by Dale Mayer
He stared at her. “You’ve changed.”
“No, I haven’t,” she said. “I’m still the same, just a whole lot more locked down in my ways. Watching my parents’ divorce, you becoming a fool with your multiple paramours, my mother completely broken by the disrespect and pain that you hurtled at her, doesn’t exactly endear me to being any different. And that’s just the beginning of why I don’t trust you.”
“We’re not discussing your mother and me now.”
“We have no reason to discuss my mother at all. Because she’s a long way away from you. Thank God.”
He took a deep breath and held up his hands. “Look. I know you don’t appreciate the problems your mother and I had, but that has nothing to do with you and me.”
“Lots of your partners were younger than I was. I’m not even sure they were legal.” She tilted her head sideways. “But you bringing a stream of women through my home while I was growing up has given me a very disturbing insight into your character,” she snapped. “And, if you don’t have any idea how I feel about you, then you aren’t being honest with yourself.”
“I see you hate me. Is that it?” He threw his arms out wide. “You’re my only daughter.”
“True,” she said, “as far as I know. I don’t know how many illegitimate ones you may have conceived, but it’s not like times are any different now than they were in the medieval days, is it?”
He huffed and puffed. “I don’t have any other children.”
“So then I’m not your only daughter. I’m your only child,” she bit out. “But I highly suspect you will not regard me as you would a son regardless.”
“That’s not fair,” he said. He took several deep calming breaths. “Your grandfather wants to see you.”
“Is he here?” Her heart lifted at the thought of seeing him.
Carlo nodded stiffly. “He’ll join us for dinner. I presume, even if you don’t want to spend any time with me, at least you’ll spend time with him.”
“If you won’t explain why I was dragged all the way across the continent to come here, then no, I’m not spending time here, except that I would love to have a visit with my grandfather, thank you.” She turned and walked slowly down the hall, as if reconsidering the wisdom of walking out. She really did want to see her grandfather. She looked at Anders. “What time is it?”
Carlo interrupted. “You have two hours until dinnertime, if you would care to freshen up, maybe rest for a bit.”
“Yes, that would be good,” she said. “I presume I can use my old room, and you can have my bags brought up there, if you don’t mind,” she said. He inclined his head, but she noticed his stiff shoulders relaxed slightly. “And my stance hasn’t changed. If you don’t explain what’s going on completely at dinner, I’ll leave immediately afterward. But it’ll be nice to see Grandfather.” Still holding on to Anders’s hand, she said, “We’ll be down in two hours.”
“Wait! He can’t go with you.”
She turned and shot Carlo a hard look. “Are we back to that whole point I made earlier about how Anders stays with me?”
“What’s the matter? Does your boy toy only follow your orders?” he asked in a snide tone.
At that, she walked toward the front door.
“Wait! What are you doing?” Carlo called out.
She spun slowly, looked at him and said, “You will never address Anders in such a tone or with such derogatory language again. Do you hear me? You’re the one who treats women like prostitutes. You will not talk about my friends in that same tone. You must respect them all the way, or we leave, no matter what you really have going on here.”
He stared at her. “I don’t even know who you are anymore.”
Her voice gentled, and she said, “You never knew who I was because you never took the time to find out. I’m somebody you should have respected and admired, but you were too busy disregarding my value because I was a female child and only equivalent to those you were busy screwing in your own bed.”
He took a deep breath. “I suggest you go to your room and relax and calm down. Shall I have tea sent up?”
“Yes, please do that. But don’t expect me to be any calmer when it comes to you.” She walked past him once again, heading for the staircase.
Anders stayed at her side, taking steps as she did. She appreciated his strong silent support. She knew she would get an earful when they reached her room. She took several steps past Carlo and turned again. “I came with three other men. Those three men are to be given guest quarters.” Her tone hardened as she added, “And I mean guest quarters, not servant quarters, do you hear me? Those men saved my life two times already. You will not disrespect them by treating them as you do your staff.”
His skin blanched. “Saved your life?”
She nodded. “But it’s not like I’ll explain anything, if you aren’t. If these men don’t get suitable accommodations, as I have instructed, then all five of us will be leaving even earlier than expected.”
And she turned and strode off.
*
Anders surveyed the massive bedroom with a huge canopy bed that was coldly formal, as if a guest suite for a queen. He wasn’t surprised that it held none of her personality.
She held a finger to her lips, then whispered, “I have no idea if he’s bugged this room.”
Shocked, Anders stared at her. “Your bedroom?”
She nodded.
He pulled out his phone and sent a text to Dezi. “If you can, get Dezi allowed up here,” he whispered to Angel.
She nodded, walked to an intercom on the wall and called down, requesting that all three men be escorted to her room.
Anders opened the door, so the men coming up the double staircase and down the hall could find them. A woman in a black uniform appeared ten minutes later, leading his three buddies. They all had hard glares and curiosity in their eyes.
With the doors open and all three of the men inside her room, Angel asked the housekeeper, “When will the tea arrive?”
The woman didn’t answer; she just walked out.
Angel snorted, grabbed the doors and closed them hard. By the time she turned around, Anders was right there. He held a finger to her lips and pointed as Dezi, a small device in his hand, walked around the room, carefully monitoring something.
She really had no proof Carlo would bug her own bedroom, but this had been a perfect opportunity to do so. Besides, she wouldn’t put it past him. He lived in a world of secrets, thought of himself as a spymaster, but he was a little man. He was a member of parliament, for God’s sakes. He certainly wasn’t any kind of a supersecret spy.
Finally Dezi walked into the en suite bathroom, came back out, went into the big walk-in closet, stepped out again and then said, “You’re clean.”
Her shoulders sagged, and she cried out with relief, “Thank you.”
Anders looked at her. “You really thought he might have bugged it?”
She nodded. “Absolutely. And I would certainly check your rooms when you get to them too.”
“Are you expecting to spend the night?”
She nodded. “Honestly I don’t want to carry on, but if he’s going to be an asshat, I will. In the meantime, we’re stuck here.” She walked over and sat down on one of the chairs. “Tea is supposed to be coming. Make yourself comfortable.” Her sitting room with a settee would seat three of them and the others could take any of the chairs in the room. When they all sat down, she giggled.
Anders looked at her, his eyebrows raised.
“I always thought the furniture was big in here. Now it looks dull and small compared to you guys.”
Dezi gave her a questioning look.
She just smiled. “Thank you for checking.”
“What the hell’s going on here?” Anders said. “You two have a very odd father-and-daughter relationship.”
“You think?” She sagged against the chair tiredly. “We don’t have anything other than a cold war between us.”
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br /> “All because of your mother?”
“My mother, plus the two school girlfriends of mine who he spent a weekend with, and that’s just the start of it.”
“Ouch.”
“Double ouch actually,” she said. “Of course, he thought I should be proud of his virility, whereas I was more ashamed of his sad, pathetic actions.”
“And the girlfriends?”
“I think they thought they were moving up in life by sleeping with a political figure. As to whether I was ever really friends with those girls beforehand, we haven’t been friends since I found them in his bed.”
“You opened your father’s bedroom door?”
“I opened the office door to find one of them on her knees and the other one without a shirt on, standing beside him.”
The men slowly digested that. “Yeah, I can see how that would make for a strained relationship,” Anders said.
“I’m totally happy for him to have a healthy relationship. But it made me suspect every other friend I brought to the house. He denies he ever touched any of them, but I don’t believe him.”
“Do you realize what kind of a scandal that would cause if it ever got out?”
“Oh, I know,” she said. “It’s one of the reasons he toes the line as much as he does. Because I have proof.”
“What kind of proof?” Anders asked.
“One of my dear girlfriends took pictures. And then she left her phone behind. Believe me. I kept those images.”
“Good idea.”
She nodded grimly. “It’s also the only reason my mother isn’t completely destitute right now. He made sure she got nothing from the house or from the bank accounts. He would have put her on the streets, so he could have more children in his bed.”
“Well, that’s one of the questions, isn’t it? How old were your girlfriends?”
“Seventeen,” she said shortly. “Old enough to have sex with definitely. But definitely not appropriate for a member of parliament’s actions.”
“No, that’s very not appropriate at all for any adult male.”
The room went silent as they all contemplated this.
“Is that why you didn’t want to come back?” Anders reached out a hand.
She grabbed it and clung onto him. “One of many reasons. I’m the one who had to do battle with Carlo to make sure my mother got something out of this twenty-year relationship.”
“Did she get enough?”
“For everything he put her through? Hell no. But she got enough to buy a small apartment and to pay for an education, so she could at least retrain herself and get a job to put food on her own table. And when she doesn’t quite manage, then I make up the difference.”
“That situation with your mother is disgusting.” Harrison’s words were soft-spoken, but his tone was hard. “After that many years of marriage, she should have been handled correctly in terms of a divorce. He obviously has money.”
“Yes, but he doesn’t spend it on anyone but himself. It’s very difficult to grow up thinking your biological father is the apple of your eye, and then you realize just how much of a rotten core he has. But, once you see how your other parent suffers at his hands? Yeah, I find it very hard to forgive him.”
“Do you suspect more is going on here than any of us know about?” Harrison asked.
“Absolutely,” she said. “Maybe he has done something lately. Maybe somebody is after him. But it could be a whole lot different than what you were told. I don’t trust him.”
The others looked to Anders.
Harrison asked Anders, “Do you trust him?”
Anders gave a hard shake. “No, but I have to admit. Angel stood up for me in a big way. She put him to the mat and held him there until he allowed me to stay. Her father wouldn’t have anything to do with us, except for her demands.”
“Interesting that he would be so officious,” Reyes said.
“Not really,” Angel said. “He’s always been that way. He’s the emperor of his little kingdom.”
A hard knock came at her door. Reyes and Dezi hopped up and walked over, and together they opened the double doors. A small cart was pushed in by a young man in a waiter’s uniform.
She looked up and smiled. “Peter, is that you?”
Peter caught her smile and grinned. “Yes.”
“What are you doing here? You were supposed to leave,” she wailed.
He shrugged. “Well, I keep trying to …”
She groaned and gave the young man a hug. “I know how much you hate being here.”
“Maybe,” he said, “but I don’t want to leave my mother behind.”
“Is she here too?”
He nodded. “Still in the kitchen.”
“She could work anywhere,” Angel said. “She’s a fine cook.”
“She is, indeed. But she has a twisted sense of loyalty to your father.”
“I know. I know. Thank you for bringing up the tea.”
He nodded and backed away. “It’s nice to see you.”
“It’s lovely to see you too, Peter.”
With that, he shut the double doors.
The men looked at her, expecting an explanation.
“He’s the cook’s son. Carlo apparently took her in when she was pregnant, gave her a job and let her stay all these years.”
“Any chance he’s your father’s son?”
“If there was any chance of that, Carlo would have adopted him a long time ago. He’s been dying for a son, … an issue of the correct sex,” she said in disgust.
“Your father might have changed,” Harrison said. “You haven’t seen him in a lot of years.”
She gave him a big smile. “There’s always hope, isn’t there?” She turned to Anders. “What do you think? Did he change?”
“Well, I don’t know,” Anders said as he studied the trolley in front of them. “If he was an asshat five, six years ago, I’d say he’s still an asshat.” He lifted the lid on one of the big silver serving dishes. “Is this coffee or tea?”
She laughed. “Both are on the tray.”
“Good. Coffee it is.”
He poured four cups of black coffee, while she poured herself a cup of tea.
With her teacup, she headed to the window seat and sat down, looking out. “I used to have so much fun here. I loved this house.”
“And, if it wasn’t for your father living here, would you live here?”
She shrugged. “I probably would use it as my base. But I’d need the money to maintain it. And that’s not easily done. It’s an expensive property to keep up. I don’t think my wages would do it.”
“Would you bring your mother back here?”
She laughed and looked at Anders. “If my mother wanted to come back, I would bring her here in a heartbeat. But I’m not sure she would want to.”
“So let’s get back to all that’s going on here. There are a ton of undercurrents that I don’t understand. You and your father are in some kind of a power play for dominance in the relationship,” Anders said smoothly. “You hold blackmail material over him, which he obviously hates, but you find effective.”
“Yep, that’s part of it,” she said.
“What else?”
She groaned. “He’s an asshole and rubs me the wrong way.”
“And your grandfather?”
Her smile softened. “You’ll like my granddad a lot more than Carlo. Granddad is old aristocrat. But, as such, he wears it smoothly and doesn’t feel the need to pound it over my head.”
“And him and your father, how well do they get along?”
“That’s where the whole double standard comes in. Apparently my grandfather wasn’t much of a husband in his day either. But he remarried at the age of fifty-five and became a different man, according to him.”
“So now a moral and faithful one?”
She nodded. “My first grandmother died, and he spent quite a few years afterward regretting his former lifestyle. So when he did remarry, h
e was basically a different man already.”
“How old is your grandfather now?”
“Late seventies,” she said, “and in great shape. We did lose my second grandmother a good five years ago though.”
“What’s his relationship with your mother?”
“A lot better than it is with Carlo in a way. Grandfather helped my mother find a flat, helped her to buy it and to set it up with furnishings. And I do believe he’s probably done something on the back end for her, but I can’t be sure of that.”
“So he didn’t approve of what happened between your mother and your father?”
“No, and he’s very much about keeping the family name clean.”
“Interesting,”
“Not really,” she said tiredly. “When you think about it, people are just people. They could do things differently, but that doesn’t mean they will.” She glanced at her watch and groaned. “My bags didn’t get brought up.”
“On purpose, do you think?”
She shrugged. “I don’t know. It depends on if the vehicle has been taken away.”
At that, Harrison stood. “I’ll go see.”
Dezi stood also. “I’ll go with you. We’ll bring up your bags and ours.”
“Thank you,” she said warmly. “I’m just tired enough that I don’t really want to attend dinner not properly dressed tonight.”
Anders glanced at the large closet, the doors standing opened. “Does any of that still fit you?”
She studied it and shrugged. “You know? I have no clue.” She walked over to the closet. “I’d forgotten so many of these clothes were here.” She held up several dresses.
Anders whistled.
She glanced at him, giving him a cheeky grin. “You like that, do you?”
“Hell yeah.”
Reyes laughed. “I feel like I’m a third wheel already.”
She shook her head. “No, not allowed. I might be able to find something in here that’s definitely cleaner than what’s in my bag.” She went deeper into the walk-in closet and walked out a few minutes later, holding up a simple blue sheath. “I don’t know if any of this will fit.” She snagged two other outfits. “I’ll take a quick shower. I’ll see how they’ll do, whether I’ve gained weight in the last six years or not.” She chuckled.