Too flippantly, Sophie thought. Could he find this parting as awkward as she did?
She wondered if he’d been at all affected by their time together or if she was just another fling. She’d never know, Sophie thought sadly. She could hazard a guess though, and the answer
was as painful as the lump in her throat.
“RILEY NASH, you are a first-class jerk,” his ex-wife muttered.
It wasn’t anything he hadn’t thought about himself since leaving Florida, but Lisa’s reasons for calling him the name were way different than his own.
“It’s not like I brought her back a huge gift. It was just a stuffed animal from the airport.” The gift wasn’t behind Lisa’s anger—that much Riley knew. He just wanted to buy himself time before dealing with the real issue between them.
Riley leaned back in his chair in the small restaurant his ex had chosen as a neutral meeting ground. Though he steeled himself for an argument, he remained outwardly relaxed and in control, leaving the hysteria for Lisa.
“You cannot be that stupid,” Lisa muttered. “You know that’s not what I’m upset about.”
“I think we can refrain from name-calling,” Ted, the ever rational one said, patting Lisa’s hand to calm her down.
Riley had to refrain from gagging at the other man’s patronizing, too fatherly manner. “All I did was let my daughter sleep over,” he said to her for at least the dozenth time.
“And you let her go to the Seaport with friends after I said no!”
He couldn’t deny part of her statement, but there had been extenuating circumstances. Like it or not, he’d come to the conclusion that Sophie’s words made sense. Lizzie needed a father not a friend. Still he hadn’t wanted to deprive her, nor had he wanted her to end up resenting him the way he resented Spencer.
He couldn’t stop thinking of Sophie for many reasons, not the least of which was how he’d treated her their last day in Florida. She deserved so much better. But from the moment he’d realized he cared enough about Sophie to want her to understand his motivations regarding his daughter, he’d been scared by the implications. Scared that he’d come to care for Sophie Jordan as much more than a one-night stand. The minute she’d hit on his weak spot—his relationship with his daughter—his defense mechanisms had kicked in and he’d latched on to the first excuse to push her away.
That he regretted his actions was an understatement.
“Riley,” Lisa said through clenched teeth. “Let me know if we’re boring you.”
He refocused at once. “I let Lizzie go to the Seaport, yes, but I was there the entire time. Which I’ve been trying to tell you, but either you hung up on me or screamed so I couldn’t get a word in edgewise.”
Yet another reason their marriage had failed. Too much screaming and not enough communication skills. Skills that Sophie certainly didn’t lack, Riley thought, surprising himself with his train of thought.
“Well. That changes things,” Ted said.
Lisa shot her husband a scathing glare. “It certainly does not.” She leaned closer to Riley. “Did she know you were there, watching her?”
He shook his head. “Of course not. She’d have been good and pissed, and—”
“You’d have been the bad guy. Instead, you allowed her to think she was defying me, making you her hero and me the bad parent. Again.”
He winced at her description. “I didn’t do it deliberately. I didn’t think—”
“That’s just it! You didn’t think. You never do.” Lisa clenched her fists and pounded on the table. “As long as your needs are met, as long as you look good to Lizzie or the press, all’s well in Riley’s world. To hell with the rest of us.” Tears of frustration sparkled in her eyes.
Riley had seen those tears many times before. During their marriage they had argued over many issues, although since the divorce, the only one they ever had to agree on was Lizzie. And until his daughter had hit adolescence, their differing parenting styles hadn’t caused real conflict. Riley suffered a pang of remorse that it did so now.
“This can’t continue,” Lisa said, squaring her shoulders defiantly. “It isn’t fair to me and it isn’t fair to Lizzie, allowing her to think she can circumvent authority by going to her daddy.”
“The reason we wanted to get together today was so we could agree on some ground rules.” Ted inserted himself in the middle of their war of words.
Riley forcibly bit back a nasty retort. Knowing that his reaction to the word rules had set him on the wrong path with Sophie, he gritted his teeth and merely nodded. He knew one thing for sure. They all had Lizzie’s best interest at heart and they had to get along in order to share custody.
“So what did you have in mind?” he asked, wary but willing to listen.
“A simple thing called joint parenting. In other words, if I tell Lizzie something, you back me up in front of her.” Before he could argue, she held up one hand. “And if you tell her something, I’ll back you up. In private, we can disagree but we present a united front to her. And if we change our minds, we do it together. No divide and conquer. Not anymore.”
“Why do I sense an or else coming?”