by Holly Rayner
As soon as Erin was gone my father came back into the room. “If you’re here to gloat, I suggest you stay away because I’m not in the mood,” I told him.
He surprised me by putting his hand on my back. Other than a handshake, I can’t remember the last time he touched me with any kind of affection. “I’m sorry, son.”
I turned and looked at him. I was searching his eyes, hoping to see some kind of real remorse there. At that moment, when my heart lay shattered in a thousand pieces, a tiny little bit was all I needed. I didn’t see anything real there. I could tell that he was trying to look like he gave a damn, but he wasn’t pulling it off. “Why did you invite her here? Why not just tell me in private?”
“Would you have believed me?” he asked.
The answer was probably not, but whose fault was that? A real father and son would be close enough to trust each other and believe the other one only has their best interest at heart. But we don’t have that kind of relationship, we never have. “Probably not. What is it that she thinks you stole from her, father?”
“The company that we own.”
“Did you?”
He tried to look hurt, but again, I could tell it was feigned. “Of course not. I bought that company and I made it what it is today. It was a fledgling company on the verge of bankruptcy when I got ahold of it. Now it’s a thriving multi-national corporation because of me.”
“Why does she think you stole it from her?”
“I can’t explain her delusional thoughts. I do expect you to have better backgrounds done on our new employees from now on. I want whoever ran hers fired.”
“If I had run a background on her and discovered that she was the daughter of the former owner of the company I would have never hired her… and I would have never fallen…”
My father laughed, “Fallen in love? You think you’re in love with that Irish bog-trotter?”
I had never wanted to put my fist through the wall as badly as I did at that moment. I didn’t think I was in love with her, I knew that I was. I loved her like I’d never loved anyone or anything in my life. It was the only love that ever rivaled the way I felt about my mother. I turned to my father then.
“If I find out that what she thinks you did is true…”
He smirked at me. “You’ll do what?” he asked.
“You do not want to find out,” I told him. I left the house then and there was a good chance that I wouldn’t be back. I was going to find out the truth and if my father had hurt her, God help him.
***
ADELE