters from you to me. I'd never seen even one of them before."
A hard ball of anger settled in his stomach, and, frankly, it was a good thing the old man was dead. Because if he wasn't, Tyree would have been tempted to hop on a plane to San Diego and go have a few words.
"He screwed us both over," she said gently, obviously reading his mind. "But all we can do now is go forward." She met his eyes. "Like this," she added, then bent forward and kissed him, slow and sweet and so tender it melted that ball of steel that had formed in his gut, replacing it with a building heat that fired his blood and made him regret that the kids were in the living room.
"Whoa. Nice work, Dad," Eli's voice shattered the moment, and they burst apart like guilty teenagers.
Speaking of the kids...
"Don'
t mind me," Eli said, holding his hands up. "I just wanted to check on dinner."
"Five minutes," Tyree said.
Eli's brow rose. "Yeah? You work quick, Dad."
He tossed a dishrag at his son. "Twerp," he said, as the boy ran out, and Eva laughed.
"He really is great," she said, and Tyree had to completely agree.
They ended up eating the enchiladas on TV trays in the living room, which wasn't exactly the family meal he'd envisioned. But the kids wanted to finish their game, and then Eva suggested they watch a movie after that. So once the enchiladas had been devoured, the kids reluctantly unplugged the Nintendo and they surfed the streaming services until they found--of all things--the original Disney Parent Trap.
Both Tyree and Eva insisted on watching it, even though Elena seemed completely clueless as to why they were both so amused by the idea.
And although both kids had protested at first--especially Eli, who begged for "anything from this millennium"--they'd ended up enjoying it. Which Tyree considered a bonus, especially since the original movie was more than half a century old. Not quite a millennium, but still ancient for a teen.
It had even spawned a conversation about California, though the story was set at the top of the state, and Elena and Eva had come from San Diego.
"It would be totally cool to live there," Eli said. "I mean, I could learn to surf. That would be awesome."
Best of all, Tyree had spent the evening on the couch with Eva curled up beside him, her head on his chest, and his hand resting on her arm.
The whole evening had been nice. Hell, it had been perfect.
Maybe too perfect. Because the truth was, he could get used to this.
More than that, he wanted to.
Chapter Fourteen
The biggest downside of Eva shooting all the photographs of the winners was that every few days she needed to just hunker down, focus on her computer screen, and work on cleaning up all the images.
And to do that, she really needed to be alone.
She'd tried taking her laptop to The Fix, but the hum of activity had distracted her, and even when she'd moved into Tyree's back office, she'd been unable to concentrate. Already, the staff and regulars had become her friends, and she wanted to be out there with them, not off hiding in a corner.
Finally, she'd given up and told Tyree that on the days she needed to work in Photoshop, she was going to do it in Elena's apartment with her phone turned off.
Today was one of those days, and though she'd managed to focus for most of the day, by the time evening rolled around, her mind had begun to wander. Because, dammit, she wanted to be with Tyree.