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I'm taken back by his response. "I think you'll do whatever is necessary to get what you want."
He lowers his head into his hands. "That's not who I am."
I stare at him. His shoulders have softened. His posture has shifted. If I didn't know better I'd swear my words bit into him. "You've manipulated me since we met. You've withheld the truth."
He pulls his head up so he's looking directly into my eyes. "I should have been honest about my father."
"You used me. You used me to get what you wanted. You let me believe in you." I feel all of my emotions rushing past the barrier I've tried to create within my heart. "I fell in love with you. I thought you were him. I thought that was you."
"You
thought I was who?" He jolts to his feet again.
"Him." I sob as I turn towards the door. "Mine." I can't form the words to tell him that I envisioned our future. That the innocent part of my heart wanted to build a life with him.
He reaches for me and pulls my body into his chest. I struggle to break free.
"I am him. I've always been him." His voice cracks. "Believe in me. Trust me."
I twist around swiftly breaking free from his arms. "You don't see it." I struggle to form the words through my sobs. "You can't do that…" my voice trails as I point behind him to the flash drive." You can't do that and then expect me to just pretend I didn't see it."
"You don't know what you saw." He raises his voice, frustration laced within it. "Until you watch the entire thing, you're never going to know the truth."
"I can't." I stumble back towards the door. "Why the hell do you want me to watch you fucking her? Why?" I scream the words at him.
"I didn't fuck her. I couldn’t. I wouldn't have." He picks up the flash drive and lays it in his palm. "Take this. Watch it."
I stare at it. Brooke's name is taunting me. I scoop it up and throw it in my purse again. "You're not worried that I'm going to hand this over to Mark and ruin your chances of taking over the business?"
He pauses as if he's contemplating the question. "The business doesn't matter to me anymore."
"Yeah, right." I snap. "That's all that matters."
He brushes past me. "I have a meeting to get to." His hand curls around the handle of the door. "I can have Leonard drop you off at home and I'll take a cab."
'I'll take the cab." I move quickly towards the open door. "For someone who doesn't care about the business you're certainly in a hurry to go to this meeting." I know I'm being childish but the way he's dismissing me stings.
"It's not a meeting for that." He motions towards the bank of elevators. "Everything I do is for you. Everything." With that he steps into the open elevator.
I stand in silence as I watch the doors close.
Chapter 7
"I'm not sure what day I'll be there, dad." I call towards my phone where it's perched precariously on my pillow. "I haven't finished packing yet."
"I can barely hear you, princess." His voice bounces off the now empty walls of my bedroom.
I scurry over to the bed and pick up the phone. I hold it to my lips. "You're on speaker phone, dad. Is this better?"
"Much better." I hear relief wash through his voice. "You're on rotary dial by the way."
I giggle at my father's reluctance to embrace technology. "Really dad? Is that why you sound like you're sitting at the bottom of a tin can?"
He laughs and the sound lifts my spirits.
"I'll let you know when I'm ready to come down and then we can go apartment hunting together." I work to fold one of my dresses with my free hand but it's more of a mess than when I found it bunched up on the floor of my closet.
"Nonsense. You're going to live here with me." I can hear how adamant he is by his tone.
