Page 61 of Dream On, Liar

It happened before I could stop it. My shoulders drew in, my spine stiffened, and suddenly I was twelve again, standing in the kitchen with my father's voice filling every corner of the empty house we were in.

“What do you want?” I forced myself to speak, adamant to not let him in my head.

“As I said, I’ve let this childish tantrum go on for long enough now. You need to put out a retraction and state me back as your manager. I’ve given you enough time and you need to fix this mess.”

Sudden rage surged through me.

“My mess?” I bit out. “I wasn’t the one going on international news stations to talk about something I had absolutely no clue about.” My voice came out louder than it ever had around him. “And don’t call it a tantrum. I’ve kept an eye on you, and you’ve had plenty of time milking this mess. The world might not be used to playing the victim card, but I’ve seen it long enough to call your bullshit.”

The words had barely left my mouth before his hand closed around my jaw, hard enough to make me wince.

“Watch how you speak to me.” His fingers tightened. “I have given you everything you have, and this is how you repay me?”

“Yeah, Dad. You’ve given me loads. My career. A mother who abandoned us. And a bastard child you love more than the rest of your kids.” I laughed bitterly. “What happened? Didn’t have enough time to sneak around to teach Ishaan how to become a good enough cricketer to replace me, or were you too afraid that world would see one flaw of yours before they burnt you for it?”

Placing a hand on his tightening hold, I forced him back. “If you’re this worked up about getting fired, let’s see how you get when the world finds out what exactly happened between you and your wife.”

His glare should have been enough to set my skin on fire.

After Ma left us, he’d milked that too. He’d painted himself as the wronged one, as he always did. Nanu had controlled how the media portrayed him in the business world, while the entertainment world had taken my father’s side. I was certain Nanu had paid off more than a few outlets to keep their headlines buried, but after his death, and my mother’s, it had simply become my father’s world to control.

Still, there was one thing he’d never wanted anyone to know: his affair.

And if it hadn’t been for Raina, no one would have—not even us.

He stared at me for a long moment before a quiet laugh left him, almost amused, as though I’d just confirmed something he’d suspected about me for years. “You really have convinced yourself of that, haven’t you? That all of this happened to you, that you were somehow the innocent party standing in the middle of a life I built and watching it fall apart around you? Here’s a reality check for you kid: your mother left you. She knew about my affair long before she decided to leave. And now you're standing here, throwing the word bastard at Ishaan as though a child is responsible for the circumstances of his birth. Do you have any idea how small that makes you sound?”

I felt my jaw tighten, but he continued before I could answer, his voice never rising. “You want to talk about what I gave you? Fine. Your career did not simply appear because you were talented, Rihaan. Talent gets overlooked every day. I made sure people saw you. I made calls. I opened doors. I put my name behind yours when you were still young enough to think the world owed you a chance. I gave you access to people who could have ignored you, opportunities that could have passed you by, and a life most people would have spent their entire existence trying to build. And you took all of it. Happily. You stood beside me when it benefited you, let me take pride in your achievements, let the world associate your name with mine, and now that you're angry, you want to rewrite the entire story so you can pretend you built yourself from nothing? You don't get to enjoy the benefits of my choices for over twenty years and then suddenly discover your principles when those same choices become inconvenient.”

He stepped closer, his expression settling into something that almost resembled disappointment as he poked my chest with his finger. “And don't insult me by pretending this is about Ishaan. It isn't. You're angry because you spent your entire life believing that being the best would guarantee you something you could never earn from me: being enough. You won every award, broke every record, built the career you were supposed to build, and somewhere along the way you convinced yourself that if you became impossible to replace, I would finally look at you and think you were enough. Then you learnt about Ishaan and suddenly you had someone you couldn't compete with because he wasn't competing with you. He didn't have to be better than you. He didn't have to take anything from you. He simply existed, and you decided that meant there was less of me left for you. If it did, I wouldn’t have spent most of my life polishing you. That's not betrayal, Rihaan. That's insecurity, and I refuse to take responsibility for a wound you keep reopening because it gives you an excuse to hate me.”

I shook my head. “No, I built a career you chose for me. I had to be the best, period. You made sure there was no choice—”

An amused expression settled on his face. “I see. So, you are upset that I had to spend time with you to make you into the man you are, while Ishaan got a better version of me?” His eyes held mine, and somehow that was worse than shouting. “You want me to feel ashamed of the choices I've made, but look at what you're doing now. You're standing in a hotel room, a grown man with a career and a life of his own, and you're still talking to me like the frightened little boy who had more than most, and still can’t understand why his father didn’t love him, or why his mother walked out. You haven't moved past any of it. You've simply become better at hiding it behind achievements, anger and the convenient belief that everyone else is responsible for the way you feel. Maybe that's why you're so desperate to tell yourself I'm the villain. Because if I'm the villain, then you don't have to admit that after everything I've given you, after everything I've done for you, you still aren't happy. And that, Rihaan, has nothing to do with me.”

“Frankly, I’d prefer seeing you once a week over lunch,” I snapped, the bitterness that had settled in my veins at his words was nothing compared to the fire I felt. “Maybe that’s why Ishaan turned out to be a better man than I am. He didn’t have you looming over him, commanding every move as you moulded me into a version of yourself. A pathetic little boy with so much hate, who’s held onto a grudge against a businessman for so long that he’s ruined the lives of everyone around him. Some model of accountability, aren’t you, Dad?”

His expression changed, the disappointment vanishing as something colder took its place.

His hand lifted, and before I could even brace myself for what was about to come when the adjoining door swung open.

“Wouldn’t move an inch if I were you.”

My father's hand stopped in midair as Oliver’s voice boomed through the room. A tone I’d only heard once from him before.

Oliver stood in the doorway, phone still in one hand, his expression stripped of every trace of his usual calmness.

His eyes moved from my father’s raised hand to me, as though assessing me, then back again to my father.

“As you know, the battery charges for abuse in this country are some of the harshest—let alone the stalking and breaking in charges, and unless you’d like to spend some time in prison, I’d think very carefully about what you do next.”

My father remained still, his eyes narrowed in a sharp glare. “You have no clue what you’re talking about.”

“No?” Oliver started. “So, you didn’t fly out and find out where Rihaan was—without his consent, or enter his room without his invitation? You forget that hotel walls aren’t exactly noise cancelling. But, as luck would have it, there’s a camera pointing directly to the room, and I’d be more than happy to go downstairs and confirm if the receptionist ever called up to Rihaan’s room before they gave the information out?”

He took a step back then, his sharp gaze shifting to Oliver. “This is a family matter, Oliver. I’d go back into your room, if I were you. And, there was no stalking necessary—I’m his father. His manager—”

“You were fired, publicly.” I surprised myself as I spoke those words. “You are no longer my manager. Nor will you come back to that role, again.”