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“I’ll fucking kill him,” he said through clenched teeth. “He had no right.”
“I agree,” I said, maintaining my calm. It wouldn’t do any of us any good to introduce a second Delatou temper into this conversation—not when I had yet to drop the biggest bomb of all, and mine was already consuming me. “But there’s more I have to tell you.”
My mother reached up and laced her fingers through my dad’s, tugging him back into his seat. Then she studied me, and I swear she knew exactly what I was about to say. Call it mother’s intuition or whatever, but something like understanding flashed across her eyes. Understanding and…acceptance.
She would be okay with this, but it was never her I was worried about.
My father was the best kind of girl dad. It was fairly obvious his life would’ve been easier had he been granted even a single son, but he’d never made us feel less than, never made us feel like burdens or like he wasn’t the most proud man on the planet to be our father. He raised us to be hardworking, to be girly when we wanted to be, but also taught us how to change a tire on a car, change our oil, use power tools. He was a white collar man who had been raised with a blue collar mentality. My father had never been afraid to get his hands dirty, and he instilled the same work ethic in his daughters.
But on the flip side of that ultra-supportive coin was a man who was also, at times, overprotective. Leon Delatou didn’t take kindly to slights against his children, and he’d go to bat for any one of us at the drop of a hat.
And I mean that literally, but we didn’t have time to dive into the great prom debacle of 2014. Plus, that was Brie’s story to tell, not mine.
“What is it, sweets?” he asked slowly. “What’s going on?”
There was no going back from this. Once the words were out, my relationship with my father would change, and I was terrified I was about to break his trust and pride in me irrevocably.
At last, I squared my shoulders, my gaze darting between the two of them, and said, “I’m pregnant.”
Surprise flared in my father’s eyes while a smile bloomed on my mother’s face at the same moment. A heartbeat later, she was out of her seat and moving around the table, pulling me to my feet to wrap me into a warm, reassuring hug.
“That’s wonderful news, my girl,” she said when she pulled away, cupping my face in her hands. “But I’m assuming there’s more.”
My father remained a statue across from us, and I looked him dead in the eye as I said, “It’s Cal’s.”
The tether on his temper snapped, and Dad burst from his seat.
“What the fuck were you thinking?” he shouted, stamping around the kitchen, pulling on his hair and muttering what I knew were Greek expletives.
Damn, if he was speaking Greek, he wasreallymad. But I’d anticipated this. I’d been fully prepared for him to look at me with hurt and disappointment in his eyes.
“Do you have any idea how this will affect the company?”
“Trust me, Dad,” I said with a sigh, once again dropping onto a chair. “I know exactly what this means for us.”
“No one will ever take you seriously again.”
“That remains to be seen.”
“You’re having achild, Amara. Your whole life is about to change. You’re not going to be able to give nearly as much time and attention to the company as you do now.”
“You hadfive,” I reminded him. “And you did just fine.”
“I hadhelp,” he snapped. “A partner who could pick up the slack when I faltered, and vice versa.”
“And I have help too,” I said, my voice breaking. “I have you guys. I have my sisters. What more could I need?”
All at once, the fight and anger left him, his shoulders slumping as he approached me and lifted me to my feet—off them—and into his embrace.
“Of course, sweets,” he murmured into my hair. “You always have us. I’m sorry for my reaction.” He let me go and held me at arm’s length. “I’m just worried about you. This is a lot at once.”
I swallowed hard, fighting the tears that threatened to fall. “I know, Daddy. But I have a plan.”
He must’ve recognized the twinkle in my eye, because a smirk spread across his face as he released me and sank onto a chair once again. I mirrored him, my mother returning to his side.
“Let’s hear it then.”
Something was seriously wrong.
