Page 70 of Just What She Needed

"Are you kidding me?" Sienna stared at her father, eyes wide with shock. "You're blowing me off for her? You'd rather be with her than go to dinner with me and Mom?"

Though Rhys kept his voice gentle, Rhett could feel the tension in the arm across her shoulders. "I'd like to go to dinner with you, Sienna, but not tonight. I’ll try to make sure we can spend some time together tomorrow before the concert, and then—"

"No. Way." The girl's blue eyes took on the flat shine of anger. "Screw this. I'm going back to Chicago tonight." She whirled around and ran out of the room.

"Damn it." Rhys rushed after her, leaving Rhett alone with Hayley.

"Well, this is awkward, isn't it?" Rhett tried to make her voice light and unaffected despite being caught in a robe right after having blistering sex with Rhys.

"For you, maybe." Hayley's gaze took in Rhett from the top of her tousled head, down the hastily donned robe, and rested for a moment on her bare feet. The woman turned away, but not before Rhett saw the smile on her face.

A shiver of recognition jittered down Rhett's spine. She couldn't count the number of times she'd seen that smug, superior little smile stitched onto the mouths of the girls who tormented her throughout her school years. It was a smile that expressed amusement at Rhett's discomfort, a smile that dismissed her, a smile that clearly stated that Rhett shouldn't even bother to try, because no matter what she did, she would always be lacking. For an instant she felt the shame she lived with so long that it had become a part of her, the shame of not being good enough, of being somehow inferior.

But battling those feelings of inadequacies was the rush she felt from being with Rhys. She thought of the glorious day they'd just spent together, and the mind-blowing passion with which he made love to her right before they'd been interrupted. Rhys didn't think she was inferior, and that knowledge gave Rhett the strength to lift her chin. She released the neck of her robe, not caring if it gaped open. She didn't give two shits what his ex-wife thought about it.

Hayley's sherry-colored eyes darted back to Rhett, and then behind her to the door where the bed was clearly visible, its sheets trailing on the floor. A hard look replaced the amusement, and in that instant Rhett understood everything she needed to know about the woman.

"I cannot believe you used Rhys's daughter like that. Dragging her here, not caring how upset she might get. How dare you use a child to try to slither your way back into the life of a man who doesn't want you."

Hayley drew back as if she'd been slapped. "Do not presume to lecture me about my daughter."

"Someone obviously needs to." The warmth of righteous anger coursed through her. "You've upset not only your child, but Rhys as well. And I will not allow anyone to upset him. He's mine, got that? Mine, and I'm not letting him go. So, you just slink your rejected little ass back to Chicago, and the next time you think you might want to make a play for him, just remember the sight of that bed in there and know that I'm the one in it with him. Now get the hell out of mine and Rhys's room."

Reaction set in the minute the door closed behind Hayley's huffed departure, and Rhett put her hands to her burning cheeks. She shouldn't have said those things. It would only make everything worse. Hadn't she recognized that Hayley was an amped up version of a Claiborne Golden Girl? Bitches like that never backed down, and their tactics were always down and dirty. Only a woman who had been on the receiving end of that kind of vindictiveness knew how low someone like Hayley would go to achieve what she wanted. Dear God, the woman just put her own child through hell in her play for Rhys. What wouldn't she do next? And Rhett all but lit her fuse and sent her out to do it.

She hurried across the room and jerked open the door. Before she'd let that scheming bitch tear into Rhys, she'd hog-tie the woman and stuff her into a closet.

When she poked her head into the hall, she saw Hayley's stiff back as she retreated. But then the elevator doors at the end of the hall opened and Rhys stepped out, his expression dark and dangerous. When he caught sight of his ex-wife, the danger escalated. He came to a halt in front of her and pointed a finger at her chest. His voice, though low and controlled, carried to where Rhett stood at the door of the room.

"I don't know what the fuck you hoped to accomplish with this, but now she's not speaking to me. Congratulations, Hayley. You've made our daughter cry. Happy? I swear to God, I never want to see your lying, manipulating face again as long as I live. Don't give me that look. You know I can make that happen, and I fully intend to. Now if you'll excuse me, you've also upset my girlfriend, and I want to go comfort her."

Without another word, he side-stepped Hayley and continued down the hall. As he drew nearer the room, Rhett swung the door wider and moved aside to let him enter. One look at the pain on his face and she knew he was the one that needed comforting. She pulled him into her arms and held him close, wishing she had magic words to make everything better.

"Christ, baby, I'm so sorry." His voice was muffled against her hair.

"For what? Rhys, you don't need to apologize for anything. You didn't do anything wrong."

"Sienna's reaction—”

"Was Sienna's reaction." She put her fingertips over his lips. Even though she thought his daughter's behavior was over the top, even for a moody teenager, maybe it was par for the course, given her mother. "Rhys, she had a shock. Girls that age blow up, sulk around for a while, and then get over it. Give her some time. She'll come around."

––––––––

But Sienna Collinsworth did not come around.

Rhett sat on one of the loungers on Rhys's patio, her body rigid and her blood turning to ice water in her veins as she listened to him. Each word he uttered systematically tore her apart from the inside out as he outlined his daughter's plot to erase Rhett from his life. Only he didn't see that.

"Since it's her last summer at home before going to Stanford, she wants to spend it with me. She never asks for much, and I don't think this is unreasonable."

Hot words bubbled to her lips, words that spelled out her condemnation of a sulky teenager who would stoop low enough to manipulate her own father's emotions. This little plan had Hayley written all over it. It was the woman's vindictive way to one-up Rhett for the things she'd said in New York. But Sienna embraced it and ran with it. For Rhett to lash out in anger at Rhys for falling for it, though, wouldn't do any good. She took a long breath and willed herself to speak in a calm voice.

"I agree that it isn't unreasonable to want to spend the summer with you. What I do find unreasonable is her decree that you don't see me at all during this time."

"It's just temporary." Rhys took her hand and rubbed her fingers in what Rhett assumed was supposed to be a soothing manner. It didn't feel soothing, though. It felt condescending, and she had to resist yanking her hand away from his. "Once I'm there and can talk to her, explain my life to her, she'll loosen up."

"And what if she doesn't?" Desperate, she tried to make him see sense. "Flynn's brother is coming home, so you won't have this condo anymore. That means you're moving away from Dallas, back to Chicago. At the end of the summer you'll be recording a new album, then rehearsal, then another tour. If I don't see you at all this summer, that means it'll be an entire year before I'll see you again. Even you have to admit that's more than unreasonable. And if you don't, maybe your feelings for me have changed."

The rubbing motion on her fingers stilled, and he gripped her hand. "My feelings for you have not changed at all. In fact, I—”