“I didn’t know what to do with that anger…so I made a lot of stupid mistakes.”
And tried to ruin my life.
My father sighed as he continued to hold my gaze. “I can apologize, but I don’t think that will make a difference with you. My behavior was inexcusable. Taking Megaland from you was the least of it. Sabotaging your personal relationship crossed a line. I know that, and I admit it.”
I had expected this conversation to be filled with endless excuses. I had expected him to justify his behavior with his own point of view. I didn’t expect to hear such a candid and remorseful explanation of everything he did.
He looked at me in silence, obviously finished. He waited for me to say something back.
Titan turned to me, staring at my profile as she waited for a response.
My mouth couldn’t form words.
My father narrowed his eyes on my face, not in a hostile way, but in one full of concern. “Talk to me, son.”
My chest immediately tightened when he called me that. I hadn’t heard him refer to me that way in over ten years. It was a childhood endearment, something he said every time I did something right. When I put away the dishes, he patted me on the back and said, “Good job, son.” It was something so trivial at the time, but hearing him say it now made me realize how much it meant to me. He didn’t call me Diesel or Hunt. He called me something personal and meaningful.
Words still didn’t leave my mouth. I stared at my father and watched him silently wait for words to form on my tongue. Titan waited too, the air around her restless. She wanted my father and me to forget everything that had happened and be a family again. Her heart was in the right place, but her dreams were unrealistic.
“I don’t have anything to say.”
My father couldn’t hide his look of disappointment. The emotion was quick, ending as abruptly as it started, but it happened.
Titan didn’t cover up her sigh, her admission of sorrow.
My father’s shoulders fell slightly, no longer straight and powerful like a concrete wall.
Titan grabbed my thigh under the table. “Diesel…”
“I told you I would listen to him,” I said quietly. “I did as you asked. My promise has been fulfilled.” I pushed her hand off my thigh, but the second I did it, I felt like an ass. I had a woman who was going to such lengths to help me, and it was stupid to push her away. I instantly regretted my behavior.
She stared at me with her fiery eyes. “The man you’ve been at war with is sitting across from you, and he’s apologized. You have an opportunity to say how you feel, Diesel. Don’t sit there and do nothing.”
I stayed quiet.
“Don’t be stubborn.”
My father stared at me with his penetrating gaze. He hadn’t looked at Titan once since the conversation began. His gaze was focused on me exclusively. He’d stared at me before when he’d cornered me in my office, but he hadn’t looked at me the way he did now. “Even if you have nothing nice to say to me, I want to know how you feel.”
“You want to know how I feel, huh?” I snapped. “I think you’re an asshole. That’s what I think.”
My father didn’t flinch, as if he’d been expecting the insult.
“You’ve come into my office so many times now and threatened me. Plain and simple. What kind of father threatens his son like that?”
He didn’t blink.
“And then you went to Titan and tried to buy her loyalty. You knew she meant something to me, but you wanted to burn that relationship too. You wanted to destroy everything around me until I had nothing left. You wanted me to be sad and alone just like you. A father should always want more for his son, not less.”
His eyes shifted back and forth as he looked into my gaze.
“And then you blackmailed me… You tried to take away the woman I love.” I shook my head. “You think an apology is going to make up for your cruelty? You think some prepared words can erase the past? You think you’ll ever give me an explanation good enough to justify your silence for the last ten years?” My voice rose higher and higher with every sentence, my rage swelling.
The powerful look he always gave me was gone, replaced by a face I hadn’t seen in a long time. He didn’t look like the guarded CEO who was always seeking the upper hand. Now he just looked like a man. “I understand your anger.”
“Well, I don’t understand yours. I can admit that going to the media about our story wasn’t the best idea, but I didn’t have much to work with at the time. Titan is everything to me, and I had to protect her. She thought I was responsible for sabotaging her life, and I had to prove to her it wasn’t me. I knew my actions would cause a war, but I didn’t have any other choice. And I would do it all again, because in the end, I got her. That means more to me than anything else in the world now.”
Titan didn’t say anything to that.
My father’s reaction didn’t change.
In apology, I moved my hand to her thigh.
I knew she’d forgiven me when she didn’t push it away.
“I understand,” my father replied. “But you still could have gone about it in a different way, just as I could have done things better. But pointing fingers now won’t change the decisions that have already become part of history.”
No, it wouldn’t.
“I’m not suggesting we forget the past, Diesel. I’m proposing a new beginning. We can get to know each other again, take things slow. Maybe a lasting relationship will blossom. Maybe you’ll never be able to look past my mistakes. But I’d certainly like to try.”
I finally broke eye contact, not wanting to look at him anymore. Anytime I thought about my father, I thought about how much I hated him. Now I had to deal with deeper emotions and the fact that he wasn’t as evil as he seemed.
“I’ve apologized, Diesel. I’ll never exhibit that kind of behavior again, even if you never forgive me. You’re a grown man who doesn’t need the guidance of anyone except yourself, so you don’t need a father anymore. But I’d like to be something…even if it’s just your friend. You have a brother you never speak to, and even if you can’t work this out with me, I’d like you to reconnect with him. You’re brothers.”
I’d never had a problem with Jax. We became divided in the war. Wanting to avoid each other because all we could talk about was our father, we never spoke. But that distance turned to years of silence. Now we didn’t know each other at all anymore. It was a shame to have lost so much time. “Yeah, I’d like to see him.”
My father gave a slight nod. “He’d like that too.”
Titan placed her hand over mine as it rested on her thigh. “Diesel…”
I ignored her.
She squeezed my hand. “He’s done the most he can possibly do to start over. Meet him halfway.”
I automatically wanted to snap at her, but I made sure that didn’t happen. “It’s been ten years, Titan. My father wanted nothing to do with me for ten years. This attempted reconciliation might never have happened if it weren’t for you, so does it truly mean anything?”
“It would have.” My father inserted himself into the conversation with his powerful voice. “Because I initiated it when we were in your office. I told you I was hurt that you’d been taken away from me. You’re the most important thing in my life. My rage clouded my actions, but my emotions rang true. Titan has made things easier because she’s compassionate and understanding. She’s helped me reach this point in a much easier way than if I did it alone. As a man, I’ve never been good with emotions. That was something your mother always helped me with. But I assure you, we’d somehow be having this conversation…even if it took another year for me to make it happen. However, I’m sorry that it took so long. I should have done this the second you walked out the door.”
I remembered that afternoon because I was surprised by what he said. At first, I had thought he was talking about Mom, but that didn’t make much sense at the time. But when he revealed he was referring to me, t
hat he was so upset I had turned on him, it still had caught me by surprise.
“I know this is hard, Diesel,” my father whispered. “Truly, I do. Sometimes, when too much time has passed, it’s impossible to find a connection again. We could both go on with our lives and forget about each other, but I suspect we’d be filled with more anger and pain than we already have right now. Maybe it would be the best thing for both of us if we moved forward…one step at a time.”
He was a master manipulator, and he was using his talents now. “If you hadn’t attacked me for the past few months, maybe. But you did everything you could to take down your own son. I don’t think I can just sweep that under the rug.”
“I’m not asking you to.”
My eyes bored into his.
“I’m just asking you to leave the door open, Diesel,” he said. “You don’t need to trust me, to forgive me overnight. You don’t need to call me your father. All I want is a chance to make this right. You may hate me, despise me for the things I’ve done. But as your father, I will always love you—no matter how much you hate me.”
I couldn’t remember the last time he said those words to me. It must have been when I was younger. I thought those words would go right through me without leaving any mark, but they penetrated my heart and stayed in place, like a bullet that didn’t exit the body. I tilted my head toward the table and broke eye contact, unable to hold his gaze a second longer.
Silence passed between us. It was heavy with patience, heavy with hope. Titan kept her hand on mine, her small fingers gliding gently over my skin. She didn’t pressure me to forgive him, holding her voice this time.
My father kept staring at me. “Son?”
I closed my eyes for a brief moment as I kept my head tilted toward the table. His words surrounded me, suffocated me. I slowly angled my head back up to look at him.
“Please leave the door open.”
A part of me wanted to ask him to leave and never come back. A part of me wanted to warn him to steer clear of me. I never wanted to see him again, never wanted to hear his voice again. But another part of me couldn’t shut the door. Another part of me felt a flame of hope in my heart. A soft side of me didn’t slam the door in his face. It kept my hand steady. “It’s open…”
The stern expression on his face immediately died away, replaced by a look I’d never seen before. It was soft, vulnerable, and contained a slight hint of emotion.
“But that’s all I can do.”
My father straightened his shoulders as he stared at me. He didn’t smile, but his expression seemed to soften. There was joy in his eyes, a reflection of ethereal light in the corners. “That’s all I ask.”
5
Titan
Diesel was quiet after his father left. He didn’t seem angry, but he wasn’t himself either. Even though he already had taken a shower when he got home, he took another. I took that as a hint that he wanted some space.
I stayed in the living room and worked on my laptop, giving him all the time he needed. If he were truly angry with me, he would just return to his penthouse and not call me for a few days.
He walked into the living room over an hour later in his black sweatpants that he wore low on his hips. The bottom two abs of his stomach were just as ripped as the six up above. For a man so busy, he still devoted time to his physical fitness. He was thirty-five but had the physique of someone in his mid-twenties.
He made a drink at my bar then took his time coming into the living room. His bare feet thudded against the hardwood floor as he walked. Like a shark that made its presence known in just its silence, he circled the couch as he approached me.
I shut my laptop.
Diesel sat beside me and parted his knees, his long legs stretching out in front of him. He was a large man, tall and built, and he took up a lot of space. My king-size bed felt much smaller when I shared it with someone, but when a man was his size, his chest turned into my mattress.
He took another drink of his scotch before he set it on the coffee table. He sat back, looking at the black TV screen.
I waited for him to speak first so I’d understand his mood better. Right now, he seemed thoughtful and quiet. If he were angry, I’d be able to feel it ooze from his pores. Whenever he was hostile, it was usually easy to notice.
At least, for me.
When five minutes of silence stretched on, it didn’t seem as if he was going to say anything at all.
“You still want me to make it up to you?” I whispered, choosing to talk about sex because it was the easiest topic to discuss. The foundation of our relationship had always been fucking. It was the one thing we always agreed on. Through time, our romance had deepened into the most loving and intense relationship I’d ever known. Sex moved into the background as love took up our focus.
He didn’t hesitate before he answered. “Yes.”
“And how would you like me to do that?”
His eyes never shifted to me. “Have dinner with me.”
“I have dinner with you every night.”
“In public.”
My heart stopped.
“In a nice restaurant. The two of us holding hands. Not giving a damn what the world thinks of us. That’s what I want, Titan. And you’re going to give it to me.”
That sounded like a dream come true, stepping into the sunlight and letting the world see us for who we really were. But it wasn’t the right time, not until I figured out my situation with Thorn. “Okay…in time.”
His jaw clenched slightly in anger, but he wasn’t as livid as he usually was when it came to this topic.
It didn’t seem like he would ever mention his father. “Do you not want to talk about it?”
Silence.
I took that as a yes. “I’m here if you change your mind.”
After a long sigh, he spoke. “I don’t know how I feel about it.”
“Take some time to think it over, and you’ll find an answer.”
He rested his arm over the back of the couch, his skin lightly pressing against the nape of my neck. “I never expected my father to say any of those things to me. I feel like I’m talking to a different person.”
“Because you are. He’s different now, Diesel.”
“Just a few weeks ago, he was ruining my life,” he said in a dark tone. “I don’t think people change that quickly.”
“They do when they realize what they’ve lost.” I moved my hand to his muscular thigh and felt the hardness under my fingertips.
“He lost me a long time ago…”
“You lost him too.”
He turned his face toward me, his gaze looking into mine. “He’s right about one thing. None of this would have been possible without you…whether this ends up being a good or a bad decision.”
“It’ll be a good decision,” I said with confidence. “A man can’t say things like that and not mean them. Anytime I’ve been around him, he’s been nothing but a gentleman. I believe he has the ability to be a kind person. He just needed some compassion…”
Diesel continued to watch me with his dark eyes, silently wrapping his presence around me. “Not all people deserve compassion, Titan.”
“No. But most do.”
His fingers moved to my neck, and his thumb rested on my bottom lip. He gently tugged on the skin, sliding his finger down and smearing my lipstick. “I know exactly what I want from you.” His thumb traced my mouth, following the curve from one corner to the other. “I want this lipstick smeared around the base of my dick. And I want my come sitting in your stomach. Now.”
As the intensity grew between us, the area between my legs began to ache. His fingertips were warm, and the searing gaze he gave me was hot enough to make me melt. My lips parted with the need to obey him, to give him what he wanted. I got his father here because I wanted to repair their broken relationship. But I also liked owing him something…because I knew exactly what he would want as payment. “Yes, Boss Man.”
The instant I
stepped inside Rio’s, the hostess recognized me and greeted me with a handshake. “This way, Ms. Titan. Mr. Livingston is already here.” She guided me to the table, where Kyle was browsing his menu.
He looked up when he noticed me. “Titan.” He rose to his feet and shook my hand.
I did the same. “How are you, Mr. Livingston?”
“Pleased, as I’m sure you are.”
We sat down and got straight to business. Our beta testing had revealed how well his products did on my shelves, and conversely, my products had an amazing start on the opposite side of the world. The marketing we did for each other definitely paid off.
“We’re certainly hitting the right market without competing with current customers,” he said. “We pulled it off, and I’m looking forward to see where this will go.”
His products weren’t luxury items like mine were. His were directed toward young adults and those in their early twenties. They were made for enhancement, sharpness. My products were designed for women in their late twenties and older. I specialized in skin rejuvenation creams, serums that eliminated crow’s feet, and mature makeup that working women in high positions needed to lead their companies. We didn’t directly compete with each other, going for markets in different age groups. “As am I. I think we should discuss launching our first real campaign.”
“Me too.”
We got down to our ideas, and we ordered lunch in between. I had an iced tea and nibbled on a piece of bread as we spoke. I expected Kyle to ask about my public breakup with Thorn, but thankfully, he didn’t. Perhaps he understood it was irrelevant to our business venture, and any question he asked would go unanswered.
But then I saw Thorn walk inside. In a gray suit with a black tie, he entered the room and turned heads naturally. Over six feet in height with a handsome face, he would turn heads even if he weren’t all over the news.
The hostess guided him to a table, and he was on a trajectory to walk right past me.
Looking at him only reminded me of how much I’d lost. It made me miss our intimate friendship, the way we could tell each other anything and know we would never betray each other’s secrets. I missed the way he looked out for me, concern that I never needed and I never appreciated. I missed the way his eyes lit up slightly when he saw me. He didn’t usually smile, but that was because he didn’t express himself in that way. I was in tune with all of his slight reactions, and I knew exactly what each one of them meant.
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