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I shake my head. What?
“Cross took the one thing that meant the world to me. He took your mother.”
I stagger back against the wall. “They… no…”
I watch my father’s shoulders slump, his body seeming to drain of energy. “They had an affair. He fucked her in my own bed. I took her back because we had you, Kathryn and Spencer, but I couldn’t get past it. I wasn’t always like this, Clark. Heartless. She made me this way. They did.”
“She had an affair first.”
He rubs the back of his hand across his nose. “You think I’m the one to blame for everything. The only reason you do is because I shielded you from it. I protected you, Clark, and now you throw it back in my face. Cross was my friend. It’d be bad enough if it was any man, but he was my friend. I trusted him.”
I slide to sit on the ground, cold even through my jeans. Everything I thought I knew… “Do people know?”
He scoffs. “Cross at least had the decency to keep his mouth shut.”
I stare at the concrete ground as if it might get up and start crawling, or tell me the answers to the plethora of questions racing through my head. Does Dayna know? She can’t. “If no one knows, then what was Caspar talking about?”
The look in his eye scares me. It isn’t intimidating. It isn’t strong. It’s… resigned. “I couldn’t get over it. Cross was at every dinner, every conference. I hated him, more than I ever thought myself capable of. And Caspar, he hates anyone who isn’t on his side.”
I start putting the pieces together. Fuck. This is a nightmare, and I’m desperate to wake up before I fall off a kerb into a rush of oncoming traffic. “What did you do?”
He just looks at me. A man I’ve never seen. A man who’s broken.
“You and Kahn? Fuck. You sabotaged Little Princess.” I rub my hands over my face. “You killed her father.”
“No. He killed himself.”
I look at the man I don’t know standing across from me. “You killed all those people.”
Wind whistles past my ears, breaking the otherwise deafening silence.
“If you want to protect her, walk away. I won’t let you bid with her, son. Caspar has no loyalty to me or anyone. He’s out for himself. If you win that well with her, Caspar will come for you both. Walk away, son.”
“Don’t. Fucking. Call. Me. That.”
“I did it for you.”
I spring up from the ground and crash him back against the pillar, holding his throat. “Don’t you dare put this shit on me.” I clench my fist, and it takes every ounce of strength I can muster not to crash it into his fucking jaw. “You’re not my father.” I ram my forearm into his throat, rocking his head back against the concrete again, then I let him go.
“Clark, you know you can’t tell her.”
I brace my palms against the wall, my back to him. “Maybe I will, maybe I won’t.”
“You won’t because you know what it would mean if she talks. For this family, the business.”
“For you.”
“And for me.”
Bile rises in my throat. “You son of a bitch. I can’t be with her and not tell her. You know that. It’s four years ago all over again.”
“No, son, four years ago I shielded you from the truth. If you’d have stayed away from her, we wouldn’t be having this conversation. You brought this on yourself.”
The door to the driving range bangs shut behind him. I pick up the first thing I see, a bucket of golf balls, and crash it against the wall. I watch the balls roll until everything is still and the sound of my own thoughts perforates my ears.
I need to drive. Fast. To anywhere, nowhere, I don’t fucking know. I storm through the house, desperate to get to my car and get out of here.
“Clark, Elspeth said you were here.”
