Ella attempted a kind response. “I’m sure it’s hard for her to find work after having such a black mark on her record.”
“Listen, Ella,” Dad said with effort, as though the words were difficult. He held his arms rigidly at his sides. “I never should have taken her side all this time. I should never have let her push me around the way she always did.”
Surprise gripped Ella. Wasn’t Stina around to overhear?
“Dad, it’s okay. I forgive you. I love you.”
Tears welled in his eyes. He pulled her into a hug. “You don’t know how it feels to hear that.”
She embraced her father for a few more moments. Her gaze drifted up the stairs behind him, to the landing where the bedrooms were. It was too quiet.
“Dad,” Ella said carefully. “Where is she? Where is Stina?”
He pulled away with a smile and wiped his eyes. “Hiding, probably. She’s not exactly happy with me right now.”
“What else is new?” Ella hoped the words, and her accompanying smile would be enough to lighten his mood.
They weren’t.
Dad shook his head. “The truth is, she won’t be here much longer. I kicked her out.”
A battering ram may as well have struck her. “You what?”
Taking her hand, Dad led her to the exorbitant, white leather couches covered in leopard-print pillows. He sat, guiding her to take the cushion beside him. He stared at her hand in his.
“I couldn’t stay with her after what she did to you. How she could ever think that was okay, I’ll never understand. I told her as much.”
Happiness blossomed within her. It’d been such a long time coming. The relief that he’d finally done it was overwhelming. “Daddy. I’m so proud of you.”
He beamed at her. The expression took years off of him. She hugged him once more, and he laughed at the gesture.
“Where is she now?” Ella asked. “Is she moving out? I mean, are you guys divorcing?”
Behind her, the front door crashed open. Stina stumbled through with her arms full of boxes. The sound of her entrance was broken by Pris’s hysterical exclamations. She followed after, phone to her ear.
“Derek, don’t do this. You know I never would have if it hadn’t been my mom’s idea. Derek. No, wait!” Pris held the phone aloft, staring at it as though it’d insulted her.
Her gaze drifted from her mother’s scowl first, and then to the living room where Ella sat beside her father.
Stina dropped the cardboard boxes to the floor. She glowered at Ella, sniffed, then turned to the decorative wall hanging, lifted it from the wall, and slammed it into the nearest box.
Pris didn’t take such a cold-shoulder approach. She lowered her phone and stormed into the room.
“You,” she said through her teeth. Mascara made black rivers down her cheeks. She was crying? “You did this.”
Did what?
“Hi, Pris,” Ella said, standing. She had a feeling she’d need her footing.
“Don’t hi me. First, you have me arrested. Then you tell Derek?”
Ella lifted her hands. “I haven’t talked to Derek in over a year.”
“He ended our engagement!” With a shriek, she rounded, jettisoning her phone at the wall and releasing a sob at the same time. “After all I did for him. All that crap I stole to get extra money for him, and he didn’t even care.”
That was a bombshell. “You stole those items for Derek?” Had he even known?
“I put my whole life on the line for him, and he dumped me for it.”
“Sounds typical,” Stina said, glaring at Ella’s dad as she removed a few more items from the shelf and dropped them unceremoniously in the box.
“What do you expect?” Ella said, unable to contain her shock. It sounded to her as though he’d found out the truth of what Pris had done and was none too happy about it. “Wasn’t it you who always told me behavior has consequences?”
“Oh please,” Pris said, rolling her eyes. “Don’t even.”
“Why shouldn’t I? You both blackmailed me. How could you think you could just go on with your lives after something like that?”
“It wasn’t blackmail,” Pris argued.
Taken aback, Ella gaped at her. “No? What would you call it, then?”
“Retribution. After the way you ruined things for me with Derek, how could I help but take advantage of an opportunity?”
There was no reasoning with her. With either of them. Dad lifted a palm as if to speak, but Ella quieted him with a hand on his shoulder before approaching Pris.
“I didn’t ruin anything with you and Derek. You ruined things between you and Derek. He knew how you treated me, Pris. And if he heard about you stealing? About the way you tried to peg it on me? Why do you think he’s ended things again now?”
Pris sniffed, but to Ella’s surprise, she didn’t argue. She folded her arms, refusing to meet her gaze.
In any other instance, Ella might have allowed her behavior and accusations. She might have given in or apologized, but pity took place of whatever fear would have driven her to that point before.
The realization startled her. She pitied Pris. Pris had been so insecure about her relationship that she had to steal? To threaten Ella just to keep the man she wanted to be with? That didn’t sound like any kind of relationship Ella ever wanted to have. And if that was all Pris could hope for, she definitely needed to rethink things.
Ella wasn’t about to say as much, not when Pris was in this kind of mood. Then again, when was she in any other mood? Much as she wanted to make things right, to have some kind of resolution between them, she had to accept that it wasn’t going to happen right now. Maybe not ever.
Ella peered in the direction Stina had been standing, but she’d disappeared into the kitchen, boxing things up as haphazardly and noisily as possible. Clearly, she wanted to be out of Ella’s dad’s house as soon as she
