Dear Diary Read Free Page B

father’s arms tightened perceptibly around the woman’s waist. The woman’s hands clutched his shoulders as a scream erupted from her lips.
    He slumped possessively over her, allowing the woman’s chin to rest on his shoulder, with her eyes closed, she turned her face toward Rory, a final moan signaling they’d finished. Her lids slowly blinked open and her gaze locked with Rory’s. She shrieked out, “Holy shit, Griffith!”
    Her screech had an instant effect. Her father backed up and yanked up his pants. The woman slid off the counter and straightened her dress. Rory watched as her father fiddled with his belt and finally turned to look at her.
    “Rory!” he choked out.
    “Oh, my God,” the woman said.
    “Get out,” Rory said to her. “Get out of my mother’s house.” There was no immediate reaction. Both her father and his blond-haired lover looked too shocked to move. Rory just stared at the woman. A full minute elapsed before she turned toward the phone. “If you don’t leave I’ll call the police.”
    “Rory, stop it.” Her father’s face was white but determined. “Your mother knows about Eileen.”
    Eileen couldn’t quite help the astonished look that crossed her face.
    Rory stopped. “You’re lying.”
    “She knows there’s someone else in my life.”
    “You… bastard,” Rory said to him. She turned away blindly, stumbling. Her father’s hand on her arm was a mistake. She shook him off. “Get away from me. Don’t touch me.”
    “Calm down, Rory. There’s no need to be so damn hysterical.”
    “I’ll leave,” Eileen said quietly, heading for the door.
    “Get‌—‌your‌—‌hand‌—‌off me,” Rory ordered through her teeth. She was shaking so hard she could hardly stand, but all she could think about was the feel of her father’s hand on her arm; a hand that had been caressing another woman just moments before. She yanked herself free.
    “I’m going to take Eileen home, but I’ll be back. Don’t leave. We need to talk. What the hell are you doing home?”
    “I don’t know. Catching my father screwing someone in the kitchen?”
    “Rory…”
    She ran away from him. Back upstairs. His anger was at getting caught, she realized dimly, not at the act itself. She heard the door leading to the garage slam. Long moments passed before the engine revved. From the side of her bedroom window she watched the car back out of the driveway and pull away.
    She was seized by a pain so intense she felt incapable of moving. Tears burned, but she fought them back. So many things made sense now. Maybe her mother did know, maybe she didn’t. But she’d guessed. That’s what all the pain was about. Rory was suddenly swept by the strongest aversion to the opposite sex she’d ever felt. Cheating, lying, treacherous men . By God, she was never going to fall for one.
    Never.

    Nicholas Shard eased his mother’s BMW against the curb in front of Rory’s house. The car was ancient, he thought, amused. How long his mother had owned it, he couldn’t tell, but he liked driving it better than the new Mercedes sedan. After all, it had a stick shift which Nick felt impressed the girls.
    Not that he expected to enthrall Rory. She was his friend, and she’d made it clear in a hundred different ways that she found most of the guys in the class stupid, boring and complete horn dogs consumed by lust to the exclusion of all else. Nick felt it was a gift of providence that she didn’t seem to feel the same way about him. Considering how he felt inside these days, he was sure she simply hadn’t noticed.
    Grimacing, he thought about his recent split from his girlfriend Vicki Fischer. It didn’t help that Vicki was an unbearable tease. He’d started dating her in spite of her reputation. She was simply fun and bright and cheerful, as far as he could see. And he’d ignored the knowing jabs in the ribs by his friends and the sly winks and smiles, thinking them just as Rory described. But in the