Page 73 of Just What She Needed

"And it's my last night in town, too," he interrupted. "In case it's slipped your mind, I'm off to L.A. tomorrow, and then to Europe from there. So get your ass in your car and get over here as planned, got it?"

There was a moment of fuming silence before she snapped, "Fine."

Rhys didn't need to hear a click to know she ended the call. Just as well. He wasn't sure how to turn his fucking phone off, anyway. The minute he got to Los Angeles he was going to get a phone he knew how to operate. He still wasn't sure why he'd been buying other brands instead of replacing the one he broke the night Rhett called.

The minute the phone hit the wall that night, Rhys started kicking himself. Rhett breaking things off with him was the proverbial straw, but she couldn't know that, and he'd probably scared the hell out of her. With the intent of ringing her back to explain, he picked the phone up from the floor but saw immediately that it would be impossible to make any call. By the time he'd gotten his new phone up and running the next day, he figured it was too late for explanations, so he didn't call her.

God, he should have called her. She probably thought he was a fucking maniac and that she was well rid of him after the way he behaved. But when she let him know it was over between them, everything came to a head.

After Sienna's impassioned pleas that she wanted and needed to spend more time with him before leaving for college, she managed to get out of ninety-nine percent of the plans he made with her. In the three months since he moved back to Chicago, he'd seen her a grand total of five times. And each of those times he had to insist on it, the way he'd just done on the phone. Pressured to spend what she obviously thought of as wasted time with her father, Sienna maintained an air of glum silence, punctuated with bored sighs and much rolling of the eyes. The night Rhett called, Sienna canceled dinner plans with him, the third such cancellation in a week. He was already dissatisfied with the apartment he'd been forced into, rather homesick for Dallas, and missing Rhett like hell. And then she broke it off with him. Looking back, he was lucky the phone was the only thing he destroyed.

The pizzas and his daughter arrived at the same time, but the food was the only thing that was warm. Unable to eat in the oppressive Martyred Teenage Girl atmosphere, Rhys gave up after one slice and sat in silence as the movie ran on the Blu Ray player. When the credits rolled, Sienna rose from her chair.

"Can I go now?"

The look Rhys leveled at her was enough to make her sit back down, but it didn't erase the petulant look from her face. He decided to dispense with any pleasantries.

"Exactly why did you want me back in Chicago? Since I've been here you've done everything humanly possible to avoid me, and I want to know what all this was about."

She crossed her arms over her chest and glared at him. "I have not been avoiding you. I have a life, okay?"

"And I had one in Dallas, one which you disrupted for some reason. I want you to tell me why."

"Oh, please, Dad."

Christ, did they teach eyerolling in schools now? He took several deep breaths until he could speak without yelling.

"Please, what? You don't think I have a life outside of you or your brother? And I swear to God, Sienna, if you roll your eyes at me one more time, you'll discover that you're not too old to be spanked."

The look she tossed him was the text-book definition of patronizing. "I know you have a life, okay? All I have to do is pull up music downloads or TMZ to see that. But Dallas? Seriously." She huffed out a breath of impatience. "You didn't even have a place to live there. You were just staying in that guy's condo. And it's not like you were there anyway, right? You recorded the album and then you went off on tour, just like you're about to do now. So why not Chicago?"

"Because I like Dallas better, and contrary to what you might think, I was planning to make my home there." For the life of him he couldn't understand her hatred of his choice to live in Texas. "And since you haven't bothered to grace me with your presence since I've been back, I miss Dallas. A lot."

"What, are you talking about that Rhett person? Please."

A smug little sliver of satisfaction colored her voice, and Rhys's heart plummeted. Unbidden, something Rhett said floated up from where he'd buried it deep in his memory: I'm not going to be the one forcing you to make a choice. When she said it, he'd gotten angry at the implication that his daughter was manipulating him into choosing her over Rhett. But Rhett knew. She hadn't come right out and said it, but she knew. And his love for Sienna along with the guilt she laid on him blinded him to what was really going on.

"Actually, I am talking about Rhett." It hit him like a blow to the midsection when Sienna couldn't repress the pleased grin that pulled at the corner of her mouth. "But, of course, she and I no longer see each other."

One of her shoulders rose in a dismissive shrug. "Couldn't have been serious then, so it's no big loss, right?"

For a moment he couldn't speak. The shock that his own daughter could be so callous with his feelings constricted his vocal cords like a noose drawn tight around his neck. "I never dreamt I could be so disappointed in you." He nodded when her mouth dropped open in shock. "Yes, disappointed. I can't believe my own daughter manipulated me and lied to me to get me to come back here, and did it not because you needed me, but just to try to ruin something I had. And you're not sorry about it. There's not one bit of remorse in you."

"Ruin?" Sienna yelled. "You were going to get back with Mom, and that slut ruined it. We came to New York so you and Mom could make up, but no. You were in that hotel room banging that whore, and—”

"That's enough." It was a tie between shock at her assumption that he and Hayley were on the road to reconciliation, and anger at the terms she used about Rhett that made his voice hoarse. "I'll not allow you to speak that way about Rhett. Apologize now."

"Fuck that."

"Sienna Reese Collinsworth, I swear to God..."

"What? Are you gonna hit me?" The shine of angry tears in her eyes made them appear almost feral. "I'm eighteen, and if you dare lay a hand on me, I swear I'll throw your ass in jail."

"Oh for Christ's sake, you know I'm not going to hit you." He took a moment to rein in his anger, and to try to dispel some of the disbelief that the defiant young woman who sat across from him spewing venom was really his daughter. "But I will tell you some truths, and you're going to listen. I've never had any intention of getting back together with your mother. None. That's not Rhett's fault, or any of the other women I've dated since we divorced. I don't know what your mother told you, but if it had anything to do with some reconciliation between us then it was a lie. I made that quite clear to her the last time Illicit played here, and if she filled your head with some fantasy fairy-tale then she's got a lot of explaining to do."

Sienna dismissed his words with a violent shake of her head. "You haven't spent one minute with her since you got here, so how can you know? I thought if you were here and away from that—” Whatever she saw in her father's steady gaze made her cut off whatever she was about to say. "From that other person. If you had just been with Mom and took her out and stuff, then you could see that you could be happy with her again."

"No, Sienna. Your mother and I are not ever going to be together again, and you need to accept that. As for Rhett..." He had to stop to take a deep breath.