Chapter 3
Emily did not cry until she found the baby blanket.
It was folded inside a cedar box beneath several other gifts, pale and soft, with a tiny Bennett crest embroidered in one corner. James had sent it when he first learned she was pregnant.
Ryan told her it had never arrived.
Emily sat down on the edge of the bed and held it against her stomach.
“I thought you were angry about the baby.”
James stared at her. “Why?”
She laughed once, but there was nothing happy in it.
“Because Ryan said you thought I was too young. Linda said you told people I’d made a mistake marrying outside the family. Then you stopped visiting.”
James looked at Ryan.
“I stopped visiting because you told me Emily didn’t want me here.”
Ryan’s jaw tightened.
Emily slowly lifted her eyes.
“What?”
James turned back to her. “You sent word through him that I was overwhelming you. You said you needed space.”
Emily’s face changed completely.
“I never said that.”
Silence.
Marco looked from one to the other.
James remembered the conversation clearly. Ryan had come to the Bennett estate alone, calm and apologetic, explaining that Emily was exhausted and emotional from pregnancy. He said visits from her father made her feel watched.
James had hated it.
But he respected it.
For the first time in years, he tried not to solve his daughter’s life for her.
Ryan had used that against both of them.
Emily stood.
“You told me Dad didn’t come because he was embarrassed by me.”
Ryan stepped forward. “You were fighting constantly.”
“With you.”
“That’s not what I meant.”
Linda interrupted. “Enough. She was calmer without the Bennett circus coming through the door every week.”
Emily turned toward her.
“You mean easier.”
Linda’s expression tightened.
Emily continued.
“I was easier when I thought nobody would come if I called.”
Ryan’s face changed.
James saw it.
So did Marco.
May you like
The gifts were not the real isolation.
The real isolation was convincing both sides that the other had chosen distance first.
