“Any deal you and I had went up in smoke the minute I found out what you’ve been up to here.”

“Dad, listen to me! Buddy Longstreet and Taylor Jones have asked me to open for them on their summer tour. I’ll be recording one of my songs on their label before the tour.”

He dismissed her with the wave of his hand. “If you don’t come with me right now, I’m through with you. Do you understand?”

“But I’ve done what I came here to do! My career is just getting started. You can’t ask me to walk away now.” She went to Reid, and he put his arm around her.

Jack’s eyes went hot with fury as he studied the two of them for a long, tense moment. “I’ve already canceled your credit card, and you can figure out how to pay your lover his two-thousand-dollar-a-month rent. You’re on your own, and I want you to stay the hell away from my other children. I don’t want them poisoned by your sordid life.”

“Please,” Kate whimpered. “I love you. Don’t make me choose.”

“You’ve already made your choices, Kate. Now you can live with them.” He pushed past her on his way to the door.

“Daddy!” she shrieked, chasing him down the stairs.

He never stopped, and he never looked back on his way to the rental car.

Kate chased the car as he drove away. “Daddy!” When he’d driven out of sight, she sank to her knees on the pavement and sobbed.

Reid came up behind her, urged her to her feet, and helped her inside. “I cannot believe Ashton did this.”

“You still think it’s going to blow over?” Kate asked between sobs.

“No,” he said with a grim expression as his cell phone rang in his suit pocket for the third time. “Damn it. I’ve got to get this. They’re wondering where I am.” He kept one arm around her when he took the call. “I’m sorry,” he said into the phone. “We’re going to have to reschedule.”

Kate wiped her face and shuddered as she relived the confrontation with her father.

“I’m sorry they feel that way.” Reid’s jaw clenched with tension. “I had an emergency that couldn’t have been avoided.”

Overnight their whole world had become an emergency that couldn’t have been avoided. She didn’t understand how something so beautiful to her was ugly to others. It just wasn’t fair. Nothing had ever hurt more than having her father cut her out of his life. It had hurt even more than losing her mother for three years. She gasped. Oh, God. He’ll tell her, and she’ll hate me, too! And I just got her back! She began to cry again in deep, gulping sobs that only intensified when she thought of Maggie, Eric, and the twins.