“He’ll never see her as anything but a kid,” Victoria had said.
At the time, Ken thought it had been just another of Victoria’s excuses for getting what she wanted, but it looked like he was wrong.
Ken smiled at Jared. “It’s me Alix will be angry at, but I’m not too worried. She’s forgiven Victoria for a thousand things.”
“But not you?”
“She’s never needed to forgive me for anything.” Ken’s smile and his lack of worry made Jared relax. “Until now.”
Jared laughed.
When Alix got downstairs, she tried to calm her jangled nerves as she walked into the big back parlor, tried to prepare herself for the coming argument. This is ridiculous! she thought. I’m twenty-six years old and I have a right to…
The room was empty and she didn’t know if she was glad or disappointed. The problem wasn’t that she had a boyfriend, it was a matter of who he was. Jared Montgomery’s designs were shown by her father in his classroom. And a quarter of his students, especially the females, had turned in papers about Montgomery’s work. More than once Alix had heard her father complaining about what they wrote. “Why they feel compelled to include whole pages about Montgomery’s sex life is beyond me. Listen to this!” He’d then read aloud something about how the man had been seen with half a dozen females in the last year.
How was Alix going to counteract that? How would she be able to make her father believe that Jared had changed?
And for that matter, what made Alix so sure that he had changed? Just because she’d made some statement about not wanting to be hurt didn’t mean that the two of them had a future together.
For a moment she thought of running back upstairs and hiding. Maybe she’d send her dad an email.
“Coward!” she said and started walking again.
When she got toward the front of the house, she heard two male voices. Had someone come to visit and her father was entertaining him? But as she got closer she recognized the voices—Jared and her father.
Oh, no! she thought. This is a disaster. Please, please don’t let Jared tell my father
the truth. Alix needed to talk to him first.
The sound of laughter made her stop just outside the door and listen.
“It’s good to hear that Dilys is well,” her father was saying. “Think I can persuade her to have me out to dinner?”
“I think she’ll be hurt if you don’t go. She’ll make those scallops you like so much,” Jared answered. “And Lexie always wants to see you.”
“Oh, no,” Ken said. “Lexie is going to bawl me out for not telling Alix everything.”
“Get in line!” Jared said. “I try to go over there only when I’m sure Toby is home.”
“And how is that beautiful girl?”
“The same. Her dad bought her a big fridge for her flowers.”
“Barrett! I haven’t seen him in over a year. In college, we were such close friends. Is he still playing tennis?”
“Last I heard, he was. Great Harbor.” He was referring to the yachting club that cost over three hundred grand to join.
“How’s Wes? He and Daris get married yet?”
“He tried to take Alix out,” Jared said.
Ken snorted in derision. “I guess you took care of that.”
“I certainly did.” There was laughter in Jared’s voice. “I got Daris to show up half naked. Wes couldn’t resist her and besides, she was ready to forgive him.”
“Ever find out what he did to her?”
“Not a word of it.”