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Propelling myself from the floor, I grab my keys again and race out the door with only one destination in mind.
I don’t remember the journey here. I flagged a taxi, and everything is a blur until right now as I’m standing in front of my parents' obnoxious, stupid fucking door with four stupid fucking knockers.
My vision tunnels at their display of wealth and superiority, and my rage floats right back to the surface again, heating my skin and making my pulse roar. “Fuck this,” I hiss as I push the door open, flying inside.Hurricane Zoey is in the fucking house.
I’m met with silence, andGod,I should’ve checked to see if they were even home. I didn’t even think before I flew out of the house. I quickly realise it’s also Seren’s day off. Now I’m here, it all feels incredibly anticlimactic if I have to traipse back to London and I don’t think I’ll hold on to all this rage.
I’m about to turn around when I hear laughter coming from my father’s office down the hall. Fury echoes off the walls with the force my feet are stomping on the marble flooring. When I get closer, I realise the voices I can hear are my father and brothers.
Brilliant. Just what I needed. To have a breakdown in front of everyone.
I don’t knock because he doesn’t deserve the courtesy of that. So, when I fling the heavy wooden door open, all three Bancroft men turn to face me with wide eyes.
Max immediately stands, a pinch forming between his eyebrows. Whilst Owen and Dad stay seated on opposite sides of my father's desk. “Zoey, what are you doing here?” he asks as Owen says, “Woah, where’s the fire, Tink?”
My eyes ping pong between him and my dad, and when my father’s lips lilt ever so slightly at the sides, I almost hurl my five-foot-three self over his desk and throttle him. “Why don’t you askhim?” I nod my head towards our father, seething.
Max turns to face him. “Dad? What’s going on?”
Owen turns his head expectantly too. But my father stays silent, slipping his mask of indifference and disregard that he always wears for me. Never mind that minutes ago he was chatting andlaughingwith my brothers—No, he could never show me any sort of respect or emotion.
“Fine. If he won’t explain, maybe I can elaborate,” I hiss, taking one more step into the room. “I got a call this morning from one of my trustee board members for Paw Prints. They told me how theylovethe idea of my business proposal.” I pause, waiting to see if my father will show any kind of remorse but when he doesn’t react, I want to scream again. My eyebrows raise in question. “Well? Do you have anything you’d like to add,Dad?”
He pins me with a look that’s not new to me but is full of disappointment and I bristle further. “I made an executive decision based on the fact that you are struggling at the shelter. If you’re looking for an apology—”
“An apology?” I shriek, interrupting him. My throat dries with the force of the air, leaving my lungs so rapidly. “I don’t want a fucking apology. I want a parade or a carnival of you telling me how wrong this is. Because you do see that, right?”
“Hold on, what’s happened?” Max interjects, holding his hands out to placate the conversation, but nothing can tame the fury bubbling in my chest. “Zoey, you’re clearly upset. But I need to know what’s gone on.”
My father sighs again, as though I’m keeping him from a game of golf with his buddies and not trying to understand why he’s making moves onmy businesswithout my consent. “I made a business proposal to the board of Zoey’s charity, suggesting that the charity be turned into a profitable business, and it would be a family run centre,” he explains with absolutely no emotion in his voice.
“Fuck, Dad.” Owen groans, shaking his head where he shits in his chair. “Even I know not to fuck with Zoey’s shelter.”
“I’m notfuckingwith it, Owen, I’m—”
“—You absolutelyarefucking with it. You have no right to try and sabotage me like that. You have an issue with me? That’s fine, but how fucking dare you come after something I’ve spent my whole adult life building and fighting for.” Tears burn my eyes but I force them back because there’s no way I’m going to let him see me cry right now. The sadistic bastard would probably laugh. And then I really would kill him. “You couldn’t just let me have this, could you?”
“I invested in your charity, Zoey.Youcame tomefor help this week, remember?” His voice is laced with venom as it booms across the space between us.
“Of course, I fucking remember,” I howl. “I told you to take it out of my trust fund. Which, by the way, youstillhaven’t given me, despite me agreeing to all of your ridiculously outdated notions of eligibility.”
I see the fury build in his eyes. “That’s because I know you’re both lying to me,” he shouts, slamming his fist into his desk as he stands.
I barely flinch from his outburst. This isn’t my first rodeo with him. But what does make me see red is the fact that he’s right, we are lying to him. But nothing about Harrison and I feel like a lie anymore. It might’ve started out that way, but he’s wormed his way into my heart, and as much as it didn’t mean to happen, it has. But I shouldn’t have brought it up because this is about something else.
“No, this isn’t about him and me. This is about what you did behind my back,” I fume through gritted teeth.
“I wouldn’t have had to resort to such measures if you were capable of running that place, Zoey, and fixing your own issues. And now, you’ve managed to bring your brothers’ best friend into it too. In true Zoey fashion, you really have made a big mess. I simply put the proposal in the hands of the right people who would choosemeto fix your money problems.”
“But I don’t want you to fix my problems!” I roar, arms sweeping around in front of me.
“It didn’t seem that way when you came to my office. You asked me for money.”
I march forward, meeting his desk and slam my finger into the wood. “Okay, you’re right. I asked my father to help me because I thought thatmaybe, fucking maybe,he’d help his one and only daughter. But you couldn’t even get through the meeting without a shitty comment about being disappointed in me, and now this?” I retort, swallowing the bitterness.
My chest heaves as I stare at my father’s empty blue eyes. The disdain he’s holding for me like flame for his own entitled arseholery (yes, that is a word) is never going to change. The weight of our failed relationship permeates the air like a bad smell. I hate it. I hate the disapproval. I’m so fucking tired of feeling like I’ll never be the perfect daughter for them. The fight and fury leaves my body with a rough exhale as I mutter, “I’m so fucking done.”
Max shifts on his feet. “Zo,” he says, with pain lacing his voice. I ignore him.
