As we waited, I glanced at Eli, watching me intently. Dad hadn’t forgotten about tonight, had he?
The door creaked open, and Dad peered at us, his short hair grayer than the last time I’d seen him and the wrinkles around his blue eyes a little deeper. He’d dressed in a thin shirt and jeans, showing off a toned body. Had he been working out? He’d been a little heavy before. “Wren.” A slow smile worked across his mouth. “Come in.” He opened the door and stepped back, his gaze swinging toward Eli. “This must be your boyfriend, Eli?” He stretched his hand to him.
“I am. Pleased to meet you, sir.” Eli shook his hand.
“Darren, you can call me Darren.” Dad’s gaze crept to mine, and his brows tensed for a beat. “How’ve you been?” He clapped his hands in front of his stomach.
No hug for me? Fuck it. I stuffed my hands into my jeans pockets. “I’ve been good. Had a bit of an?—”
“Oh, Wren is here.” Karen ambled toward us, over large travertine tiles, her blue dress pulling tightly across her pregnant belly and her brown hair pulled into a high ponytail.
Holy hell, when was she supposed to give birth? Today? My jaw dropped as I stared. As I came to my senses, I said, “Hi, Karen. Nice to see you again.”
She gave me a quick hug and a peck on the cheek. “You look well.” She twisted to Eli. “And you’re the boyfriend?”
“Yes, ma’am.” With a stuttered chuckle, Eli peeked at me.
She shook Eli’s hand. “The pleasure is mine, and you can call me Karen, not ma’am. My mother is a ma’am, not me.” She freed a soft laugh.
Fuck, this was already awkward. We should have been official boyfriends before we came here. I grasped Eli’s hand.
“Well, come on in.” Dad waved us through. “What can I get you to drink? Beer, wine or whiskey?”
I strolled beside Eli past a front room with tufted cream couches and dark wooden tables on one side and a massive dining table on the other with a gold and glass chandelier. The place looked like they’d spent a fortune on furnishing it too. It looked nothing like what Dad had when he lived by himself.I bet the furniture is all Karen’s taste.
Eli leaned close and whispered in my ear, “This is a really nice place.”
“I know,” I muttered. And the jerk had barely paid my mom any child support. But he could afford this? My gut stiffened.
As the hallway opened into a high-end kitchen with rich wooden cabinets, matte black appliances with gold accents and marble countertops, I inspected the area. The kitchen faced a large family room with thick wooden beams running across the ceiling. I stopped at the end of the kitchen island. This was crazy. Had Dad been hiding money from me and Mom all these years? I took a hard swallow as my throat grew tight.
“Drink?” Dad strolled to a wet bar resting along the wall behind a brown leather couch and matching chairs.
“Uh…” I wasn’t driving. “Whiskey.” I’d need it for this conversation.
“Eli, how about you?” Dad poured whiskey into a lowball glass. “And do you want ice, Wren?”
“I’ll have a beer, please.” Eli faced me, his forehead wrinkling. “Are you okay? You look stunned.”
“I’m…I’m fine.” I’d scraped by going to community college for two years, and Dad had this kind of money? If Mom hadn’t set me up with a college fund when I was born, I wouldn’t even be at ASU right now.
In a whisper, Eli said, “You don’t look fine.”
“Wren, do you want ice?” Dad stood at the wet bar, his attention on me.
“Yes, I’ll take ice.” I glanced behind me at Karen, pulling plates from the cupboard and setting the smaller table between the kitchen and family room. I wanted to ask Dad if he had sold the house in California. If he had, I could have understood the origin of the money for this house. If he hadn’t…heat trickled through my chest.
“Come on, Wren, let’s sit on the couch.” Eli guided me to it, dropped into the end and pulled me down beside him.
“Perfect, we can have our drinks and chat.” Dad brought Eli an open bottle of beer and handed me my whiskey. “Karen, come and join us.” Dad sat in a high-backed chair facing the couch.
“I’ll be there in a minute. I’m going to reheat some of this food.” She set an aluminum-foil pan into the top of the double oven.
“What are we having for dinner?” I swirled the whiskey in my glass. Now that I was here, I was uncertain what to say.
Dad sipped his whiskey. “Karen bought some Italian food from a place down the street. Some pasta and garlic bread, I think.”
“And a salad, a nice arugula salad with feta and cranberries.” Karen called from the kitchen.
