“If she does… I won’t mind.” The sentence was like a pronouncement as if Valerie had any control over the events. Sometimes, she was so like Neil that I detested myself for disliking her. “Neil is her grandfather. She needs him in that role.”
“I agree.” It felt as though my feet finally rested on the common ground we used to tread after Emma and Michael’s death. "Rashida calls Neil daddy, though."
Valerie smiled tenderly at that. "I'm sure he loves having the girls there. As much as he blames himself for working too much with Emma, he was an excellent father. In most aspects.” She didn’t have to outline his flaws; we both knew he’d been overprotective and old-fashioned when it came to his daughter’s love life.
The conversation stalled, and Valerie twisted the wedding band she still wore. “Have you told Olivia anything yet? About what happened?”
"She knows you're moving in. We haven't said anything else to her about it." I shrugged helplessly. "We're not sure what, exactly, to tell her about Laurence."
Valerie nodded in genuine sympathy. "How do you explain domestic violence to a child?"
"My suggestion was, to be honest about it. She knows rules. She knows people aren't supposed to hit or yell or say mean things. The more difficult part will be trying to explain that she won't ever see him again." If someone had told me at age four that someone I loved and was used to being around just straight up couldn't see me anymore, I would have blamed myself.
"She's going to feel so...betrayed," Valerie said, pausing to search for the word. A word that I was sure had been rolling around her brain for a long, long time.
"She will. But we'll tell her that not all people who seem good are good and that you're brilliant and brave for leaving someone who treated you that way." I swallowed a sudden lump that rose in my throat. "And she'll know that it's not her fault. We'll make sure she knows that you didn’t reject her."
"When can I see her?"
Valerie's question came out so suddenly that I didn't have time to brace myself for the bleak desperation that suddenly transformed her face. I stammered out, "I-I don't know?"
"You'll have to talk that over with Neil?"
There was an edge to her tone that I didn't care for.
"I don't think that's unreasonable. She's his granddaughter." Now, there was an edge to my tone that I didn't care for. I didn't want to be mean to Valerie. I hadn't come down to pick a fight. I think that was what worried Neil most about me having any interaction with Valerie at this crucial time. He was afraid we would clash, and she would leave. Under any other circumstances, that would make me feel furious and patronized, but he did have a point. Just because she'd let us help her didn't mean that all was forgiven on both sides.
Not that I felt we had a damn thing to be forgiven for.
Nope, I was shutting that down. If I had to go to a doctor and get whatever gland makes the bitch chemical in my brain removed, I'd do it. Because this was about Olivia. Not about me and not about Neil and not about the fact that Valerie would always have a longer history with my husband than I did. Strangely, reminding myself of that only seemed to make things worse.
And I laughed.
Valerie’s brows met as she frowned, perplexed. “What’s so funny?”
How could I possibly explain without being the meanest person in the world? “I must love that little girl.”
Valerie tilted her head and squinted.
I lazily waved a hand to indicate her, sitting there in the living room of my guest house, the last place on Earth either of us wanted her to be. “Our main concern in helping you get out of that situation was reuniting you with Olivia. We all kept insisting, over and over, that having you in her life would be essential to this kid growing up happy and not emotionally scarred. It never crossed my mind even once that I should say, ‘no, fuck Valerie, I’m glad the bitch is gone.’ It turns out; I love her more than I hate you.”
Valerie chuckled, shaking her head in dismay. “We have that in common, you and I.”
“Well, I’m glad we can put our pettiness aside for Olivia’s good.” I glanced around the room one last time before I stood. “I didn’t mean to interrupt you. We’ll call before we bring Olivia down, every single time. I promise. We’re not going to wantonly invade your privacy while you’re here.”
“As you all keep saying. I’ll hang a sock on the doorknob if I have a gentleman caller,” she said dryly.
“That’s not what I meant. Although, I do have a history with this place.” I grimaced and headed for the door. “I can see myself out.”
I’d just corrected my trajectory to head out the front instead of through the laundry room when Valerie called, “Sophie?”
I paused and turned back. “Yeah?”
She looked down at her hands and smiled grimly. Then she met my eyes again. “Do you really hate me?”
I raised an eyebrow and folded my arms across my chest. “Yes. Do you really hate me?”
“Oh, absolutely.” She put out her arms to me, and we hugged. Hard.
Chapter Fifteen
Neil, El-Mudad, and I went up to our private balcony after dinner to sprawl on the extra-wide outdoor lounge we'd splurged on. Custom built, big enough for three people, it was a wonderful retreat from the rest of the house. Nine times out of ten, if I hid from the girls there, they had no idea where I was.
Snuggled beneath an afghan, resting my head on Neil's shoulder, I entwined my ankle with one of El-Mudad's feet. He lay opposite me, mirroring my position.
Neil sighed deeply. "I feel a bit like a sofa cushion."
"Shut up and let me snuggle you," I mumbled into his sweater.
El-Mudad stood with an adorable dad-groan and stretched. "My hip was falling asleep, anyway."
I watched him walk to the rail and peer out at the moonless night. As dark as it was, we couldn't see the ocean. It was too calm and eerily quiet.
"It feels like we're isolated in a timeless void," I said with a happy sigh.
"Unfortunately, not timeless," Neil reminded me. "You were going to the foundation tomorrow morning, weren't you?"
"I can sleep in the helicopter." I wouldn't, though. I'd sleep in dangerously close to the wire and do my makeup in flight.
Neil just made a non-committal "hmm."
We shared a companionable silence I was loath to break, but it was the first chance I'd gotten to mention what had happened that afternoon. "I went to see Valerie."
"Sophie..." Neil said, warning me.
"I know, I know." I'd already promised so many times that I wouldn't make her feel weird or intruded upon, lest she run for the hills and into a potentially dangerous situation. "Believe me. It’s not going to be a usual thing. It's not like I was so psyched to spend time with her that I'm going to invite her up to the house for family dinner."
"Well, once or twice wouldn't hurt—" Neil began, abruptly silencing himself when El-Mudad shot him a swift, recriminating glance.
"I thought it would be the neighborly thing to do. Just to see how she's settling in." I bit my thumbnail. "She hasn't filed for divorce yet."
Neil's chest moved with an indrawn breath beneath my hand.
"I don't think it's anything to worry about," El-Mudad reassured us both. "Give the poor woman a moment to breathe. She's been through so much, and now you want her to start doing paperwork?"
"Her attorney would do the paperwork," Neil pointed out.
"She might not have one anymore," I reminded them. "Laurence isolated her so completely; we don't have any clue what kind of resources she even has."
El-Mudad sighed deeply. "I know you both are worried for her. And I know you want what's best. But I think you both should disentangle yourselves from this."
"Disentangle? She's living in our guest house," Neil said ruefully.
"And believe me, I am not tangling with Valerie in any way, for any reason. I've finally got the perfect excuse to ignore her forever if I wanted to," I said with a laugh.
"
You would never," El-Mudad said without a hint of teasing in his voice. "You couldn't."
"Oh, I think Sophie might like to try," Neil said, still not quite grasping the seriousness of El-Mudad's tone.
But I wouldn't brush it off. "You're making it sound like I'm as Valerie-obsessed as Neil."
"I don't think Neil is Valerie-obsessed." El-Mudad leaned back on the rail and crossed his arms. "I think you are."
My jaw dropped.
Neil shifted away from me to sit up taller against the back of the lounge. "This has taken a fascinating turn."
"Don't be too pleased with yourself," El-Mudad warned. "You're the reason Sophie is obsessed with her."
Neil made an amused noise of outrage.
"Explain yourself," I demanded.
"As someone on the outside of the dynamic, I've had a chance to watch the two of you interact with her and with each other over her. And I'm comfortable saying that, Sophie, you are incredibly threatened by Valerie," El-Mudad said calmly.
Neil chuckled. "That isn't the revelation of a lifetime."
"And you like that she threatens Sophie."
Now, I sat up straighter, and Neil wasn't laughing.
"I could never put my finger on why I didn't like your relationship with Valerie, Neil." El-Mudad paced back and forth in front of the lounge like a detective at the denouement of a country house murder plot. "It wasn't that I thought you'd run back to her and abandon us. I've honestly never even considered that you might cheat on us with her. While you were in hospital, our conversations clarified much of how you felt about her and the mistakes you made in your relationship. But then, when we were all back together, I realized that you've been, hopefully subconsciously, happily pitting Sophie against Valerie for some time."
"That's what I'm saying!" I sprang to my knees in my excitement to finally have an ally. "I mean, it's not. Because if I had figured that out myself, Neil would be in a hell of a lot of trouble."
He might still be. The "subconsciously" part of that sentence was the fulcrum upon which the plank of my anger teetered.
To my great relief, he gasped, "I do not!"
Even the greatest actor in the world wouldn't be able to pull off the guileless affront Neil had poured into that exclamation.
"At least it's subconscious," I muttered under my breath.
"All right." Neil held up his hands in defeat. "Show your work. I'll entertain your thoughts impartially."
"No, you won't. But I will give them to you, anyway," El-Mudad graciously conceded. "You invited Valerie to your wedding."
"Against my wishes," I reminded Neil.
"She's my friend! It would have been strange to exclude her." It was the same defense he'd used at the time. The tense had just changed.
"Sophie, how would you have spent your wedding?" El-Mudad asked.
When I imagined her there, watching the ceremony, sitting at the reception, probably even being in photos with us, I wanted to gag. "I would have been miserable.”
“But…” Neil began, stopping himself before he went so far as to argue. He knew it was true; he’d probably known it at the time.
“And Neil? How would you have felt if Valerie had been there?” El-Mudad asked.
“I didn’t miss her presence the day of, if that’s what you’re implying,” Neil responded pointedly. “To be perfectly honest, my entire focus was on Sophie. And our family, of course.”
“So, why did you need to invite Valerie at all?” El-Mudad let the question hang there for a long moment. Neil nodded slowly, then dropped his head to his hands. “Sophie. I am—”
“Don’t,” El-Mudad said sharply. “We must help Valerie, even if that means she’s only just down the driveway for a while. But that’s where it ends. No more visits down there. No more checking up. If she needs something, trust her to come to us. But after all that she has done...the knowledge that she could still stand in the way of the adoption…” He took a deep breath. “Perhaps Sophie is the better person. Because she did not ask this of you, but I will. Neil, this is where your friendship with Valerie ends. We can help her through this difficult time; of course, we will. But you are no longer friends. You can’t keep tormenting Sophie. And you can’t ask me to trust the woman who tried to take Olivia from us.”
I expected Neil would blow up. I thought he might argue that it was none of El-Mudad’s business, as he had asserted to me on occasion. But he didn’t. He just...nodded.
Aside from the relief I felt over finally being proven right, I felt anger. All I’d had to do, all of these years, was simply issue an ultimatum?
But that anger faded when I realized that El-Mudad was right. He had no issue demanding this from Neil, but I had. All along, I’d felt it wasn’t my place to request it because I didn’t understand. They’d had a child together, and I’d told myself I couldn’t touch that bond. But El-Mudad knew that bond just as intimately as Neil did. He had no trouble crossing the imaginary boundary I’d set for myself.
“No, you’re right.” Neil pinched the bridge of his nose. “I’ve done this to myself. And to her. We can’t be friends.”
“You’re too toxic.” I wish I could have found a way to make him realize that years ago. But now, somehow, it felt like it could stick.
“We’ll have to see her when it involves Olivia,” El-Mudad went on. “I’m not asking for you to never speak to her again. But I think the closeness you two had must be over now. If you can do that, I can put aside my jealousy. And I think Sophie will, as well.”
“These next few months are going to be...difficult.” Neil Elwood. Master of understatement. “At least she doesn’t know about the adoption.”
“She knows about the adoption,” I blurted.
“Ah,” was all Neil said.
The silence between the three of us might as well have been the event horizon of a black hole because it felt like time stretched out endlessly. I waited for something, anything, from either of them.
It didn’t come in the form of the angry explosion I dreaded.
“This doesn’t have to be bad,” El-Mudad said softly.
Neil tilted his head back and stared up at the roof over our heads. “We were going to have to tell her, eventually.”
“I wouldn’t have had the courage to do it,” El-Mudad said, glancing over to me.
“Nor I,” Neil agreed with a resigned sigh.
I pressed a hand to my chest. “My god. Did I take action on something without consulting the two of you, and it was the right thing to do?”
Neither of them answered.
“I, Sophie Scaife—”
“Sophie Scaife-Elwood-Ati,” El-Mudad interrupted, trying for a charming smile.
“Not cute, and not now,” I warned. “I just want to make sure I’m not dreaming here. I did something the two of you were too cowardly to do, and you’re immediately acknowledging that it was the right thing? We don’t have to argue about it endlessly?”
They both looked elsewhere. The eaves and the beach were suddenly fascinating.
I folded my arms over my chest. “No one is going back into that house until both of you say, ‘Sophie, you were right.’”
Grudgingly, they both mumbled the words, “Sophie, you were right,” followed by a few grunted words of apology.
And it was the most satisfying thing I’d ever heard.
The surface of the water shimmered above me. I exhaled and swam upward, breaking through as wisps of smoke curled up from the bubbles.
From the side of the pool, Holli called, “Woo! Now do a cannonball one!”
I swam over to her and boosted myself onto the edge. “Okay, light me up, bitch.”
“Are you sure this is all right?” she asked. Again. Because the paranoia had set in. “Neil isn’t going to be mad?”
“Neil isn’t even here.” He and El-Mudad were in Reykjavik for the biannual hand-off of Olivia to the Van Der Graf’s for a week. “I’m sure the smoke will have dissipated by then. And it’s not like he
was addicted to weed; he smoked it now and then, but I’m not sure pot is ‘designer’ enough for someone rich as hell in the eighties.”
“And richer now, since you locked up the Fine Piece from the Middle East,” Holli took a deep inhale from the joint and held it out to me.
“Don’t call him that,” I warned. “Because now he’s calling himself that. Sometimes, like a WWE ring entrance.”
“A man after my own heart.” She waited until I took a big inhale to say, “Okay, now, cannonball.”
I got to my feet, still holding my breath, hurried to the diving board, and launched myself as high as I could, curling my legs up beneath me for the maximum splash. This time, hitting the water made me cough and sputter.
“Weak,” Holli criticized as I pathetically dog paddled my way to the side of the pool.
“Excuse me. You should be more worried about me. There is such a thing as dry drowning, you know,” I shot back when I could breathe again.
She scrunched up her face. “What the fuck is dry drowning?”
“You have a kid, and you don’t know what that it is?” I shrieked. “It’s super dangerous. If kids are swimming and they inhale a bunch of water, they can drown from it hours later.”
“How the fuck do you even begin to worry about something like that?” Holli rolled her eyes and took another puff from the joint. Holding back the smoke, she added, “You and Deja are super paranoid.”
Me and Deja? Piet was Holli’s kid, too. “You don’t have a constant loop of horrible things running through your head at all time, making you fully aware that everything is out to kill the tiny person you’re trying to protect?”
She shook her head and exhaled a big, blue cloud. “No. I don’t. And it makes me worry like, you know, what kind of mother am I if I don’t live in a constant state of panic?”
“A less-stressed out one, I would imagine.” I motioned to my mouth. “Smoke, please.”
“Smoke granted,” she said, holding the joint for me again before addressing my point. “Maybe being less stressed out is a good thing, Soph. Your entire life, ever since you guys got Olivia, has been ‘oh my god, what if I disappoint Emma?’”
Sophie (The Boss Book 8) Page 26