“Tacos?” Piper asked. “Only because I know Tyler’ll ask me.”
“Tacos,” Bexley said.
“But it’s not even Tuesday,” I said when Piper left the room.
“Aston, I told you I need time.”
“I know,” I said, walking close. “I had to see you, tell you it’s over. My dad set the whole thing up. He was mad about my divorce. Son of a bitch expected I’d try to get with you. Nan knew about it, and quite frankly, she was sick of his bullshit. She wanted out.”
I took Bexley’s hand in mine. “I know I should go see the other kids, but I wanted to see you first, and then I’ll do what you and Piper want.”
“So, it’s all over, just like that?”
“Yep. Nan went to the judge, and when he heard what she had to say and looked over the evidence she had, he dismissed the charges against me and had my dad arrested. Now I need to decide if I want to press additional defamation charges against him. Personally, all I care about is his surrendering his shares of the business and calling it a day. What I’d really like to do is break more than his nose ...”
Tugging her hair loose from a messy bun, Bexley tilted her head, providing herself shelter with a fan of hair, distracted me from my wayward thoughts.
“Don’t hide,” I told her. “This is good. Really good.”
Bexley shrugged one shoulder, not looking at me. “Your mom would be happy.”
“I don’t care. For the first time in my life, I’m worried about my happiness. And yours, and all the kids’, and even Seth’s. I’m ready to move forward.”
“I still need time.” She stood on tiptoe and kissed me on the cheek. “I’m happy for you, but I need some time to get my head straight. I’ve been swept into all this, and it’s been a lot.”
“I still want to see Piper, but I’ll give you a week or two. Then I’m coming in hard.”
“Go,” she said with a smile while shoving my chest. “Start by listening and go.”
A few days later, once Nan was safe in Paris, and my dad had been released from jail after paying a huge bail, I drove by his house.
The sight of theFOR SALEsign outside made me smile. I told myself not to park, but I couldn’t help it. After parking my Porsche into the driveway, I stepped out and walked up the pebbled path to the house for the last time. We were done, my dad and me, but that didn’t mean I didn’t have a few choice words for him.
Using my key, I let myself in and found my dad wearing one of our company’s luxury robes as he sat at the kitchen counter. Rather than drinking coffee, which you’d expect at eight in the morning, he was working on a cut-crystal glass of what I suspected was Macallan.
“What do you want? My kidney too?” he had the nerve to ask me.
“No, I just want to make sure you’re going to stay away from my family. The law will make sure you never step into Federal again. Who the fuck sabotages their own business? Takes a lifetime to build something, and then sets it on fire with the careless flick of a match?”
“Oh, there was nothing careless about what I was doing, son. If it weren’t for that scheming woman I married, I’d be in the clear. She and her brat daughters didn’t have it good enough?”
Gritting my teeth, I clenched my fists. I wanted to break his whole face, not only his nose. “Listen, I don’t care what you did, how you did it, or why. My life is too full to worry about it. What I do care about is how you intentionally tried to ruin my life, to make sure I had nothing, and I’m yourson. So, fuck you, Dad.” I spat out the last part. “Stay away from me, and stay even further away from Bexley and all the kids. Hear me?”
He looked up at me and sneered, his normally coifed hair a mess, the lines in his face deeper than I remembered them. “It was always about that little poor bitch. I knew she’d eventually trap you and your money. Or I should say, your money and you.”
“Good-bye, Peter. Good-fucking-bye,” I said, more furious than I’d ever been in my life. “You have enough legal trouble, so keep your distance.”
If I stayed much longer, we’d come to blows, and a third trip to the slammer wouldn’t serve me well with Bexley. So I walked out of his house on the golf course for the last time, feeling like a huge load had been lifted from my shoulders.
Bexley
Saturday morning, I took an extra-deep inhale. Enjoying the quiet, I sat in my kitchen, a steaming-hot cup of coffee in front of me.
Then my phone rang.
“Bex, you okay?” Milly yelled into the Bluetooth in her car. I envisioned her driving on the freeway with her windows down, her professionally dyed hair blowing all around her.
“Yeah, I’m fine. Are you okay? You sound like you’re in a wind tunnel.”
