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I leaned back and took a deep breath.
My uncle smiled. “The truth puts a different spin on Fergus McAllister’s character, now doesn’t it?”
* * *
Trudging back to my apartment,I tried to wrap my head around what I’d learned from Uncle Luca and was having trouble. I’d held Evan’s last name against him because of what his father did.
It was hard to learn now that Uncle Luca had instigated it, begged for it, forced it. No matter how I worded his choice, it came out the same. Fergus McAllister and Uncle Luca had done it together to save Daddy from himself and from a terrible mistake. And Daddy had no idea.
I’d given my word I wouldn’t tell him. Uncle Luca was probably right about that. Telling Daddy would mean revisiting that time of his life and his compulsion for risk. It would tear his pride apart, and that was the thing he held most dear.
CHAPTER47
Alexa
I pulledopen the door to the Ferndale Oaks. The call I’d expected had come in this morning. Chelsea was back in town, and I couldn’t turn down a meeting with my best friend for lunch.
She saw me and waved from the table near the back. I cinched up my big-girl panties and walked over. This was going to be hard.
Gwen had given me a heads-up on Chelsea’s reaction to my breakup with Evan, and it wasn’t good. I’d tried to call her to explain, hoping that if it got too bad, I couldaccidentallylose the connection. But she’d refused to discuss it over the phone.Real friends didn’t do thator some such nonsense.
“There’s my girl.” She greeted me with a fierce hug and kiss on the cheek.
She didn’t start in on me until after our water and breadbasket had arrived.
“So,” she said, interlacing her fingers. “Why haven’t you called Evan?”
“I called him,” I admitted.
Her lips curved up. “And what did you say?”
“I yelled at him for buying my building.” I wasn’t going to sugarcoat it.
Her smile disappeared. “You what?”
“He knew I didn’t want anything from him, and then he went and bought my building so he could fire the super because he was shitty to me. He bought a whole building.”
“And you’d rather he hadn’t done that?”
“Of course. I can’t accept help like that.”
She shook her head slowly. “You are unbelievable. Tell me one thing. This super, was he only mean to you, or was he an equal-opportunity asshole?”
Knowing Chelsea, this was a trap, but I answered anyway. “He was a total jerk.”
“That means Evan did something that benefited youandeverybody in the building, and you’re mad about it because you wanted everybody else to suffer so you didn’t have to accept his help.”
That made me sound pretty shitty. “I didn’t mean it like that.”
A server showed up to take our orders, letting me off the hook for a while.
I braced myself when he left.
Chelsea shifted in her seat. “Gwen said this was about Columbia?”
I nodded and spent several minutes explaining what Evan had done, how he’d pulled strings to get me in and paid for my scholarship.
Chelsea politely nodded along and sipped her water. When I was done, she picked up a breadstick. “Is that it?”
