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“I’ll see you tomorrow,” I say.
He nods. “Glad you’re okay,” he murmurs.
I smile, go out, and close the door behind me.
Chapter Four
Titus
I don’t even remember my head hitting the pillow. I sleep right through without stirring, and I only wake up when my phone goes off, telling me that someone is calling me on FaceTime. It’s 07:27 a.m., and the screen tells me it’s my father.
Pushing myself up in bed, I answer it, still half asleep. “Hello?”
“Lawrence? Did I wake you?”
My history teacher at high school, who had a fascination with the Antarctic and knew everything about the Terra Nova expedition to the South Pole, called me Titus, and it stuck. Only my father calls me Lawrence, insisting my nickname is childish and unprofessional.
I stifle a yawn and run my hand through my hair. “I was just rousing. Everything all right?”
“Fine. I thought I’d see how you’re doing.”
Of course, it’s early evening there. “Are you still at the office?”
“Yes. I’ll leave after our call. How’s the trip going?”
“Very well, thanks.”
“George Barnard contacted me. He said you canceled your talk today.”
Dammit, I’d forgotten he knew Dad. “I did,” I say. I refuse to apologize to him, even though I know he’s expecting me to because he set up the visit.
“What happened?” he demands.
“I decided to take some time off to visit a friend in Devon.”
He frowns. “You blew off the principal of King’s College for a social visit?”
“It was a one-hour talk to a small group of students, and my friend needed some help.” I don’t bother adding that I haven’t taken a single hour off to sightsee while I’ve been here, because I know how he’d respond to that.
Dad surveys me coolly. “This friend, is it a girl?”
“A woman, yes, not that it’s relevant.”
“Jesus, Lawrence. Can’t you keep your dick in your pants for five minutes? Do you know how that’s made me look?”
Fury blasts through me, due in no small measure to the fact that even though he’s married to my mother, I’m pretty certain he’s banging his secretary, and has been for several years. Six months ago, I finally plucked up the courage and confronted him about it. He denied it heatedly, tore me a new one, and called me a ‘disrespectful, ungrateful little shit.’ I’m convinced he’s lying, but there’s not much I can do about it without any proof.
He’s brought me up to be polite and respectful, and never to give in to my emotion, but it takes every ounce of willpower I possess not to tell him to fuck off and hang up. “I spoke to him personally and explained the situation,” I say icily, “and he was fine about it.”
“I don’t care. You’ve embarrassed me. I expected better of you.”
This conversation sums up our relationship together. It doesn’t matter that I’ve spent the past week working flat out, that I’ve received compliments left, right, and center, that I’ve had staff and students hanging on my every word, and that my work in AI is receiving attention internationally. Dad will always find fault, somehow.
I’m twenty-nine, a grown man, so why does he make me feel like I’m sixteen whenever we talk? Even though I owe him a lot, mainly because he funded my studies and invested in my business at the start, the fact that my bank balance includes nine zeroes has little to do with him. He knows nothing about the computer industry, and even less about AI and my work within the field. All he cares about is his image and how he can use me to further his position in the political arena.
“I hope you’re not throwing away your career for a woman,” he says. “I thought I’d brought you up better than that.”
“I have to go,” I say flatly.
