He flashed her a quick smile, and then he sighed. He could see just from his daughter’s expression that his words had hurt her. And the fact was she’d pulled off a fucking blinder back there at the pub. He was amazed by her quick thinking and courage to confront men who were seriously dangerous. But he wasn’t going to tell her that and let her think she was invincible.

‘Listen up, Kendall. I know you wanna move in with me, and I want nothing more than to get back at ya mother for what she did to us, but the plain fact is that ya can’t.’

She turned her face away, staring out of the side window, his words whirling around inside her head. He was so cold. Did he not realize what he’d just said? Her idea was that he would have her move in with him just to piss her mother off, as in some type of emotional revenge. It was a solid plan and she honestly thought he would go for it. She would have in his position. What the hell has happened to my dad? she thought. Well, if he was that stand-offish and callous, then why should she worry about worming her way into his affections. She blinked away the start of tears and cleared her throat. ‘So, Dad, you’re a drug dealer, I take it?’

He cast a speculative glare, stubbornly ignoring her, and pulled into a McDonald’s drive-thru on the A20. Once he’d put the handbrake on, he turned his whole body to face her. With an unreadable expression, he hissed, ‘You may think because you’re my kid, that you fucking know me. Well, ya can get that notion right out of ya head! Ya know fuck all, and, ya know what, Kendall? That’s just how I like it.’

Her breath locked in her throat. Glancing over at him, his eyes were empty. There was not a trace of compassion on his face, nothing at all. She swallowed hard, now believing that every flash of a smile he’d shot her wasn’t a warm expression of endearment but a fake and almost sarcastic gesture. At that precise moment, she learned he wasn’t who she thought he was. Maybe the years of separation had conjured up a dreamlike portrait of this wonderful loving father, a father who was left out in the cold, his child ripped away from him. But, obviously, she’d been living in a fantasy world, dreaming of her ideal father, not the one who was sitting next to her with that curled lip and an expression that told her she was a nobody in his life.