by Parker, Ali
Which was why I had to come here. Why no amount of driving calmed me down. It had been a hell of a day and finding out my father didn’t really even believe I was in danger irked me.
I couldn’t let it go. The man lost one son, and he didn’t give a damn when his other got kidnapped. It was hard to believe. Harder to believe he actually thought I might’ve gotten drunk and blew everything off.
Had I proven nothing to him over the last three years? Was he totally blind to the hours I put in at his company? I took full responsibility for being an immature jackass when I was younger, but I hadn’t been that guy for years.
I didn’t need his approval. I didn’t give a damn about what he thought, but I was tired of having to hear about it. I was fucking sick of having him badmouth me to my face and behind my back and worse, of him digging into Stephanie when she had nothing to do with any of it. My father’s issue was with me. God only knew why he kept taking it out on her. He never used to act that way to anyone else, not that I could remember. Whatever it was, it was time for him to stop doing it.
Maybe it was being kidnapped, or maybe it would’ve happened today anyway, but I needed to look into his eyes and tell him what I needed to tell him. The doors we blew open after our argument in my office last week opened a floodgate of memories for me, times over the years I kept quiet when I shouldn’t have.
I kept pounding on the door. Eventually, he was going to have to get out of bed and answer it. I banged harder, with both fists now. “Dad! It’s me. Open up.”
A couple of minutes later, I heard him yelling. “I’m coming. Hold your horses.”
The heavy wooden double doors opened with a deep creak, and my father’s pissed-off face appeared from behind them. “Do you have any idea what the time is, Jeremiah?”
“Yeah Dad, I do. It’s about time we talked,” I said, pushing past him through the door. I didn’t go any deeper into the house, coming to a stop in the entrance hall. It was a cavernous space with high ceilings and an actual stained-glass window.
A rich red wine-colored rug was under my feet, the same one Dad had installed when I was in elementary school. Macey kept it spotless, just like the gleaming dark wood furniture and the polished parquet floors. Too bad she couldn’t clean my father’s soul.
“What do we need to talk about at this hour?” he asked, leaving the doors open behind him. A breeze swept inside, making my dad’s navy blue robe twist around his ankles. He whipped it away angrily. “This better be good, son.”
“I was kidnapped today,” I said, feeling the burn from the anger slowly make its way up to my heart.
My father scowled, shrugging. “Yes, I’m aware. What about it?”
“I’ve had phone calls and messages from half the city,” I continued, folding my arms in front of me. “You know whose was missing?”
“The mayor?” he guessed dryly, his face becoming redder and redder. Rage swirled in his eyes, still bloodshot with sleep.
I shook my head. “I got a message from his office, actually. They wished me a speedy recovery and hoped we were satisfied with the service we received from the police department. You, on the other hand, I haven’t heard a word from.”
My father scoffed, muttering angrily. He ignored my comment about him not having called. “Service? Those people didn’t give us any service. They listened like their ears were glued to their asses.”
“Could it be because they were listening to Stephanie until you came along, insisting I hadn’t been taken? Maybe they didn’t think looking for a drunken driver who so happened to be a reckless idiot sleeping it off was worth wasting their time on.”
Widening his eyes, he let his lids droop again. “You can blame me all you want. Based on your history, it was the right assumption to have made at that point in time. Believing you were kidnapped by a woman right off the bat was ridiculous.”
“Did you forget the part where it was also true?” I ground out between gritted teeth.
Shrugging again, my father shook his head. “How was I supposed to know you got overpowered by a woman?”
“A woman who crashed right into the driver’s side of my car.” The memory of the moment before Jannie’s car hit flashed in my mind. I would be seeing that image for a long time, but I pushed it away for now. “She could’ve killed me.”
“She—”
I held up my hand, showing him I needed another minute. “She crashed into me to incapacitate me and then loaded me into her car. You know how you could have known that? You could’ve listened to Stephanie.”
“That woman—”
“Enough!” I yelled, feeling the rising anger bubbling over. This was why I was here, to talk to him about Stephanie and his behavior today. “That woman, as you call her, saved my life. She was the one who was there when I needed help, who found me all by herself because you sent the cops on some wild goose chase.”
“I was expecting a ransom, Jeremiah. Not a woman who couldn’t let go of her dreams of carrying on with the boss’s son,” he spat out.
“I don’t want to hear it, Dad,” I said, blinding rage creeping up from my gut. “I care about Stephanie, and she cares about me. Clearly, since she was the only one who bothered to figure out what was going on and where to find me.”
“Save it, Jer. It was a lucky guess. Don’t go making her out to be some kind of plus-sized saint.” My heart plummeted at his words while the rage flared up inside me. “She just—”
“I said I don’t want to hear it. While we’re at it, I never want to hear anything like that from you ever again. You will not say one fucking negative word about her from here on out, you hear me?”
I got right in his face, shaking my finger against his chest. “I care about her, and she’s going to be in my life, whether you like it or not. The more names you call her and the more you go off on her, the further you push me.”
“Push you?” He narrowed his eyes, clenching his jaw. “You’re my son. I can push you as much as I want.”
“Try it, Dad. After the shit you’ve been pulling lately, I’m not sure there’s anything left to salvage between us. Especially given the way you treated and have been treating Stephanie, who’s an innocent bystander in all these things between us.”
“All the shit I’ve been pulling?” His eyebrows jumped, but he didn’t look overly surprised. “And what about all the shit you’ve been pulling? Slacking off at work to fuck your secretary, blowing off your responsibilities to fool around with those friends of yours. I’ve said it once, and I’ll say it again, you need to pull your head out of your ass.”
“Says the man who thought his son was sleeping off a hangover when he was kidnapped by a former employee and told about it by a current employee. Only one of us has a great view of our colons from the inside, and it isn’t me.”
“Get some sleep, Jeremiah,” he bit out. “You’ve had a long day. Don’t say anything else you’re going to regret.”
“I’m not going to regret this, Dad. It’s been a long time coming. Today just cemented it for me. You’ve already lost Jack, and you’re about to lose me if you keep pushing. I’m not him, Dad. I’m never going to be Jack, but you would also never have treated any woman he cared about the way you do Stephanie. And I bet you wouldn’t have said he’d gone on a bender when he got kidnapped. You keep telling me to pull my head out of my ass and be more like him? That’s not going to happen.”
“Grow up, Jeremiah.”
“You sound like a fucking record player that got stuck. I’m all grown up, father. I came to work for you because you needed me to, and I bust my ass every day I’m in that office. But if you can’t stop comparing me to Jack and let go of the idea that you can somehow mold me into him, I can’t work at Williams Inc. anymore.”
“Are you quitting on me?” His voice was as cold and callous as ever. I didn’t have any clue why I’d thought him too fragile to hear this for so long, why I tried to protect him.
I shook my head, shoving my hands in my
pockets as I made my way back to the front door. “It’s your decision to make, Dad. I’m done trying to be my brother. It’s not who I am. If you can accept that, then no. If you can’t…” I shrugged. “Then you already have your answer.”
I left after that, resisting the urge to race all the way home. One accident a day was about as much as I could take. I was relieved I’d finally done it though, laid it all out and thrown down the gauntlet. One way or the other, I would know what my future held soon.
Chapter 55
STEPHANIE
A paid vacation sounded like a wonderful thing. Unless you didn’t know whether the vacation would become permanent and unpaid soon. I stood in the shower, letting the warm water cascade over my shoulders with my head tipped back.
The water would run cold within the next few minutes probably, but Tiana was at work. Like most employed people tended to be on a Thursday afternoon. As for me, I got a message from Jeremiah on Wednesday morning after he stormed out on Tuesday night.
No explanation about where he went or why he left, not whether he was pissed at me for overstepping or simply planning on relaxing on his own for a few days. All I got was a very succinct, impersonal message telling me to take a couple of days off as he wouldn’t be in the office either.
It wasn’t exactly enlightening. I was partly convinced he was going to fire me for yelling at his father about such personal matters as I had on the day of the kidnapping. I spent a few hours each day scouring the internet for possible job opportunities I could apply for if my days at Williams Inc. were numbered.
I didn’t want to believe he would fire me, which was probably why none of the opportunities tempted me to apply at all. But I wanted to be ready if he did.
The parts of my brain loyal to Jeremiah kept telling me to stop overreacting. That even if he didn’t want me to work for him anymore because my big mouth made me overstep in too many ways, he would transfer me instead of letting me go.
I wanted to trust that part of me, but I just didn’t know what to do or think. Two days off in the middle of the week without a peep from my boss or office had my imagination running rampant. I woke up in a cold sweat last night after dreaming they were holding interviews for my replacement while I was at home watching movies in my pajamas.
I kept telling myself to be patient, that my boss had gone through something terrifying and traumatic and was more than entitled to take a few days off after that experience. As the guy I was kind of seeing, I told myself he just needed some space to deal with the fact that an ex-fling had kidnapped him.
In both capacities, as boss and quasi-boyfriend, the guy deserved a break. Logically, I knew that. In the middle of the night when I replayed the events of that day in my mind, it became difficult to remember anything but how I might have jeopardized things on both fronts by yelling at his father and the big boss.
There was also a large part of me convinced I was overthinking things and should enjoy the time off while I had it. With all this time out of the office, Jeremiah and I were going to have to hit the ground running when we got back to work.
After waiting the required period of time for my conditioning hair mask, shaving, and exfoliating, I finally shut off the water and got out of the shower. Wrapping a fluffy new towel I treated myself to when I got my first paycheck from Williams Inc. around myself, I went to get dressed.
My phone was lying face down on my bed when I got to my room. I picked it up to check the time, but when I turned it over, I saw that there was a new message waiting for me.
My heart leaped. Please let it be Jeremiah.
I drew the pattern to unlock my screen, disappointed when I saw it wasn’t from him. It was, however, related to him. The message was from Shawn. Surprise rippled through me. I definitely wasn’t expecting to hear from him.
Shawn: Meet me at Lucky’s tonight for drinks? Happy hour starts at six.
Lucky’s was a bar Jeremiah and his friends frequented. I knew because they’d asked me to put drinks with them on his calendar there a few times.
Contrary to what some might’ve thought, I knew Shawn wasn’t asking me out. Well, out yes, but not out on a date out. If he wanted to have drinks with me, it was about Jeremiah. I was sure of it.
That alone was enough to get me to agree.
Me: Sure. See you then.
I walked into Lucky’s at six on the dot. It was one of those local bars where it felt like everyone knew everyone, with a warm, welcoming atmosphere and furnishings that had probably been there since the place opened.
The ceilings were low as well as the lighting. Shawn was already waiting when I got there, nursing a beer at one of the far corners of the bar. He waved when he saw me, picked up another beer off the marked wooden counter and moved past round standing tables to an empty booth along the back wall.
“Thanks for coming,” he said when I approached him, handing me the spare beer. “Two for one special. I thought we could split it. The beer goes flat otherwise. Unless you want two of your own to guzzle down immediately?”
I smiled, instantly relaxed by his easygoing nature. “I don’t like flat beer. This is fine.”
“We can always get another when this round’s done,” he said, motioning for me to slide into the booth first.
Shawn sat down across from me, holding his beer in one hand and resting the other on the table. Just like Jeremiah, he had this confident air about him, like the air itself would bend to do his bidding. He had no reason not to be though.
The man was gorgeous. I wondered if that was a requirement to be let into their group since they were all seriously good-looking men. With cafe au lait skin, eyes the color of the richest dark chocolate and bone structure statues would envy, Shawn was a head turner alright.
He was about as tall as Jeremiah, but his muscles were leaner. A relatively well-known male model, I’d seen some of his spreads. I knew what he was packing under his casual, yet elegant emerald sweater.
There was a reason he was as in demand as he was in his job. And with the ladies. As we talked, I noticed more than a few women trying to catch his eye.
Under different circumstances, I might’ve been one of them. Especially when he smiled, a splash of pearly white against his dark skin poking just a hint of a dimple into his cheek.
Shawn didn’t seem to notice the attention he was garnering. Probably because it was such an everyday occurrence to him. His full attention was on me as he asked me about my day and chatted in his easygoing way.
We were on our second beers when he came out with the reason why he’d asked me for drinks. He pushed his glass aside and placed his elbows on the table in front of him, his fingers loosely threaded together as he tapped his pinkie finger against the veneered wooden surface.
“How do you feel about Jeremiah?”
Stunned, I tucked my chin in and crossed my arms. “I like you, Shawn. You’re a good friend. And I appreciate all your help the other day. But I don’t know you well enough to talk to you about this.”
Being standoffish wasn’t my usual go-to response, but I made an exception this time. Shawn was close to Jeremiah, not to me. If he wanted information about us, that was who he should’ve gone to.
Turning his hands, he held his palms up and gave me a sheepish grin. “I’m not trying to intrude. I know it’s a personal question, but I need to know because if I’m right about you, I need your help.”
I arched a brow. “My help?”
“Your answer first, please.” He smiled knowingly and lifted his glass to his sculpted lips, giving me a sideways nod as if to say “your turn.”
There was an intensity in his eyes, an urgency I couldn’t place. And whatever it was, it was dark. Not happy, but truly worried. Before I could stop myself, I was nodding. “I’ll tell you, but only if you really think I can help.”
Sensing the last lingering hesitation I was hanging onto, Shawn released a quiet breath and took a long sip of his beer, never breaking eye contact with me. “I’ll
level with you because I really do think you can help. I’m worried about Jeremiah.”
“Which is why we’re having this discussion.”
He tipped his head, acquiescing. “Like I said, I don’t mean to intrude. You have every right to tell me to fuck off and mind my own business. I wouldn’t have asked if I didn’t think it was important though.”
The look in his eyes was sincere, apologetic. “You’re forgiven, but if you’d explain I would sure appreciate it.”
“Jeremiah’s been through a lot the last few years.” I started to nod, to tell him I knew but he stopped me by holding up one finger. “I’m not sure how much he’s told you about Jack’s death and everything that happened after. He doesn’t talk about it much.”
A faraway look crept into his eyes, and he stared into the middle distance for a second before continuing. “Things were getting tough on him before Jack’s death. Their father… Well, you’ve met him.”
I nodded but remained silent, quickly becoming enthralled with what he was telling me. When Jeremiah told me about Jack, I had a feeling he didn’t speak about it too often. Shawn paused to signal the waitress for another round and turned back to me.
“There was a time when he could hardly step out the door without a photographer there to capture the moment,” Shawn explained. “We were all at fault, I think. Living the life imagined and not giving a damn about the consequences.”
That would’ve been around the time I started college. I was so wrapped up in my own wild child ways back then, I didn’t pay attention to the tabloids or stories about a bunch of famed bad boys I didn’t know sleeping and partying their way through the city.
“I’ll save you the details, but let’s just say I know Jeremiah when things get tough. He tends to shut down and isolate himself, internalize whatever’s going on.”
“Men,” I muttered, thinking about how Tiana and I helped each other through the tough times. In Shawn’s own way though, that was what he was doing. “Why do you need me? Won’t it be easier if you just tell him you’re worried about him?”