The Rebel: A Bad Boy Romance

by Aria Ford

  I went into my office, grinning, ready for work.

  I was sitting at my desk reading through a report when the door opened.

  “Kyle.”

  I stared. “Dad?” I stood up, feeling outraged. I swallowed and made my voice still. “Why are you down here?”

  He raised a brow. “I feel it’s my duty to ensure my company is smoothly run. I had to check if you were bunking out again.”

  I stiffened. “I am a twenty-nine-year-old executive,” I said, keeping my voice level. “I would appreciate a different tone.”

  His brows shot up. I saw a look of utter surprise cross his face. His jaw tightened. “Who do you think you’re talking to, son?” he said quietly.

  “I could ask you the same thing,” I said lightly.

  His eyes met mine. The same steel color as my own, they widened and I saw that surprise return. I felt a surge of energy in me as he cleared his throat. He was looking at me as if he’d never seen me before.

  “You are my COO,” he said smoothly. “And you seem to take your responsibility fairly lightly.”

  “I was sick,” I said, equally smoothly. “I can prove it. As my employer, you can always ask to see my doctor’s note.”

  He nodded. “Yes. Yes, I’ll make sure.”

  I smiled. “Good.”

  He was still standing in my office and I stood facing him. He frowned.

  “I have work to do,” I said lightly. “If you have nothing important to discuss, I suggest you leave.”

  He blinked. “I have a great deal to discuss,” he said, his voice hard. “I have detected something very odd in you lately. I need to know what’s going on.”

  “Then I suggest you do that after office hours,” I said.

  He closed his eyes, looking frustrated. He exhaled. “Fine,” he said. “Lunch today?”

  I felt my heart twist. “Maybe,” I said. “I had plans today. I will have to check if I’m free then.”

  His eyes widened again, as if he was genuinely surprised that I might have anything better to do besides a war with him. “Fine.”

  I sighed. I knew I wasn’t going to hear back from Bethany in time. I might as well let her know something else had come up. So I nodded.

  “I’ll see you then.”

  “Fine. The High Life.”

  I nodded. “Twelve thirty.”

  “Fine.”

  When he had gone, I sat back down again. I was shaking. I felt good, though. This was the first time that I had ever confronted him like that. And he had taken it better than I thought.

  I was still nervous, though. Wondering what he was going to do. I had never actually confronted him before. I had screamed at him when I was a teenager, but then I had been young, and drunk, and semiconscious. I had never actually coldly, calculatingly and consciously confronted him before.

  By the time lunchtime came around, I was nervous and twitchy. I was really having trouble focusing. I thought of Bethany and the thought steadied me.

  “Right. Let’s go.”

  I left a little earlier—the place Dad had chosen to meet was further out of the way. I sometimes wondered if he did it just to put me on the back foot. Probably.

  I sped off and the drive gave me a chance to calm down. By the time I got out of the parking garage and was walking to the venue, I felt calm.

  “Dad,” I said as I sat down.

  “There you are,” he said, looking up. “I got water for the table. Didn’t know how long you were going to be.”

  I didn’t let myself get drawn. I knew it was only five minutes away from our meeting time. I was not late, not by anyone’s definition.

  “Thanks,” I said, sitting down and taking a sip of water. “I appreciate it.”

  He blinked. He hadn’t been expecting that. Getting him on the back foot was a pleasure. I wasn’t sure if I’d be able to keep it up for very long, but right now it was nice to see him look discomforted.

  “Fine,” he said thinly. “Ready to order?”

  “Fine,” I said lightly. I opened the menu and looked down it. He had chosen a place with precious few vegetarian options on the menu. I found a Caesar salad and made up my mind for that.

  “Right,” Dad said as I set the menu aside. He looked about irritably for the waiter. “Where are these people when you want them around?” he said tightly.

  “While they’re coming over, perhaps you can say what you wanted to say?” I said lightly.

  His eyes flared suddenly. “Fine,” he said. “I wanted to say that there’s something bothering me about your attitude. You are being sloppy and I won’t have it.”

  “Sloppy?” I frowned.

  He sighed. “You know what I mean,” he said wearily. “Yes, we can order now,” he added as a waiter came up discreetly.

  We placed our orders and I looked around the place. Darker than I would have liked, with very modern wood surfaces, paneling and cream linen at the windows, the place had a stylish feel that was also quite old world. I thought of Bethany.

  “Now,” he said when the waiter had gone, “we can talk properly.”

  “We can,” I agreed. “Is there anything else, besides this—what was the word—sloppiness?” I wondered absently where the heck that had come from.

  He puffed his cheeks out. “Son, I know I’m difficult.”

  I smiled. “You are, yes.”

  He bridled at that. “I’ll thank you not to agree with me,” he said hotly. “But yes, I know I’m difficult. But I only wanted the best for you, and…”

  “You didn’t want me at all,” I said tightly. I hadn’t meant to say it, but now that I’d talked to Bethany about it, I couldn’t keep it in any longer. My voice was hard and quiet.

  He stared at me. “What do you mean?” he asked.

  I laughed. “Don’t say you didn’t mean that,” I said with a chuckle. “You said it every other day.”

  “I did not!” he flared. When someone looked round, he flushed. “Okay,” he admitted, voice quiet. “Maybe once. I said it once.”

  “Once?” I raised a brow. I could remember at least eight times. But I wasn’t going to say it. Not to him. Not now.

  “Fine,” he said, sipping his water. “I was a bad parent. So shoot me. Lots of people are.”

  “Lots of people are? That’s no excuse.” I said harshly. “Lots of people don’t tell their sons they wish they’d never been born. Lots of sons don’t run away from home. Lots of sons can actually talk to their fathers. Don’t…” I dried.

  He looked at me with that tense face.

  “Are you finished yet?”

  I wasn’t buying that. I wasn’t letting him shame me out of speaking. Not anymore.

  “I could carry on,” I said lightly. “But fine. I’m finished for the moment, yes.”

  His eyes narrowed. “Fine,” he said.

  Our meal arrived just then and he raised a brow when he saw my salad, scornfully. I didn’t let it get to me.

  “Thanks,” I said to the waiter.

  We both sat and looked at each other for a while.

  “You know,” my father said, “I sometimes feel shut out by you. You never do things with me.”

  I stared at him in complete horror. “You aren’t serious,” I said bitterly.

  “What?” he frowned.

  “Do you have any idea how horrible you are?” I said. Of all the things I was expecting, I wasn’t expecting to say it quite like that. But I had.

  He blinked in surprise. “Horrible?”

  I cringed. “You know what I mean,” I said. I waited for the tirade, for the mocking, for the dismissive talk.

  “No,” he said after a while. “I have no idea what you mean.”

  I drew a breath. “I have no relationship with you,” I said tightly, “and I am nearly thirty. Over those years, you have never tried to get to know me.”

  He frowned at me. “That’s not true,” he said. “We spend a lot of time together.”

  I stared at him. “You th
ink you spend time with me?” I asked incredulously. “You spend time at me, more like. I have never actually talked to you without you simply telling me how useless I am and how much you wish I’d never been born.” I could feel my voice rising, rage growing.

  It was his turn to stare at me. “What?” He said.

  “You always said it. You said that you wished you hadn’t had kids. That you would have been happier without having ever had me. That if I hadn’t been born, then mom would never have left.”

  There. I’d said it. It came out of my throat like glass out of an old wound. It hurt.

  We both sat and looked at each other, still in silence. It felt like something had shattered; a wall between us breaking. Without it there, there was a profound quiet.

  My father cleared his throat. “Son?” he said.

  I looked at him. “What?” I said.

  His face was haggard. I had never seen him look old before. I had always considered him like a mountain—implacable, unmoved, ageless. Now the face before me was an old man. He drew in a breath and licked his lips. Then he spoke.

  “Son, you’ve never been with me to Colorado.”

  “What?” I stared at him. “Why are you saying that? So what if I haven’t?”

  “If you had,” he snapped at me, “then I wouldn’t have to tell you what I’m telling you now.”

  I stared at him. “Don’t make this my fault,” I said. “You can also be accountable.”

  He blinked. That was, I thought, something that was very hard for him. If he was capable of doing that, I realized in that moment, he would never have been blaming me for all the things he did. It was his way, to always make it my fault. Or mom’s fault. Never the perfect Mr. Beckham, billionaire transport company owner.

  He looked angry. I thought for a minute that he wasn’t going to tell me. Then he cleared his throat.

  “Son, your mother…she’s there.”

  “What?” I frowned. “She’s in Colorado? I didn’t know that!” My heart clenched. “You never told me that! How can you think that I would never have gone there, if I’d known that! You didn’t tell.”

  I felt like a five-year-old hiding from the arguing parents under the table. I wanted to put my hands over my ears, to curl into a ball. To cry. I hadn’t felt that way for an awfully long time. I looked at him and he must have seen the rage in my face.

  “I never told you,” he said quietly, “because it was for the best. She hadn’t wanted you to know. I thought it was best you didn’t see her that way.”

  “What way?” I shouted. Luckily there was no one in our section of the restaurant anymore. I knew it was later now and we should go. But I couldn’t leave. I was transfixed. What was this story? What had they not let me see?

  “Son, your mom has alcoholism,” he said. “She’s…she’s managing. She’s been dry for years now. But it—it took her hard. We didn’t think it was right that you would know. That you would be shamed and weighed down by that knowledge.”

  “What?” I was crying now, the tears running down my cheeks. I couldn’t stop it. I wasn’t ashamed of crying. “My mom had a dangerous condition, and you didn’t tell me? How could you think I would judge her?”

  I covered my face with my hands. I tried to recall the last memory I had of my mom. Her beautiful face with those big, wide eyes, her long, well-cut hair framing it in shining brown. She was so delicate, so gentle. My poor beautiful mom! She had been struggling with alcohol all alone.

  “I know about alcoholism,” I said quietly. “I struggled too.”

  He shook his head. “We thought it was best when you were a boy,” he said.

  “Well,” I said, clearing my throat. “I’m not a boy now. And I’m going to see her.”

  “Son,” he said quietly. “You shouldn’t…”

  “Damn your damn ‘shouldn’t’!” I said quietly. “I am almost thirty and I will do what I want. I want to see my mom.”

  He looked at me. His eyes were hollow, expressionless. He looked so broken down that I could almost have found it in my heart to feel sorry for him. I would have done, except that he was the one who had, largely, driven my mother to drink. Who had kept me apart from her. Who had yoked me to the blame for her loss.

  I stood. He didn’t move.

  “Thank you,” I said, “for telling me now. I need to take time to decide what to do with that information.”

  He looked up at me. I could see hurt in those eyes, and the bitterness that was always there. And the need to always be right. I looked away.

  “Mom,” I said to myself. “I can’t believe it.”

  I couldn’t believe it. The first thing I wanted to do was climb into my car and drive to Colorado. Or get onto a plane and fly there. To see her. The second thing I wanted to do was, strangely enough, to call her. To call Bethany. I felt that without her in my life—without her love, if I was candid—this truth would never have come out.

  I walked out of there and got into my car. Drove to work. I had no awareness of the journey, and when I got back I couldn’t have said how I got there. I walked past my secretary wraithlike.

  “Mr. Beckham? You okay?”

  “I’m fine,” I said with white-lipped hardness.

  I walked through into my office and sat down at my desk. I collapsed. Put my head on my hands and wept.

  It was as if years of my life—most of my life, in fact—had been a lie. Now, finally, I knew the truth. Mom had not left because of me. There had been fights before I had ever been born. Mom had been battling demons, but those demons had nothing to do with me. I was wanted. I was loved.

  Whoever said you can’t rewrite your story is wrong. Just one fact, like knowing you were always loved, changes the past. It changes the present. And it will change your future.

  I shook my head in amazement. I was almost too weary to take it in. But it was true. I was loved. My mom had never rejected me. She had left only because she had to.

  And I was going to see her.

  Chapter 20: Bethany

  I was in my room when the phone rang. I went to answer it—I had left my phone in the hallway in my coat. Thank Heavens I had left the door open, or I would never even have heard the tone.

  “Kyle?”

  I was amazed. I had seen the messages from him earlier, but then had forgotten in the aftermath of seeing Luke.

  Lunch. Dammit!

  I couldn’t believe I had managed to forget about something as incredibly important as going to lunch with Kyle.

  “Kyle! So sorry! I forgot about the…”

  “My mom’s in Colorado.”

  I frowned. “What?” I was surprised. And confused. What the heck did that mean? “Sorry, Kyle?”

  He was laughing. I was starting to get a bit worried about him. This wasn’t like him at all.

  “Kyle?”

  “My mom!” he said, his voice incredulous. “She’s been in Colorado all this time. He never told me!”

  I frowned. “Kyle? Back up. Please? Your mom? I thought she was completely out of contact with you and your dad.”

  “She never was!” he was sobbing. “She thought I’d be ashamed of her.”

  “What?” I frowned. “Whoa, Kyle. Tell me from the beginning. Slowly. Okay. I think I’m missing something. So. Your dad knew where your mom was? All this time? And he didn’t tell you. Or let you see her—am I right so far?”

  I shook my head. This was confusing.

  He sighed. “Yes. Yeah. That’s right. My mom left us because she couldn’t cope. Because she was using alcohol to cope. They thought I’d be ashamed of them.”

  “Who would be ashamed of what?” I decided to get some fresh air. Maybe I was the one who wasn’t making sense. “Hang on, Kyle,” I said. I lifted my coat and went outside.

  “Okay,” he sighed. “I’ll tell you from the beginning.”

  “Great,” I said as I shut the door behind me and walked into the garden. I sat down on the lip of brick around the window, closing my eyes in
the late-afternoon sun. “What happened today?”

  “Well, my dad and I had a fight,” he said. “Long story short, he told me things he never said. Like the fact that Mom was misusing alcohol all those years. That was probably what a lot of the fights were about. Or maybe they fought a lot and that was what got her into using it as a coping mechanism. I don’t know. But anyhow. She was drinking and that was why she left us. Went away. I never knew.”

  He was sobbing. I sat in the sun and let him sob. It would be better for him than anything else I could do. Anything else I could say.

  “I want to see her,” he said, sniffing. “She’s in Colorado. At the ranch my dad bought. She chose to take that in the divorce settlement. He told me that later. She lives there now, around-the-clock. I need to see her now.”

  “Of course you do,” I said slowly. “When can you go down there?”

  “Next week,” he said, voice strained. “Earliest I can get off work.”

  “Hell,” I said. “That’s hectic. Well, I think you have to go.”

  He sighed. “I do. I can’t believe it. I can’t tell you how amazing it’ll be. I always thought it was my fault.”

  I remembered him telling me that.