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“Why are you still here?” He’d always been loyal to my father for reasons I never understood.
“It’s where I belong.” He motioned up the stairs. “Stop stalling.”
I guessed I’d always be a kid to him, and deep down, maybe I still was.
I stood at the base of the stairway and looked up.
If I thought walking to the front door was difficult, this was like being in the belly of the beast. So many memories, good and bad, threatened to overtake me. Before they did, I took the steps two at a time.
As if I had blinders on, I refused to look at the doors to our old bedrooms, and went straight down the hall to the staircase on the opposite end of the house. I trudged up them, ever closer to my father’s kingdom.
The third floor of the house had been my parents’ domain. Their bedroom and my father’s office took up the whole level. I hadn’t come up here much after Mom died.
I swallowed hard. Her portrait was still in the same place on the wall next to my father’s. She’d always said how silly it was to have a painting of herself. Somehow, my father had convinced her it was for future generations to remember her. Even after they were gone, they’d still live on in the family home.
I was pretty sure he wanted them because that was what the elite families did.
I stopped in front of the painting. As I’d grown older, I’d taken comfort in it. I hated to admit it, but my father was right. It was a way for her to have a presence even though she was gone.
Miss you, Mom.
Being here was too much stimulation. Happy. Sad. Pain. Loss. Love. All of that hit me to the point I could barely think straight.
I’d blamed my father for my absence from this place. Maybe the truth was I hadn’t wanted to be here because it was too hard to take.
I strode down the hall, dread building with every step.Would I have to come here often? Did Lincoln and Beau?
It occurred to me that we never talked about the house we grew up in.
The door to my father’s study was open.
Same chairs.
Same desk.
Same fire in the fireplace.
Same man on his throne.
Only the lines of his face were harder, and his hair had more grey.
And I became angry. Angry at the command Samuel Hollingsworth still held over me. Angry that he’d been following me. Bodies in cars. Kidnapping the woman who was my world.
And for what? Control? Subservience?
But I was a desperate man.
And that put me in the beggar’s position.
Chapter Fourteen
Teague
“Sit.”
My father didn’t look up when he spoke. I’d barely made it to the doorway. He always seemed to have a sixth sense when it came to my presence.
I was tempted to remain standing simply to defy him. Instead, I sat in one of the leather chairs across from him.
