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I take another nip of whiskey and lay back on the bed. A different bed in a different world where I don’t masturbate to thoughts of the boogeyman. A world where things aren’t so complicated, where I’m free to do as I please.
And suddenly freedom doesn’t seem so appealing.
I don’t sleep at all.
My father joins me in the conference room where I’ve been waiting for nearly an hour before he takes the seat next to me. I sip my water, feeling his eyes on me as I stare down at the stack of papers on the table, still unable to grasp the enormity of what he’s giving me fully. “How are you, Cecelia?”
“Fine, Sir,” I reply, straightening my posture in my seat.
“How is the plant? Better with the improvements?”
“It’s good, Sir.”
“Did the lawyer brief you on what you’ll be signing for today? Do you understand—”
“Yes, Sir.” I fight the urge to thank him, but I never asked for it. When I finally lift my eyes to his, I see he’s regarding me carefully.
The last time I saw him, I’d snubbed him, too pre-occupied with the men in my life, and too resentful to take him up on whatever he was offering that day. The conversation with my mother had me thinking all night of ways to try and approach this, but I decide to go with brutal honesty.
It’s now or never.
“Please help me understand this.”
“Understand what?”
“You,” I reply simply. “Why do this?”
He drops his gaze to the paperwork. “I told you why.”
“So, this is a payoff? Because you didn’t want to raise me?”
His flinch is barely visible, but I don’t miss it. “This ensures you’ll be financially secure for the rest of your life and, if managed properly, beyond the lives of your children.”
“Why care about them if you don’t care about your own child?”
His eyes soften, but there’s a hard edge to his voice when he speaks. “I’ve explained this to you.”
“No, you haven’t. You said your parents were WASPs and drunks and squandered their fortune and that you weren’t raised in a loving environment. But I’m not asking for a hug, Roman. I want to know why.”
He bristles but gives me nothing else, and I have half a mind to stand and leave him with his filthy fucking fortune, but it’s my mother’s terrifying blank stare that keeps me sitting here, ready to collect. She’s in a good place now, but what if she goes back to where she was? Though it would be the ultimate fuck you to deny his fortune and walk away, I can’t. I can’t do it.
“I’m sorry I failed you, Cecelia.”
“That’s twice now you’ve admitted you’ve failed me, and once you admitted you tried to love my mother, love me. But those are apologies and excuses without real explanations. I’m sorry I failed you is not an explanation, and I’ve heard that quite a bit recently.”
“Maybe it’s the company you keep.”
Insinuation clear in his tone, I look over to him. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Are you still parading around town with misfits in old muscle cars?”
“You’ll be happy to know that I’ve upgraded. This one drives a sedan, but he, too, is temporary. The men in my life don’t have a tendency to stick around long,” I snark. “I’m sure you know how that is. I’ve heard emotional attachments are bad for business.”
“They usually are, yes.”
It’s there, staring at my father in a boardroom f
it for twenty that I have a moment of absolute clarity. I no longer have to figure out what I’m going to do with the rest of my life. I see it clearly as I gaze on at him, my purpose, my future, and it starts in this room.
