“Everything okay?” he asked.

“Fine,” she said, her chair scraping against the deck as she pushed it back from the table. “Just thinking about what you said.”

Chapter 21

21

Lina’s heart leapt when she saw a text from Nick on her phone the following morning, assuming he might finish whatever he started to say on his patio. But when she opened it, the text was about Katie.

I apologize for the short notice—can your husband and Katie be at my Hopkins office tonight at 5 p.m.? I have a colleague I believe will be a perfect fit, and tonight is the only time that works for both of us in the next month. I need a reply by 3 p.m. or I’ll assume this doesn’t work. Thanks, Nick.

Part of her wanted to take Katie and let Phil find out after the fact, but she’d already done that once this week, and she didn’t want to create more conflict. Katie was going. That much she knew, and if Phil wouldn’t take her, she would, but she was going to give him the choice. She called Phil’s office.

Fifteen minutes later, she ended the call with Phil. He had given her instructions to drop Katie at his office at 4:30 p.m. He wasn’t happy, and even raised his voice more than once during the interchange because he didn’t want to take Katie anywhere near Nick Drayton. But he wanted Lina to be anywhere near him even less, so when he realized she wasn’t going to back down and that Katie was going regardless of what he said, he begrudgingly agreed to take her.

It occurred to Lina that she should let Nick know that Phil found out he knew about the affair, so she included the information in her text.

Thank you for making this work. Phil and Katie will be at the appointment at 5. I slipped up on Monday night and now he knows that you know about his affair. He was angry. I thought I should tell you. I’m so sorry for dragging you into this. You’ve only been wonderful to us. Lina.

His reply came an hour later. No worries, Lina. I’m happy to hear they can make it.

“When is it going to start mattering what I want?” Katie asked. She was standing just inside her father’s office, waiting for him to finish an email so he could take her to her appointment with the new psychiatrist. It had been an all-around shitty day. First, she’d run into Matt at Emma’s, and he’d treated her like a kid sister instead of a potential girlfriend, lecturing her about overdrinking and making out with guys she didn’t know at parties, and then her mom told her she had to change psychiatrists.

“What you want matters,” her father said absently, continuing to tap away on his keyboard.