Instead of pulling the doors open, he knocked lightly against them. “Is it okay if I come in?” he asked in a gentle, honey-smooth voice.
He waited.
After what seemed like minutes, he could hear something move inside the tiny confines behind the closet door. When they creaked open, he watched as a small, bone-thin, young girl emerged. Thick strands of long, brown hair covered her face, but he could see the dark shadows of a black eye beneath.
Rage and pity flowed through him at once at the sight of the frail, defenseless young girl standing brave and unmoving before him.
SEVENTEEN
“Rayner Technologies, how may I direct your call?” Rita’s southern voice answered.
“Hi, Rita, it’s Farren.”
“Good mornin’! Everything all right? You’re usually here by now.”
“Yeah, that’s why I’m calling. I was up most of the night with Harley. He’s got an ear infection. Will you call me with anything important? I’m not going to make it in today,” Farren explained, obviously leaving out the part about Rogan.
“Sure, hon’. You take care of that precious little baby, and we’ll see you when you get back in.”
Farren hung up the phone feeling even worse than when she’d picked it up if that were possible. She didn’t know how she could keep working there with things as they were between her and Rogan, and she would really miss the friends she had made there, especially Rita.
She wiped the tear stains from her face and tried to strengthen her resolve. She needed to get her mind on something else, but computer work was just going to remind her of Rogan, which was gut-wrenching at the moment, and gaming, her other immersive pastime, was going to remind her of Raphe, and she couldn’t stand the thought of that either.
Sitting on the couch in Rogan’s living room with Harley lying on a pallet on the floor in front of her, she looked down at the slip of paper she had been turning over in her hands for the past half-hour. It was the phone number her father had handed her last night before she had taken Harley to the overnight clinic.
Maybe her curiosity was getting the better of her, or maybe she was just so desperate for even the slightest possibility that he was a changed man and that he would finally be the kind of father she had wished for so many times in her life. As much as what he had done had angered her, it also saddened her deep down, and it was so much easier to be angry than it was sad. One feeling made a person weak and vulnerable while the other made them strong.
But eventually, anger would wane, and Farren found herself asking what was left in its absence. On some level, she missed her father and craved a relationship with him. She craved his love and acceptance, something she didn’t think she had ever gotten even before he had taken off.
She took a reassuring breath and dialed the number.
“Yeah, what’s up?” he answered.
Farren hesitated for a moment. “Um, dad?”
It was quiet for a few seconds. “Princess! You called,” he stated the obvious.
“Yeah… so, how are you?” she asked, not knowing what to say.
“I’m good, I’m good. I’m surprised to hear from you,” he admitted.
Me, too, she thought.
“So what would you say to having dinner with your old man? Tonight, maybe?”
She thought for a moment. Rogan would be getting back into town tonight, and she knew she could use the distraction to keep her mind off him if that were at all possible. She wasn’t ready to face him yet. Even facing her father would be easier than that.
“Um, yeah, okay,” she agreed.
They made arrangements to meet at a restaurant in town later that evening. When she hung up the phone, a whole cocktail of emotions stirred inside her. Hope for what might happen with her father’s reappearance was a minuscule relief to the overwhelming hopelessness she felt with her situation with Rogan.
How had they gotten to this point? She thought about how she had held back after Harley was born and had sat back as a passive spectator when she had started to feel like they were growing apart. She should have fought more for their relationship when she still had the chance, when it still would have mattered. She was angry with herself for not doing something then. Now, she felt it was too late because there was no going back if he had cheated on her. She would never be able to trust him again, and she couldn’t be the weight that held him back simply because they had a baby together.
She scooped Harley up and brought him into the bedroom with her while she packed a few things just to get her by for the rest of the week. She would ask Shea to help her get the rest of her belongings over the weekend, but for now, it was just too devastating to do more than that.
She stopped for one hard look around before she closed the condo door behind her and left for what was probably one of the last times, unable to hold back the flood of tears streaming down her face.
*
The sidewalks outside the Fifth Avenue location of Tiffany & Co., their flagship store, were crowded with New Yorkers in a rush to get to their morning destinations as Rogan sat in the back of a luxury taxi Mercedes at the curb. He had made some calls and arranged to meet with the store manager prior to the store’s ten o’clock opening time, and even with the earlier meeting time, he was eager and impatient to get what he needed and leave.
He had sent a message to Edith to meet him at the airport by nine a.m. local time, and that if she weren’t there when he arrived, she’d be left to arrange her own flight home. He hadn’t been kidding, either. With everything that had happened the previous night, he had no patience left in him. He just wanted to get the ring he had come for and go.
When he saw the manager stop at the door to unlock it, he got out of the car and followed her inside. He knew exactly what he wanted, something that would fit Farren’s minimalist style and match her timeless, elegant beauty. Twenty minutes and twenty-thousand dollars later, he was back in the car on his way to the airport where his private plane would carry him home.
*
As soon as the plane touched down in Houston, Rogan tried Farren’s phone again. He had tried calling at least a half-dozen times between now and when he’d left Tiffany’s a few hours earlier, but she wasn’t taking his calls. He was growing more frustrated by the second.
When he arrived home, he went straight to the office hoping to find Farren there, but with no luck. His next stop was the condo, and though he wasn’t much of a praying man, he silently hoped he wouldn’t find all of her things gone when he got there.
He’d always thought that the things he treasured most in life were the things he had to work hardest for, and even that the things worth having most were never easy to get. Farren was certainly making him work for it at the moment, that was for sure.
He got inside and found most of her belongings still in place, thank goodness, but still no Farren. He tried calling her again but to no avail.
He left again heading over to the one other place he thought she might be. When he pulled up to her old apartment building where she used to live with her Gramma, he scanned the parking lot for her car.
Nothing.
He raced inside and up the stairwell to her Gramma’s apartment. He knocked, and it was quiet for several moments before he finally heard the sound of deadbolts unlocking. When the door opened, Mrs. Fields stood with a mild look of surprise.
“Well, hello, Rogan. To what do I owe the honor?” she said, moving aside and motioning him in.
“Mrs. Fields, I’m looking for Farren. Is she here?”
He moved inside and she closed the door behind him.
“She’s not here right now. Can I offer you something to drink? Coffee, maybe, or a piece of cake?”
He forced a smile, trying to suppress the impatience that had been building for hours. “No, thank you.”
Mrs. Fields moved to sit in her recliner in the small living room. She directed him to take a seat on the sofa beside her, so he complied.
“I do
n’t know what’s going on between the two of you,” Mrs. Fields began. “I can tell there’s something amiss, and I know my granddaughter. She’s a hard one to crack, but I have a feeling I don’t have to tell you that.”
Rogan sighed. “I can’t let her leave, Mrs. Fields. I need to find her. She thinks something happened last night that couldn’t be further from the truth, but I need her to see that.”
“What does she think happened?”
He had a feeling she would ask that, but he had too much respect for the woman to lie to her. “She thinks something happened between me and another work associate during a business trip we were on yesterday.”
“Did it?” the older woman asked, pointedly.
“Definitely not.”
“Why do you think she would assume so?” she asked, eyeing him with a deliberate stare.
“She asked to go with me, and I wouldn’t let her come along,” he explained.
“Well, that’s hardly enough to make her jump to such a conclusion. Is there anything else you’re not telling me?”
He swallowed, feeling like a child being interrogated by an angry parent, but he had respect for the woman. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d ever been made to feel that way, and couldn’t imagine there being anyone else on the planet who could.
“She doesn’t trust the woman I went on the trip with, and I don’t deny she had good reason to.” Rogan reached into the inner pocket of his blazer and pulled out a small, rectangular box. “But this is why I didn’t want her to go with me.”
Rogan opened the box, and a marquise diamond in an ornate, platinum setting sparkled within.
Mrs. Fields’s eyes went to the ring and widened. She looked back up at Rogan and smiled knowingly.
“Let me tell you a little something about my Farren. She can be stubborn, but she’s usually that way to protect herself in some way. She’s had a lot of things in her life happen to culminate the strong, intelligent, no-nonsense girl she is. She’s analytical, and she tends to overthink things a lot of the time.”
Rogan scoffed. “Tell me something I don’t know,” he mumbled.
“But when that girl lets you in, she’s in it for the long haul. She can never stay mad for long. She’s scared right now, and with all she’s been through, that’s understandable. She thinks that eventually, everyone will leave her.”
“I don’t want to leave her. Hell, right now, I just don’t want her to leave me,” he admitted.
“So talk to her. As stubborn as she can be, but eventually she’ll listen.”
“Do you know where I can find her?” he asked, scooting up to the edge of the sofa.
Mrs. Fields looked down and nodded. “She was meeting her father this evening around six o’clock for dinner. Some place called the Silver Spoon Grill.”
Rogan leaned forward to hug the old woman and kiss her cheek. “Thank you.”
He stood and rushed to the door to leave.
“Rogan?” Mrs. Fields said, halting his steps momentarily. He turned to her with his hand still on the doorknob. “I’ll tell you like I told Farren. Be careful. My son, her father… I don’t know him anymore. When he left, I don’t know what he was into, but I know it wasn’t good. Maybe he’s changed, but… just be careful.”
He nodded, acknowledging her words, and he was out the door.
EIGHTEEN
When Rogan arrived at the Silver Spoon Grill just before six that evening, he noticed Farren just walking in carrying Harley in his baby carrier. He got out and made his way inside.
He approached the hostess, but when she offered to seat him, he flashed his most charming smile and said he was meeting someone already there. He remained out of sight as he walked past a half-wall topped with greenery. He looked around and spotted Farren sitting in a booth, Harley’s carrier resting beside her, and the man across the table from her with his back to Rogan.
He eyed the room for a table that would let him sit unnoticed while he waited for the opportune moment to go to her. He didn’t want to barge in too soon. He could at least give her this time with her father while keeping an eye on them from a safe distance. Mrs. Fields’ words of caution hovered restlessly in his mind, though, and it took all of his self-control to sit idly by when he didn’t know what to expect.
Perhaps he also couldn’t relate to the feeling of still wanting a relationship with a man who had abandoned her as a child. He certainly didn’t want anything to do with the low-life that had donated DNA to him, though the selfish bastard had, of course, came calling the minute he’d found out his long, lost son was now loaded.
He hoped better for Farren, and maybe even for his son to know at least one of his grandparents.
He took a seat at a table in a quiet corner where he could keep an eye on Farren. He told the waitress to bring him a double vodka on the rocks, that he wasn’t interested in food, so she wouldn’t keep coming around as an unwanted distraction. Then he sat and watched.
He could see the anguish in how the whites of her eyes were red, the skin beneath them was puffy. He hated that he’d been the one to hurt her and make her cry. She was one of the few people whose feelings he actually gave a shit about, and he could count on less than one hand the number of people he extended that courtesy to.
She looked so unsure, he thought, as she tried to make conversation. Of course, she was in unknown territory with the man sitting before her, and he tried to bury the loathing hatred for the man that he found hard to contain, simply for the scars he’d inflicted on the woman he loved if nothing else.
The waitress brought his vodka over and set it on a coaster in front of him. “Are you sure I can’t get you anything else?” she offered.
“Positive.”
He didn’t even spare her a sideways glance, and thankfully, she left him to his devices after that.
*
“So, I hear you’ve got some fancy new tech job now, huh? How’s that working out?” her father said before taking a bite of the chicken he’d ordered.
She felt strange sitting there looking at the older man before her. He was thinner than she remembered, his eyes a little more sunken in, and a lot more gray in his dark hair. He had some deeper-set wrinkles in his forehead and around his mouth than she’d recalled, but she guessed it was only to be expected. It had been, what, ten, twelve years now? She’d pretty much lost count after a while.
“Yeah, it’s a good job. I enjoy it,” she answered, though it hurt to think about. She tried her best to tuck it away to deal with later if she must. “What about you?”
He waved a dismissive hand and shook his head. “Oh, you know, just some odd jobs here and there. So you make good money, then?”
Her brows furrowed. “Um, I guess so.” She moved her salad around on her plate without taking a bite. “Have you talked to Gramma since you’ve been back?” she asked.
“A little…” He nodded. “Listen, Princess, do you think maybe you could loan me a hundred? I’ve got a, uh, car payment due tomorrow, but I don’t get paid until Friday.”
She began noticing his jerky movements that she had apparently missed before, or maybe he’d managed to hide until now. His request made her uncomfortable.
They hadn’t even made it through the main course yet and he was asking her for money?
Her arms crossed over her body and she rubbed her right hand down the side of her left bicep.
“I really need to save up my money right now, actually. I’m kind of… in a bit of a transition at the moment, and I’ve got Harley to think about. I’m not sure how everything is going to affect me, financially.”
She looked back down at her plate, unable to look him in the eyes, realizing things were starting to get a little seedy. She looked over at Harley who was beginning to stir.
“Come on, Princess. Can’t you do a favor for your old man this once? I promise I’m good for it. I’ll pay you back in a couple days.”
Harley began to cry, indicating he was hungry, so she picke
d him up from his carrier and held him to her as she dug through his diaper bag for a bottle she’d prepared.
“I wish I could help, I really do. I’m just not able to right now. I’m sorry.”
She was startled when her father’s hands hit the table, palms down, with a loud crash.
“That’s bullshit!” he spat in a raised voice.
Farren’s heart started racing, and she pulled Harley in tight against her body. She could see from the corners of her eyes as heads turned in their direction, but she wasn’t about to take her eyes off him.
“I think this was a mistake,” she said. Then she began trying to inch her way out of the booth, but realized there was no quick escape between the confined area she was sitting in, the baby she held, and his carrier and diaper bag. She could ditch the bag, she thought, but she couldn’t get far without the carrier since it doubled as his car seat. That was the thing that would hold her up the most.
Shit!
Her father leaned forward and put a hand out in front of her, so she froze in place, tensing up in defense.
She watched as his face slowly relaxed as if he’d realized what he’d done and was now trying to play it off as some kind of sick joke, but the smile was short-lived.
A hand grabbed her father’s shoulder from behind him and yanked him back against his seat.
Farren took her eyes off him just long enough to see it was Rogan standing behind him, his tight grip still on her father’s shoulder.
“I think you owe Farren an apology,” Rogan demanded in a deep, angry voice.
“Rogan!” Farren cried with emotions torn between relief and disbelief. How had he known she was here?
Mr. Fields swatted to knock Rogan’s hand from his shoulder, but this only served to anger Rogan even further. There was a commotion of movement as her father pushed his way out of the booth to stand, and Rogan moved around to stand between him and Farren. It was the first good look he got of the man, and that’s when all hell broke loose.
Boss Unavowed: A Love On the Rocks Romance (The Boss Series Book 2) Page 7