Tension strung its way through the air, weaving itself into the silence between the tapping of her heels as she made her way up toward the second floor. She and her father…they hadn’t been close by any stretch of the imagination, but recently, ever since she’d been kicked out of Animos, there had been a thawing between them.
Now, she’d probably brought winter back with her press conference.
At her father’s study door, she knocked. “You wanted to see me?”
“Yes. Come in. Close the door behind you and have a seat.”
The man put down his evening newspaper—upon which, her face was printed in full color—and she followed his instructions. The office was much the same as it had always been, but she noticed that today the phones had all been pulled off the hook. Apparently, he was avoiding the outside world. She didn’t blame him. It wouldn’t be easy navigating the political waters after what she’d just done.
“Have I ever told you about the first time I saw you?”
Her heart caught. He never talked about anything like that, at least not where she could hear him. “N-no, sir.”
His voice was far-off and she could see that he struggled to get the sentences out, but she hung on his every last word. “I hadn’t known your mother was pregnant. And then, one day I opened the mail and there was your birth certificate. Your little footprint stamped in ink on the bottom. I got on the first plane I could, followed every lead I had until I found your mother’s place. But then, before I could go inside, I looked in the window and saw you.” He looked up at her then, though she wasn’t sure if he was seeing her or the memory. “Sitting there in the sunshine, your little eyes closed and your little hands all curled up. You were so small, so fragile. I was afraid I would break you. That I would hurt you.”
If she was going to get kicked out or cut off or disinherited, then she was going to make sure he knew the truth. Swallowing hard, she spoke, her voice barely strong enough to be called a whisper. “You did. Youdidhurt me.”
“I know. I know that now.”
The words both shocked and didn’t shock her at all. She’d never seen him acknowledge what he’d done to her before. She’d never even seen him admit fault before, not really. But also…that wasn’t an apology.
“Is that all, sir?”
“No.” His eyes wandered to the newspaper resting face-up on his desk. “I saw you this morning on television.”
“And?” she asked, not letting any emotion seep into her voice.
“Why did you do it?”
That was the million-pound question, wasn’t it? When the press asked her the same question, she talked about right and wrong, good and evil, privilege and poverty. But in reality, it was more complicated than that. She knew that she couldn’t spend the rest of her life pretending to be a better person if she didn’t do the work of actually being one.
“Because I couldn’t start over knowing that they were still out there. I couldn’t live with myself if I knew I had the power to stop them and I didn’t.”
“You realize that I’m one of them?” her father asked, his voice flat. A challenge. “And your brother, too.”
Their eyes met and she answered his challenge.
“Yes. I realize that.”
They were all monsters. She included herself among them. But if it took the rest of her life, she would apologize to the world for what she did to Daniel.
“Do you regret it? Knowing what it could do to your future, your reputation, your place in society?”
“No. I can’t. I know it may lose me everything, including you. But no. I don’t regret it.”
When she’d walked out of that press conference today, as she’d watched the meltdowns online and as her phone rang off the hook with calls from Captain, she felt, for the first time since she’d decided to throw herself in with Animos, like herself. She felt free.
And it was in that moment, when she spoke that truth aloud, that her hands finally stopped shaking. The nerves populating her stomach dissipated. She didn’t need to remind herself that her father’s approval didn’t matter anymore because it justdidn’tmatter. She was free.
She wanted him to love her, to be proud of her, to welcome her into the family with open arms, but she knew now that she would be okay without it. Her self-respect was more important.
“Do you know what it says on our family crest?” he asked after a moment of consideration.
“No.”
“May our children be all that we never were.” His head bowed, he was smaller than she could ever remember him being. “Samantha, I am a coward. I abandoned you as a child and I abandoned you in this house. But you are more of a Dubarry than I will ever be. You are what I never was.”
Her heart stopped. Was he…? No, he wasn’t angry. He hadn’t been asking her those questions about her motives because he wanted to tear her apart from them. At least, that’s what the tears brimming at the edge of his eyes, not daring to fall onto his cheeks, told her.
