by Mia Ford
“I was curious,” he said angrily.
“About what? My life is dead boring,” I replied. “Take a deep breath and relax. You’re still drunk.”
“No, unfortunately your phone sobered me up really fast,” he replied.
“Okay, what the hell is all of this about?” I turned toward him and put my phone on the counter. “Just get it out, whatever it is you are looking to say.”
“I know what girl you were talking dirty to last night,” he said angrily. “It wasn’t just some random Ava. It was my Ava. It was my damn daughter.”
I turned toward the coffee pot and sobered up really fast. He had found my messages to Ava, and he knew I was seeing his daughter. This was bad, really, really bad. I turned back around to face him, and I could tell I had very little time to explain myself before this turned really awkward. However, as I stood there staring at him, no words came from my mouth. I had fucked up, and he knew I was sleeping with his daughter. When I’d thought about telling him about Ava, it was supposed to be the other way around where he found out she was working for me, and not that I was sleeping with her. But there I stood, faced with the reality that he got the worst of the news before I could even preface it with anything.
“Dean,” I said putting up my hands. “I can explain.”
He gritted his teeth and shook his head, walking into the living room. But I really couldn’t explain, not in any way, shape, or form. I could sit here and confess my undying love for the girl, and he would still be absolutely livid. There was no easy way around any of this. I had fucked up, and now Ava was going to be so pissed, I was sure I wouldn’t ever have a chance to fix what I had done.
“I heard you talking dirty to some girl last night,” he said. “I was wasted and figured I’d do a little flirting with her, too, after you went to bed, so I looked up who it was. I can’t fucking believe you’re sleeping with my daughter.”
He stood up and walked over to the window, staring out into the city. He was shaking with anger, and I wasn’t sure how to diffuse the situation. There was only so much I could do without making everything worse. I walked into the living room and stood there, not sure whether to approach him or not. I took in a deep breath and walked over, putting my hand on his shoulder. Without realizing what he was doing, he whipped toward me, grabbed me by the throat, and pushing me up against the glass.
“You were supposed to be my friend,” he growled. “I trusted you, and the whole time we were making up, you were fucking my daughter. You didn’t think it would be a good idea to let me know that when I was apologizing for all of those years of anger and bitterness between us? You didn’t think that it would be a good idea to be forthright and honest with me?”
“Dean,” I said grabbing his arms. “At that time, we weren’t even sure there was anything between us. We still are trying to figure that out.”
He loosened his grip and shook his head, laughing. Suddenly he reared back and punched me straight in the jaw, sending me to the ground. He growled over top of me and turned, walking over to the couch and sitting down, his face in his hands. I shook my head, trying to loosen the dizziness from my vision. I guess I deserved that, no matter how much I wanted to lie to myself. I probably deserved a lot more than that. I pulled myself off the floor and wiped the blood from the corner of my mouth.
“How did that happen?” Dean sounded a bit calmer as he sat there.
I walked over to the other couch and sat down, resting my elbows on my knees and leaning forward. At that point, I needed to just tell him the truth, there was no place for any more lies. Ava and I had buried ourselves in lies since the first time we met, and it was part of the reason why we couldn’t seem to have a normal go at any sort of relationship.
“When Ava finished her internship, I hired her to work for the company,” I said quietly. “She felt it would give her a leg up in the business world. We didn’t plan for any of this to happen. It just kind of did.”
“So, wait, not only are you sleeping with my daughter, but the two of you have been lying to me about the fact that she works for you?”
“She wanted the opportunity to work on the merger,” I said. “She felt terrible for lying to you. It was eating her alive. When we became friends again, I thought that would give her a good way to tell you about her job, but she was afraid to hurt you.”
“If you think that’s supposed to make me feel better, you’re wrong,” he said angrily. “The only two people in my life that I felt I could lean on have been lying to me this whole time. Did you even want to be friends again? Or did you do it so that Ava could feel better about keeping me in the dark?”
“No,” I said firmly. “It was very important to me that we became friends again.”
“Well, you have a fucking funny way of showing it,” he said, standing up. “I feel fucking sick over all of this.”
Dean walked over to the table and grabbed his jacket, shoving his wallet and keys into his pockets. He smoothed down his hair and stood there silently for a moment. I knew I should say something, anything, but I had no idea how to handle this situation. This was definitely one of the worst ways he could possibly find out about everything. He turned back toward me, his face a mix of emotions.
“Stay out of my life,” he said pointedly. “And leave my daughter alone. She’s young, and she doesn’t need you messing with her head. She deserves someone so much better than you.”
With those words, he walked to the door and left, slamming it behind him. I sat there for a few minutes, feeling the pain of his fist surging through my face. Everything was a complete and total disaster. I grabbed my phone, knowing that Ava had no idea any of this was going on. I didn’t want to tell her. I didn’t want to start her Sunday the same way she started her Saturday but she needed to know. I dialed her number and held my breath.
“Hello?” She sounded tired but awake.
“Ava,” I said, shaking my head. “Your father knows.”
“What?”
“He looked at my phone last night after hearing our drunken conversation,” I replied. “He put two and two together. He’s mad, real mad. I told him about you working for me. I had no choice. He wanted to know how the hell we ended up together, so I told him.”
“This isn’t good,” she sighed. “This is worse than that. This is terrible. He is never going to forgive me for what I’ve done.”
“He loves you,” I whispered. “Of course, he will forgive you.”
“I have to go,” she said, hanging up before I had a chance to apologize.
I dropped the phone on the couch next to me and groaned, pulling my hands through my hair. Everything was a damn mess, and I was at the center of all of it. I should have listened to my gut and just left Ava alone, no matter how much I wanted her in my life. I should have been the adult in that situation and pushed her away like I did every other woman in my life. But no, I had to give in to these intense emotions and act on them, sending Ava’s life down the drain. Sure, it affected me, but not in the same way that it was going to affect Ava. She had to deal with her family, her career, and everything else in between. To make matters worse, it all took place right after she found out her mother was cheating on her father. I couldn’t even imagine how she was feeling at that moment, but I knew how I felt, completely powerless to do anything to fix the mistakes I had made. I cared for Ava more than I wanted to admit, but I had this very good suspicion that the events that just took place were going to ruin my chances forever.
Chapter 20
Ava
I slammed my phone down on the bed next to me, tears beginning to fill my eyes. What had I done? I knew last night I shouldn’t have called Tanner, but between the alcohol and the stress of the day, he was the only one I wanted to talk to. However, from that one act of not thinking things through, I had outed myself to my father. Who was I kidding? That wasn’t the only act. It had started long before that phone call ever took place. I knew from day one that what I was doing was wrong. I to
ok a job for a man who my father hated, and I knew it, but still, I walked right into that office like I knew what I was doing. I lied to the one man who had always been there for me. Then, to make matters worse, I started sleeping with Tanner, a betrayal I didn’t know if my father would ever get over. He was a proud man, and though his anger stemmed from the fact that he loved me, he was going through so much, and this was possibly the piece of hay that would break the camel’s back.
I picked up my phone and dialed my father’s number, listening to it ring a few times before he sent it straight to message. He wasn’t going to answer my phone calls. He didn’t want anything to do with me. I wanted to be livid with Tanner, scream at him even, but it took two to make this mess, and it wasn’t his job to babysit me. He tried to hold back early on, the same way I had, but the magnetism between us was too much for either of us to bear. The fault didn’t lie in the moment I slept with him, it started the moment I decided it was a good idea to take the job at MJ. I tried calling my father three more times, but he sent my call to voicemail every single time. It was almost frustrating, and I knew I needed to talk to him.
I took some clothes quietly out of Brianna’s closet and pulled them on, not wanting to track my father down in a dress I had been wearing for two days. I wrote Brianna a quick note letting her know what was going on and grabbed my stuff, heading out to get a cab. I had the cab take me to my place where I jumped in my own car and decided to head over to my parent’s house, hoping I would find my father there. They lived outside of the city, so the drive took a little bit of time, but I was okay with that, needing a moment to clear my head before I faced my father. It was time I started telling the truth, no matter how painful that was for me and him. No more lies could come from any of this. I had made a very poor decision, and now, I had to be the one who paid for that.
When I pulled into the driveway, I put the key code in the gate and slowly pulled down the way. The gardeners were in the yard, raking the leaves and preparing for the fall decorations my mother always like to put up. This was all so messed up. We should be angry with my mother, not focused on the fact that I had done something incredibly stupid. Now my father was sure to feel completely alienated from his life. He had a lying daughter and a cheating wife, and after all the sacrifices he had made for our family, this was how we paid him back.
I pulled the car up out front and hopped out, walking to the back of the house to make sure he wasn’t sitting in the garden like he liked to do when he wanted to reflect on something. The only thing back there were a few of the staff from the house and the decorations they were getting ready to put up. I walked back around the house and walked in through the front door, turning toward his study and walking quietly inside. It was dark and empty, and my father was nowhere in sight. I searched the entire house looking for him, but once I got to the garage and saw that his favorite car was gone, I knew he wasn’t there. I needed to find him, but I had no idea where to even start. My father spent all his free time at home and never really went anywhere.
As I walked back toward the front door, I heard someone walk up behind me. I froze as I got to the front door, hearing my mother clear her throat. She was the last person I wanted to talk to right then.
“Ava,” she said softly.
“Mother,” I replied angrily, turning toward her. “I came to find Dad.”
“He’s not here,” she said, looking down. “Did he tell you what happened?”
“Yep,” I said. “But I don’t have time for that. I need to find him.”
“Ava, I’m sorry,” she pleaded.
“Not now, Mother,” I replied, shaking my hand. “Do you know where Dad is?”
“No,” she said with a sigh. “He left yesterday morning and hasn’t been back.”
“Great,” I said angrily.
“Ava, I’m sorry, really.” She stepped forward as if to touch my arm.
“Mom, I don’t have time for this. I told you that,” I said with irritation. “There are other things going on. We can talk about this later or something.”
I wasn’t even sure that my father knew that I knew about mom, but she was the least of my worries at that point. I couldn’t help fix the situation she had gotten herself into when I was knee-deep in my own pile of shit. I wasn’t going to tell her what happened. It would only make her feel like maybe she could get off the hook for sleeping with the pool boy. My mother did not deserve to be off the hook any more than I did. Everything was so completely messed up in my life, and I had let that trickle over to the point where it completely destroyed my father. He didn’t deserve any of this, not one bit of it. Not Tanner betraying him, not me lying to him for weeks, not my mother cheating on him, none of it. But there we were, two lying women standing in one room together.
“You can’t ignore me forever,” she said, a bit angry.
“Oh, Mother,” I said snidely. “Not everything is about you. Get over yourself.”
My mother has had this way of making me feel incredibly guilty anytime I didn’t react the way she wanted me to. She had done it my whole life, even when I was a small child. She never raised her hand to me physically, or even raised her voice to me in anger, but she would set a serious guilt trip on my shoulders and wait for me to buckle under the pressure. It became harder and harder to get to me as I got older, though, and after a while, she just let my father handle me, knowing she couldn’t get through to me even if she tried.
This time, though, I didn’t even want to start that conversation with her. She wanted me to forgive her for sleeping with that guy, but it wasn’t for our relationship. It was for her own damn conscience. She felt terrible about it, and knowing her, she would call her girlfriends and they would console her, telling her she wasn’t at fault. My mother was never at fault for anything in her life. That was why, when I found my father, I didn’t want to make any excuses. I wanted to take full responsibility for everything I had done to hurt him.
I stood there in the entryway, staring blankly at my mother. She dropped her arms and shook her head, realizing I wasn’t going to stand for any of her bullshit. As usual, she gave up, and walked away, not wanting to admit to anything or take responsibility for anything she’d done wrong. She wasn’t worried about comforting me. She was worried about comforting herself, sitting back and waiting for my father to come home. There was no proactive nature about my mother, and I blamed the lack of empathy for her inability to move forward in any tough situation. She had to be pushed, otherwise the issue would go by, unresolved, and later rear its ugly head again. This situation, though, didn’t bear repeating, considering she cheated on my father. I didn’t know if she would learn anything from it or not.
My mother was the least of my worries at that point, and I wasn’t going to spend another minute thinking about whether or not she was okay. I looked around the room thinking about my childhood, remembering how close my father and I were. My heart was aching, and it was my own damn fault. I had screwed up my relationship with my father, and I wasn’t even sure there would be anything I could do to fix it. At the very best, it would be completely changed for the rest of my life, something that was inevitable but I didn’t want to accept. I took a deep breath and turned toward the door, ready to leave and go figure out a way to find my father. My phone began to vibrate in my pocket, and I pulled it out, seeing my dad’s name on the screen.
“Dad,” I said frantically. “Where are you?”
“It doesn’t matter,” he growled. “How could you do this? What were you thinking? You weren’t, and that is the point. You lied to me about everything, and to make matters worse, you got involved with Tanner knowing he was not a good man.”
“I know,” I said trying to find the words. “I’m so sorry, Dad.”
“I am so sick and tired of being told people are sorry,” he yelled. “You and your mother are full of ‘I’m sorry’ and it makes me sick. Maybe, if you were that sorry, you should have thought about it beforehand. This is a betrayal I canno
t look past. I don’t want to see you ever again. Do whatever you want with your life.”
“Dad,” I cried out as he hung up the phone.
I stood there with the phone to my ear, like he was going to magically be on the other end. Tears flooded my eyes, and I felt like I couldn’t breathe. My father had disowned me, and all because I couldn’t make a smart decision from the beginning. My father was a proud man and stubborn as hell, and the thought of not having him in my life was absolutely terrifying. I looked up as my mother rounded the corner, a look of concern on her face. Before she could say a word, I turned and ran from the house, jumping in my car and speeding down the driveway.
Everything was swirling around me so fast, and I couldn’t catch my breath for even a second. When I reached the gate, I stopped the car and got out, grabbing my stomach and screaming loudly. The cold air whipped around me as tears streamed down my face. I was in complete agony, unable to even fathom what had just happened. I was alone, completely alone, and I didn’t know where to turn. I needed to go home and sit in the quiet. I didn’t want to talk to Brianna or Tanner. They would only fan the flames and tell me lies about how everything was going to be okay. I didn’t need coddling. I needed to get my life back together.
Chapter 21
Tanner
It had been a couple of days since everything had happened with Dean, and I still hadn’t been able to talk to Ava for more than a few seconds. I hadn’t spoken to Dean either, but I had a very firm reminder of why every time I looked in the mirror at the giant bruise on my face. I had deserved that and more, seeing as how I had lied to his face, helped his daughter lie, and then started sleeping with her. Everything was a giant mess, and I wished I could take a vacation away from all of it. Still, no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t get Ava off my mind. Not only did I feel helpless in making everything right for her, I missed her terribly. I missed her at my house, in the office, and I missed her sweet caring smile that made my day go a hell of a lot smoother than it normally did. She had made an impact on me that was insane considering I usually didn’t let women get that close to me.