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“JACOB,” WARD SAID, shaking his hand and then sitting opposite him in the restaurant.
“Hey, thanks for meeting me,” Jacob said, sitting back down in his chair.
“You don’t need to thank me, so—” Ward shook his head. “Fuck, sorry. Bad start.”
Jacob smiled and took a sip of his whisky. “You can call me son if you want. I mean, it’s weird, but I am.”
Ward held his eyes. “It is weird.” He nodded. “Yet from the moment I found out, fuck, I don’t know. You just became my son, and that was goddamn it.”
Jacob shrugged. “Same. I just tried to ignore it.” When Ward kept watching him, he added, “Father, not son. Jesus, this is awkward.”
Ward laughed. “We’re as bad as one another.”
“Yeah.” He smiled.
Then decided to say what he had to say. The truth.
“Ward, I don’t know how to be a son to a man. God, I know that sounds stupid, but I don’t. I never even had a male role model in my life and honestly, I wasn’t sure if I wanted a father.”
“Well, you have one,” Ward said firmly, and there was something heartwarming about it. “I’m not a man who’d desert my kids. So whether you like it or not, I’m your dad and I want you in my life.”
Jacob swallowed. “I guess you could’ve been some loser my mom hooked up with.”
Ward shook his head and laughed. “Let’s skip that part of the conversation shall we?”
With the tension broken, they ordered and talked over their meals. Mostly about business and where Jacob had gone to university, piecing together the pieces of their lives they’d missed out on.
“Knox said he was at the Hamptons with you all over Easter.” Ward said, dabbing his mouth with a napkin.
Jacob nodded. “Yeah, we had a chat. He’s a good guy.”
“They all are. I hope you get to know them better when you’re ready.”
“I will. I thought they’d react and fuck, I don’t know, reject me,” Jacob confessed.
Ward rested back in his chair. “All three of them are growing up to be strong, confident men. If anything like that happens, I want you to tell me.”
Jacob shook his head. “I don’t expect it will. Knox extended an open invitation to whatever relationship we end up having. I am sure Atlas and Levi will do the same in their own way.”
“Speaking of, Knox said you had a girlfriend.” Ward smirked. “Fathers can ask these things.”
He blew out his breath.
“Yeah, well, I might be good with business and money, but not so much with women, I’m afraid.”
“None of us are.” Ward laughed. “No one admits it, but we’re all winging it.”
Except Jacob had shut down after the first rejection he’d got as a kid and never let a girl into his heart again.
Damn you, Jenny.
Now, he was going to risk it all, knowing the odds were slim as hell. One he wouldn’t take in business, but maybe it was the lack of sleep because he’d made some big life decisions today that could change the course of his life.
“Leilani isn’t my girl yet, but I’m going to do my very best to make it happen,” Jacob said.
“See, you are my son.” Ward smirked.
