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The scars haunt me forever.
“How can you be so sure?”
“Because I’ll make sure. Now talk to me. What are you doing here in London?”
I sit on the edge of the bed and pull my heels on one by one. “I’m here on a working holiday. I live here for now.”
“Since when?”
“About six or seven months ago.”
He sighs. “And you never thought to look me up?”
I snort. “Why would I? Sorry to burst your bubble on that one, but you weren’t exactly Father of the Year.”
“And you weren’t exactly the most compliant teenager I’ve ever met.”
“You know why that was,” I say. And he does. We might be complete strangers now, but some things are always just gonna be there. Haunting you. Like him being in a loveless marriage to my mum and abandoning me the minute things got too rough.
“I regret so many things from back then, with your mother…”
“Australia was awesome by the way.”
“I tried, Charlize. I want you to know that. But your mother left your grandmother in the will as your sole guardian. There was nothing I could do. No court in the world was going to award me custody when we’d been married for such a short time.”
“Is that what you tell yourself so you sleep better at night?” I throw back.
“I knew this day would come.” He runs a hand through his hair. “I knew it. And I should’ve prepared better for it. It’s not like I ever expected you to be doing something… like this.”
“And why not?” I shake my head. “It’s okay for you to fuck escorts, but not okay for me to be one? That’s a little rich, isn’t it?”
“You know that’s a double-edged sword. I never would have done what I just did had I known…”
“You don’t have to keep acting like this is the worst thing in the world.”
He stops, real menace in his tone when he says, “You have to be joking?”
“Am I that abhorrent?”
His eyes go slightly round. “That isn’t what I meant and you know it. You’re my… my…”
I hold up a hand. “Let’s just take a beat before we get ahead of ourselves.” I sigh. “Seriously, you’re going to give yourself a goddamn heart attack.”
“How can you be so calm? More to the point, how could you let me continue knowing… who I was.”
I sigh like he’s a child who just doesn’t get it. “I didn’t know for sure…”
“That’s a lie, you already admitted as such.”
“Fine. I’ve always had a bit of a crush on you if you must know. Despite the fact you abandoned me as a child and left me with the one woman I hated. And what we did felt good. Your dirty words…” It feels so foreign saying this to him, but he may as well rot in Hell with guilt. “For a second I forgot it was you.”
He looks genuinely gobsmacked; his mouth hanging open. Good. It’s because of him that I had to suffer all those years, and I want him to know it.
“I didn’t abandon you, Charlize. That’s the last thing I did. I wanted you, but your grandmother made it impossible. I’m not going to discuss this now. I need to get you out of here.”
“I think I’m fine hearing what you have to say here, after all, we’re closer now than we’ve ever been.” I waggle my eyebrows.
He narrows his eyes as I purposely twiddle my thumbs. “This isn’t funny. No matter how much punishment you want to put me through, I’m not going to let you ruin me over one little mistake.”
