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I blinked, squinting down at the papers. “What is this?”
“Your inheritance,” Elias said matter-of-factly. My father then gave me what could only be described as a proud smile on his angular face. “I’m proud of you, Connor. You knew exactly what you wanted, and you did what you had to do so you could get it. It’s the Lennox way.”
“What are you…” I started to say, shaking my head in confusion. He was giving me my inheritance even though I no longer had a girlfriend. What the hell was happening?
“That Sadie Harlow and her entire family were low tier, son, and we both knew it,” Elias told me as he shook his head, glancing out of the window at the spread of the glowing city below. “Now you’re free to find yourself a worthy partner if choose to. You’re welcome, my boy.”
The floor seemed to dip under my feet, and I swayed, blinking slowly in my drunken haze. “You did it? You—” I started in disbelief and then stopped, my anger pooling in the surface of my mind. “She thought it was me. Sadie thought that I knew.”
“Son—” Elias smiled placatingly, raising a hand.
“I loved her,” I cut him off, swiping my hand over the desk and shoving the papers off of the desktop and over the floor. Everything I had ever wanted from my father and his empire, spread haphazardly and carelessly across the floorboards of his office. The other things I had wanted were never going to be obtained. Elias Lennox would never be a loving parent to me. Material things were as close as I would ever get to real love from my father, and I couldn’t care less to have it at all. I stumbled backward and Elias stared at the floor and then at me, his pale eyes wide as I shook my head.
“I don’t want it. It doesn’t matter to me anymore. I want her and when you’re ready to accept that, you can let me know. Until then, I’m done with all of this.”
Elias began to stand, and I left the office in a rush, sobering quickly and leaving the building with a new sense of purpose in my heart.
I found the car quickly and pushed into the seat to flop down onto the cool leather. Nora passed the Games of Love studio and my head ached. There had to be some way to make her see that I wasn’t my father, and I never would be. If I could just make her understand or show her in some way. How could I ask her to see me after what my father had done to her brother? I was disgusted by his actions and I couldn’t even imagine how she must have been feeling. I knew she thought that I was a part of it, and I was at a loss to remedy the situation.
As if she was reading my mind, Nora’s kind eyes met mine in the rearview mirror. “So, Harlow’s Coffee is having their annual New Year’s Eve party tomorrow.”
“They are? Where did you hear that?” I asked though I thought I recalled Sadie mentioning her brother’s party in passing.
Nora shrugged at me, her eyes twinkling as she replied. “I just know things.”
Despite my sobering mind and my mood, I smiled a little in question. “Nora?”
“I might have dropped by Sadie’s brother’s shop for a morning coffee and a pastry and caught sight of a poster.” Nora shrugged after she spoke, and then looked back at the road with a small smile on her face.
“That’s good to know,” I answered and shook my head, grinning.
I woke up the next day much later than I wanted to, with my head still pounding from the night before and the distinct sour aftertaste of beer in my mouth. I brushed my teeth in a rush and jumped in the shower, slowly recalling the night as the hot water washed over my back. I remembered being in the bar with Alex, getting more drunk than I should have, and then my father—
I had basically disowned my own father. I’d seen him for what he really was. Elias Lennox was just a frail, bitter old man. I laughed, nearly choking myself on the hot water as I let my head fall back with my laughter. I could find it within myself to regret my choice. Elias Lennox had crossed a line and I could no longer stand to be compared to him, especially after this. He had taken the most important thing in my life from me. There was no reason for me to put up with his manipulation anymore. I was his son, not his protege. I wanted to be my own man, no matter what it took. From now on, I was just Connor, which is what I had always been to Sadie.
