‘Yeah. Great.’ I do my best to match her smile and try not to think too hard about why the prospect of never seeing Imani ever again makes my stomach twist.
CHAPTER NINEImani
‘Have you lost your ever-loving mind?’
I feel sick. And like I’m about twelve years old.
I’m sat on my sofa, hugging a pillow to my chest as my father paces up and down my living room. He’s spent the last fifteen minutes alternating between furiously muttering under his breath and outright yelling at me.
We’re currently back in the yelling stage.
‘I don’t know who you are, but you’re clearly not my daughter,’ he snaps, glaring at me like I’ve just been accused of murder and not simply causing a scene at a fancy event. ‘Because my daughter, the Imani Davies we raised, would never behave like this.’
My mother sits on the armchair opposite me, her face a perfect mask of disappointment. She shakes her head and titters in agreement. ‘Never.’
I squeeze the pillow a little tighter.
This is what you wanted, I remind myself.You knew he’d be angry. Just ride it out. Ride it out for a little longer.
‘Well?’ he yells, and I nearly jump out of my skin. In twenty-eight years, I’ve only heard my father truly lose control and yell a handful of times and it was never once directed at me. The last time was during the pandemic when he first learned that flights were being grounded. ‘Explain yourself!’
‘I—’ I start, but my throat is hoarse from holding in tears. This is the first chance I’ve had to get a word in since my parents stormed into my apartment fifteen minutes ago. ‘I told you that we had a history.’
‘And I toldyou,’ he growls through gritted teeth, ‘that you need to get over it. To make amends. For God’s sake, Imani, whatever the boy did to you, it was nearly a decade ago now. Since when were you the kind of person to hold a grudge?’
‘He hurt me,’ I snap back. Fuelled by my anger, the lie comes easy. ‘Since when were you the kind of father who doesn’t care about something like that?’
My father reels like I’ve just slapped him. Even my mother freezes for a moment. ‘He hurt you emotionally,’ my father says quietly after a few seconds of strained silence. ‘Emotionally, Imani. Those wounds should have long since healed.’
‘Well, they haven’t,’ I say stubbornly.
He stares at me long and hard and I stare, unblinking, right back.
This is the man who entered the aviation industry forty years ago with a dream. The man who has either outlasted or bested every single one of his competitors and built anempire from the ground up. The kind of man who strides into business meetings with the assuredness of someone who knows everything is going to go his way.
This is not my father.
My father has always been driven, has always wanted the best for me and for me to be the best. He’s been hard on me over the years, demanded too much from me on occasion, but he’s never been cruel.
When did the change happen? Why did it happen? And how didn’t I notice until now? Because, looking at him closely, I can see a difference. His frown lines are more pronounced, his eyes look tired and heavy, and even the way he’s carrying himself feels different. It’s like he’s got a weight on his shoulders and it’s finally become too much for him to bear.
‘You’re to contact the organising committee for the gala and apologise,’ my father says gruffly. ‘It was an uncharacteristic act from you – we’ll say you’ve been suffering from stress, perhaps a medical issue so they won’t probe – and it won’t ever happen again. We’ll also increase our donation to help smooth things over.’
I gape at him. ‘You want me to pretend I’m ill so people won’t talk?’
‘I don’t want to be doing any of this, Imani!’ he explodes. ‘But you’ve left me no choice. Imagine my surprise this morning when, instead of opening up an email from the committee thanking me for my sizeable donation, I was met with this!’ He dives into his pocket, pulls out a piece of thoroughly scrunched paper, and slams it down on my coffee table.
I lean forward, my heart racing.
It’s a photo from last night. More specifically, it’s a photo of me mid-drink toss. Asher and I aren’t the focus of the photo, but we’re caught in the background of some posing gala attendees, and someone has clearly cropped it to zoom in on us. It feels strange seeing it from this angle. In the memories I’ve been replaying since Sloane’s driver dropped me home last night, the only thing I can really remember is the adrenaline coursing through my veins as I made the decision and the look of shock on Asher’s face. In this photo, I looked crazed. My eyes are wide and frantic, and I’m gripping the glass with such an intensity, I’m surprised I didn’t shatter the damn thing in my hands.
‘You threw a drink in the man’s face, Imani. A drink!’
‘Technically, I threw it at his chest.’
My father blinks at me. ‘Is this a joke to you?’
‘No.’
