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But I knew she had her own priorities.
I couldn’t hog her all the time.
I had just taken a bite of my dinner when someone knocked on the door. Very few people stopped by my penthouse for a visit, unannounced. It was reserved for my family and Emerson because even my friends didn’t have the code to access the building’s elevator.
I walked to the front door, wearing my sweatpants and zip-up sweater. While I wished it were Emerson, I knew that was unlikely. She would text me beforehand, and if she didn’t, she would just let herself in.
My home was practically hers at this point.
After I checked the peephole, I opened the door. “Hey, Dad.” I smiled at him, seeing him standing in the hallway in his signature jeans and t-shirt, what he wore to the lab all day long. That was where I got my fashion sense from, the most casual billionaire I’d ever met.
He stilled at the way I greeted him, his expression hardening and tightening, like I’d said something that actually offended him. His eyes burned into mine without blinking, a pause that lasted an eternity.
I’d seen him react that way to strangers, but not to me. “Dad, you alright?”
He cleared the catch in his throat. “Yes. I just… I haven’t heard you…call me that in a long time.” He moved into my penthouse and wrapped his arms around me, giving me a tight hug, a full-body embrace that we hardly ever exchanged. He squeezed me as he let the air leave his lungs.
“I call you Dad all the time.”
He released me and pulled back so he could look at me again. “Not like that.” He moved past me and entered my penthouse.
I closed the door behind him and turned around.
He helped himself to a beer from my fridge before he took a seat at the dining table. There was a slight smile on his lips, like he was thinking of a fond memory stored in the back of his head.
I returned to my seat and closed my laptop. I pushed everything to the side so there wouldn’t be a pile of crap in the way.
He leaned forward over the table, his arms on the surface, his fingers wrapped around his beer. “I saw your TED Talk.”
My heart immediately picked up in pace, pounding a little harder against the inside of my chest. If it was available on YouTube, I had no idea because I didn’t check. It was easier for me to believe the interview was a part of the past, that it was done and over, not living in infamy on a website. “How did you even know about it?”
He shrugged. “It’s a Dad thing…”
I rolled my eyes.
“Actually, Emerson emailed me with the link.”
“What?” I turned back to him, surprised Emerson had done that without telling me.
“I’m glad she did. You were great, Derek.” He lifted his gaze and glanced at me, looking at me with that beam of pride that hit me right in the face like sunshine on a summer day. A smile formed on his lips, like he was reliving the interview in his mind. “I couldn’t believe her email until I saw it myself. Everything you said about the Odyssey…the way you spoke about me…” He dropped his gaze and looked at his beer, spinning it in his fingers like he was reading the label.
“I meant it.”
He inhaled a deep breath as an emotional smile came onto his lips. “I know you did.” He set the beer down again and glanced at me once more, looking at me in a whole new way, staring at me like it’d been decades since we’d last seen each other. “You took my advice with Emerson.”
I didn’t know how to respond to what he said because it wasn’t a question, more of a statement, like he already knew what happened between her and me—even though she would never tell my father that. “Yeah.”
He gave a slight nod. “I thought so. You’re happy…and I haven’t seen you happy in a really long time. It’s like all your baggage has left your shoulders, like you can be you again, because you let someone in again.”
I had let her in…and I was happy.
“That makes me really happy, Derek. Your mother too.”
I grabbed my beer and took a drink. “We’re taking it slow right now. I told her in time I would build up to her daughter.”
“When that day comes, I’m sure it will be fine. Look at you and your mother.”
“But I’m not as kind as—”
“Yes, you are.” He gave me a firm look. “Look how you’re changing—all because of her. In months, a year, you’ll be a different man, and you’ll be ready. It’s not scary to love Emerson, so it won’t be scary to love her daughter.”
I stared at my beer, imagining that young girl who looked identical to Emerson. Most people my age didn’t even have kids yet, and Emerson had a daughter who was almost an adult. I was young when Cleo came into my life, and once she was there, she was always there.
