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“Don’t see too much of that nowadays, and vintage too. So Xander told me,” I add, not wanting to sound like a big shot.
“It was gifted to me. Until today I never knew who from,” she replies cryptically.
Daphne is looking around the room again, and a coy smile plays at the edge of her thin lips. Almost lifeless, except for the pencil-thin line of blood-red she’s painted on them.
“You were on your way to a job interview?” I ask her next, talking out of sheer nervousness now.
Both my parents have clammed up, eagerly waiting for the food, and I’m still trying to make sense of everything that’s happened.
“A job you almost landed for yourself,” Daphne says suddenly. Her mouth shifts to a cold smile.
Clinical.
Her attitude has the desired effect, and I can feel myself shrinking back into the seat before my dad comes to the rescue.
“Sounds like a lot of luggage for just one job interview,” he says, folding and then re-folding the crisp linen napkin in his hands.
“It was never about that fucking job!” Daphne spits, her pale eyes narrowing behind her shades.
They are boring into me like I’m somehow responsible for all her problems.
“There’s no need to swear,” my mom mutters, flushing deep red and glancing from my dad to the door before settling her own gaze back on me.
I’m really getting it from all angles today…Where are you, Xander?
“Oh, they’ll be along any moment. The old fart’s probably breaking the news to him as we speak,” Daphne purrs, easing back in her chair – even producing a long cigarette from a case and lighting it up right there at the table.
Like it’s nineteen forty-five or something.
“Really!” my mom gasps, fanning herself with her hand before she looks about ready to call the whole thing off when Daphne finally drops the bombshell she’s been itching to unload.
“Calm your tits, lady,” Daphne snaps, sounding like the girl from the projects all over again.
Her phony rich girl act might fool most people, but she has trouble sustaining it for long periods.
She slips off her dark glasses, almost making me gasp when I see the ice blue of her eyes tinged with violet as they stare right into mine.
“You’re right, kid,” she says gruffly.
“I’m not from this side of the tracks,” she says loudly, motioning with one hand to the rest of the room.
“But I got a call not long ago from an old man. Offered me a ton of money if I’d only agree to a DNA test….”
She seems to want to be heard, and more than one table looks up from their meals, tittering at this strange and outspoken woman.
A stranger in their world, like my parents and me.
“…Turns out the test was what the old man had hoped for, so here I am,” she says defiantly, putting her barely smoked cigarette out into a butter dish.
“Well, I hardly see what that’s got to do with us,” my mom huffs, crimping her mouth and eying the doorway again, which is suddenly filled by Xander, much to my relief.
I stand up, compelled to go to him, to take his hand and give my folks some news of my own.
But he seems different, and Daphne seems to have been waiting for him before she delivers her hammer blow.
“I’m actually Daphne Condor. Only surviving daughter of that living corpse in there,” she hisses, jutting her chin, nodding toward somewhere in the massive old house.
“Kenneth Condor? He knocked up plenty of unwitting girls when he was younger. My mom was one of ‘em. And she didn’t want me either…,” she says, the first signs of emotion flashing across her face.
“That old bastard has maybe just days… weeks to live… And mark my words,” she growls, staring icily at Xander from across the room as he makes his way over to us.
“Mark my words… The first person I’m getting rid of when he does is gonna be Xander fucking Alexander. Finished for good, once I’m in charge.”
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Xander
“You don’t look too surprised,” Condor grunts, looking a little disappointed himself.
I’d normally choose my words more carefully but after last night?
Today I’ve decided is the day I’m gonna let Condor go anyway.
I’ve had the ‘letting you go’ chat with dozens of employees, so why not with my own boss?
If he’s found a new executive that he can groom to run things, that’s great.
If she just happens to be his long-lost daughter…All the better.
“I hope you’ll be happy with the time you have left together,” I tell him, only realizing how harsh it sounds after I’ve said it out loud.
But Condor knows me well enough, and he breaks out into his equivalent of a belly laugh.
“You always manage to surprise me, Xander,” he exclaims, shaking his head to himself, startling me for a moment.
His mood when he’s actually happy. The way he shakes his head. It reminds me of myself.
