Page 91 of The Woman with the Handcuffs

Right.

He hadn’t even seen this apartment.

I’d shown him listing pictures when I’d been ready to pounce on it. But he hadn’t even seen pictures of the interior once I’d stamped my mark all over it.

“You’d have known that already if you had visited.”

Okay.

Maybe I had a little more resentment toward my father than I’d realized. But it would have been one thing if I’d moved across the world and he was afraid to fly. But he lived in Jersey now, apparently. He could take the train or ferry in. And I would have been so happy to see him that I wouldn’t have even questioned it.

“You’re right,” he agreed, nodding.

“I feel like it says something that you’re only here now because something is wrong with you.” And not the hundred or so times I needed him.

Were my insides shaking around like little plastic skeletons on Halloween? Yep. But I was proud that I was standing up for myself. And I couldn’t help but wonder if maybe some of that had to do with Gav’s influence.

I folded my arms over my chest, making his gaze go to my cast.

“What happened to your hand?” he asked. And there was no faking the genuine concern in his voice.

“My wrist,” I clarified. “I broke it.”

“How? When?”

“A few days ago. Punching someone with the wrong form.”

“What? You punched someone? Who? Why?”

Don’t ask me why I only chose to answer one of those questions right then.

“He said something that made me angry.” I shrugged it off.

“A boyfriend?” he asked.

“No.” It wasn’t a lie. We hadn’t labeled anything yet.

“Then I don’t understand. You’ve never been someone who settled things with your fists.”

“I’ve never been a lot of things I’ve become the past couple of weeks,” I said, chin lifting.

I didn’t offer more information.

I wasn’t the one who owed the other an explanation.

My father watched me for a long moment—a parent seeing his child as an adult for perhaps the first time.

And I was looking at him with the clear eyes of an adult, not the idolization of a child.

It was a lot for both of us.

“Can you sit? Please,” he asked, pressing a hand to the table.

I moved over to the table, draping my purse on the back of the chair, then lowering down.

“Okay. I feel you owe me an explanation.”

“You’re right. I do. I hate that this happened. I never meant to worry you like this. I know your nerves are… sensitive.”