Not even once. I want him to grow up without a fragment of a doubt that I’m his father. There is a future for him that’s painted without hardship and without judgment.
I know that future is not his. No matter what I do, there will be cameras pointed at his face. People will ask questions. Over and over and over. Until his ears ring. There will be a day when he learns that his mom is a sex addict. And there will be a time where he’s ridiculed for it.
But there is another future that is full of promise and certainty, even with the knowledge of our pasts. It’s this future that I’m clawing to obtain. It’s the one where he knows that he was conceived from love.
That no one and nothing can devoid him of that notion. Because nothing and no one brings doubt into his head.
I can’t change other people’s beliefs. But I can stop them from spreading their lies.
I just need help.
I’m not too prideful or too ashamed to ask for it.
After a long moment, Connor steps away from the wall. When his blue eyes flit to mine, he says, “I’ll drive.”
54
LOREN HALE
The ride to my dad’s is short and void of bodyguards. We didn’t take the time to call them, not when his house is gated. My thoughts race. Different paths. Different options. It’s possible my dad could refuse to help, just on the basis that he’d have to work with Connor.
I reject that theory. My father can be vindictive, but when it comes to his family—when it comes to me—he’d do almost anything. I clutch this thought tight as Connor slows the Escalade and rolls down his window.
“103190,” I tell him the security code, and he types it into the pad. Soon after, the iron gate groans open.
He parks. The mansion just outside the car door.
Ryke hesitates in the passenger seat, and then he turns to me in the back. “This may not work. And it’ll be okay if it doesn’t. Moffy won’t have a bad life. We’ll all f**king protect him from the media.”
He’s trying to prepare me for the worst. But I’d rather look to a better future than agonize over the darkest one. I’m not going to sit here and torment myself.
I don’t say anything. I just climb out of the car, the cool air filling my lungs. I lead Connor and Ryke to the front door, a lion metal knocker on the black wood. Fumbling with the key, I finally stick it in the lock and enter my father’s mansion.
I wipe my clammy hand on my jeans and head down the hall. It’s three-o’clock on a Sunday. My dad could be anywhere, but I’m sure he’s here.
I peek into every room. Wanting, desperately, to end the search as quickly as I can.
When I near the den in the back of the house, I hear his voice and no one else’s. Like he’s speaking on the phone.
“I know she spent the night at my house, Greg. I wasn’t f**king blind back then.” My blood runs cold. He’s talking about Lily. I know he is.
I stop midway to the cracked door, the hallway dim, and as I listen, I skim the photos framed on the wall. Me, as a baby. Me, as a toddler. Me and Lily, as kids. Me and Lily, as preteens.
“You knew my parenting methods were more relaxed than Samantha’s. I wasn’t going to hover. If either of you had a problem with it, you should’ve kept her at your home.” He pauses. “Oh, come on, Greg, stop blaming yourself. You’re a good goddamn father.” And then I hear the sound of ice cubes clinking against glass. “We all make mistakes.”
That sound.
Ice against glass. It breaches my ears like hammered nails. Memories wash over me in a hazy blackness. Shadows filling parts of me. I can practically feel the crystal glass in my hand. And I can visualize the one in his. Not just lime and water.
It has to be.
I have to believe it is. He’s sober. My dad is sober.
Ryke sets his hand on my shoulder. I can’t move. Something cements my feet to this place. Maybe fear.
“We all knew they would end up together. Christ, it was Lily and Loren. How the f**k were we supposed to know she’d become a sex addict? The best goddamn fortuneteller wouldn’t have predicted that.”
The edge in his voice is sharp, too sharp.
He’s sober.
My teeth ache, and I realize that I can’t hide behind this wall forever. My feet move before my mind does. I take a step forward, and Ryke’s hand falls from my shoulder. When I slip into my father’s den, I am washed deeper in memories.
The leather couch, the dark wooden cabinets, organized desk, computer hutch, flat-screen television—it’s the home of a night I’ll never forget.
I was fourteen, and I’d just fought with my father in that same hallway. When I returned to the den, Lily was waiting timidly on the couch, our sci-fi show paused on the TV. We’d always been more than just friends.
We were best friends.
She had all of me by then. I had most of her.
And I let Lily drown my pain with a kiss. And then something more. I lost my virginity here. Right here. In the torment of my f**ked up childhood.
For years, I avoided this den. Like it contained every calloused feeling from that night. I can walk through it now and not be pulled under. I believe this.
I have to believe it.
The minute I enter the den, I focus on my father who gazes out the large window. Rain slides down the pane. His right hand cups a glass…
I freeze halfway to him. “Dad?”
He spins slowly, and it’s not a mistake—what I see. Amber liquid floats in the crystal goblet. Scotch. The bottle is on his desk, next to a box of cigars and a stack of clipped papers. I force myself to raise my gaze onto his.
His eyes are narrowed, sharp and black. Far gone. The difference is easy to spot now that I’ve seen him sober.
“Greg,” he says into his cellphone. “I’ll have to call you back.” He clicks his phone off and tosses it violently onto his desk. It falls and thuds on the carpet.
He swishes his drink, not even pretending that it’s something else.
“Let me guess,” I say sharply, “it’s just water?”
“Macallan 1939,” he replies. And then he takes a long sip, practically slapping me in the face. I rock back, but our cold eyes never separate. He tries giving me that look—the one where he says you’re just a little f**king kid. Grow up.
I am grown up.
I’m more of an adult than him.
“What the f**k is wrong with you?!” Ryke shouts, his face blood-red as he steps nearer. I shove him back before he storms ahead.
Connor even helps by grabbing Ryke’s bicep and forcing him beside us. Before he yells and reignites old arguments, I just want simple answers.
“How long?” I ask our dad, a tremor in my voice. “How long have you been drinking behind our backs?”
He prolongs the answer with another swig of scotch. His smug smile irritates me the most. The way his lips curve. Like it’s funny that he’s drinking. And I’m not.
That’s it for me. I just snap.
I run across the den before I can process my movements. And I struggle to pry the goblet from his iron-grip. Somewhere in my head, I’m thinking: if I can get it away from him, it ends this. But it doesn’t end like this. I know better than that.
“Loren!” he sneers and pushes my shoulder. With two palms, I shove him back even harder. He stumbles into the window and clutches a waist-tall vase for support.
I’ve never been physical with him, not like this. But I am screaming inside. Disappointment and hurt crush beneath everything. I take a couple steps towards him and try to remove the glass again, but he raises it above his head.