AllFreeNovel
Share Us
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Sebastian
MYFATHER’SHOUSEis everything you expect the home of a CEO to be—large, imposing. A little cold. There’s a collection of luxury vehicles in a four-car garage and a behemoth painting in the entryway that I’m still not one hundred percent sure is right side up. Hanging in the foyer is a chandelier. I’ve always had visions of someone in the bowels of the house pulling a lever so that it comes crashing down on any unwelcome guest.
Morbid, I know. But it’s a perfect visual for my state of mind when I come home.
“Sebastian.”
My father walks into the foyer from his office, dressed in “casual” wear—neatly pressed slacks, a sports coat and loafers. He doesn’t often work from home, but he chose to have some down time after the wedding at the insistence of his doctor.
“Father.” Ugh, it’s so stiff and formal. My muscles turn to stone the second I set foot on their property, like I’m a gargoyle returning to my natural state. “Thanks for seeing me.”
I wait for some stinging remark, but surprisingly I don’t get one. My father motions for me to follow him into the formal lounge. The fireplace is on and the room has a warm glow to it. It’s cold today and I can tell my father is moving slower than usual. It’s been so long between visits that I see the extra years on him—the gray hairs, the lines around his mouth, the way he grips the banister as we take three steps down into the sunken room.
I’m struck with something cold and uncomfortable.
Regret.
What if he’d died after that second heart attack and I’d chosen not to come home because I let Mike and his witch of a mother get in my head? What if I’d forfeited my last moments with him because of ego?
We’ve always had a tense relationship. His expectations are high and his demands are plentiful, but I never shied away from them, always believing I could live up to what he wanted from me. But then he remarried and embraced his new son, who can’t live up to anything, and I felt like all those years of reaching and trying had been erased.
“What do you want to talk about?” he asks as he settles into a high-backed chair with tufted burgundy leather.
“I wanted to settle a few things.” I take a seat on the couch opposite him, bracing my forearms against my thighs.
“About?”
“The wedding, about why I’ve been away. About...us.” Opening myself up is brutal, but it’s the only way I can see myself getting what I want. It sounds manipulative, sure. But coming home and taking over the company will also mean seeing more of my father, and I can’t do that unless we come to an understanding.
“You mean you don’t want to talk about the company?” he scoffs.
“Of course I want to talk about that, too.”
He watches me with dark eyes. They seem even more bottomless now, surrounded by all his salt-and-pepper hair. And they’re made prominent by the fact that his face is more hollow than it used to be.
“I...” God, I can have a roomful of tech journalists eating out of the palm of my hand with little more than the opening of my mouth. But this...this shakes me. “I should have come home when you were sick.”
My father blinks. Clearly, he expected me to go straight for the honeypot. “Why didn’t you?”
It’s tempting to throw Mike and his mother under the bus, to admit that they’ve continually told me to stay away. But I’ve come to realise that while I don’t understand it—and likely never will—my father loves his second wife. Probably more than he loves me, and possibly even more than the family business.
Will wonders never cease?
“I was worried about making it worse,” I admit. Even if that idea wasn’t of my own creation, it certainly burrowed into my brain all the same. “I left on bad terms and things were still broken between us. I thought if I came home and the stress caused you another heart attack... I’d never forgive myself.”
The second I say the words, I know they’ve come from the truest, darkest part of me. I hadn’t come here planning to be quite so honest, but ever since I spent the night with Presley, I’ve been off kilter. Changed.
I’veneverdone anything that wasn’t one hundred percent strategic. Being with her is against my best interests, and yet I felt more alive and more myself in her arms than I can ever remember. Doing something purely for the sake of pleasure isn’t my MO.
Until her.
I can’t stop thinking about her. Even now, when I need to be concentrating on securing the future of my grandfather’s company, my mind gravitates to her.
“I know they told you not to come.”
My father’s words floor me. “You knew?”
