Page 78 of Bombshell

“Adair.” His tone is rich with warning. “Everything is arranged. You agreed to it. It’s for the best.”

“No,” I repeat.

There is no other answer crowding my thoughts now. I know exactly what my choice is: I will not give up my daughter.

“You are not in a position to say no to me,” he roars. Instantly, Ellie’s eyes snap open and her startled cry shatters the air. The pure panic in it shocks him enough to shut him up.

“You can’t force me to give her up.” I shift her onto my shoulder, shushing her gently as I try to soothe her. “Don’t worry. I’m here.”

“You’ll ruin her life,” he murmurs.

I look up sharply, expecting to find the malevolent snake poking its clever head out of the grass. Instead, there’s just a man. There’s nothing powerful or intimidating or impressive about him. He’s stopped, propping himself with his cane, and I don’t know if he’s tired physically or mentally, but he looks wrung out, sapped of whatever vital force usually propels him.

“Like her father’s parents ruined his,” he says.

I’ve told the lie so many times it’s become automatic. Soon, I’ll believe it, too. “I don’t know—”

“We’re MacLaines,” he stops me. “We always know a lie when we hear it.”

Do we? I’ve always thought I could see through people, but I hadn’t been able to see through Sterling. I’d glimpsed him. It wasn’t until he opened up, peeled off his armor piece by piece that I finally saw who he really was. And then, I’d turned out to be completely wrong.

My father seems to be thinking the same thing. “He was poor. He grew up with nothing. No money. No security. No family. A mother who couldn’t protect him, and look what he became. A liar. A con man. He used you without a second thought. What happens if he comes looking for you? What if he tries to shake you down again?”

“He won’t,” I say. Somehow I know this is true. He got what he wanted. My father sent the check. He left town. Except he didn’t just leave town. Francie told me he’d joined the Marines. She told me he lost his scholarship. She blamed me.

And I’d been so blinded by my broken heart, I didn’t see what was right in front of me. A MacLaine always knows a lie when we hear it.

“I told him I knew what he had done in the past, that he was unsuitable for you, and that he would never provide you with the kind of life I could.”

I’d believed my father because he wasn’t lying. Not about the tape. The tape existed.

“Is it true?” I ask. “Did you have his scholarship yanked?”

He wags his finger at me. “He deserved worse. Don’t feel sorry for him!”

“Did you send the money?”

“What money?” he repeats.

“The blackmail money. Did you send it?”

“Of course,” he snarls. “I won’t chance that filth leaking out to the press.”

And there it is. He didn’t do it to protect me. He did it to protect himself, his reputation, his name.

I don’t really care why he did it. What I do care about is all the pieces that don’t add up. If Sterling’s plan was to take the money why did he join the military? He didn’t give the money to Francie. She’d made that clear.

“He didn’t have any other options. So if he dies out there, his blood is on your hands.”

“And the money?”

“What about it?” he snaps.

“It’s spent, deposited…?”

He hesitates before finally saying, “No.”

Why would Sterling Ford ruin his life with my father’s uncashed check in his pocket?