“You came all this way to tell me that you got my letter?” she asked.
He shrugged, “and to meet the kid I never knew I had.” Well, that answered her question about whether he knew about her or not.
“My mother never told you about me?” she asked.
“No,” he breathed. “If I had known—well, I’m not sure what I would have done. You see, your mother and I met each other at a concert and hooked up. We exchanged information and everything, but I never heard from her again. Hell, we didn’t make each other any promises, and I was married and had a kid at home. It was a stupid—” he stopped, but she knew exactly what he was about to say.
“Mistake,” she whispered.
“No, not a mistake,” he insisted. “A regret. I wish that I had known about you. I wasn’t in a good place in my life back when I met your mom. I’m betting that she wasn’t in a good place either. We didn’t know each other, but I’m sure that I would have liked to have known her. It just wasn’t in the cards.”
“I see,” she breathed. Lillith wasn’t sure if any of his answers were the ones that she wanted to hear from him—but at least they were answers. “I heard that I have a sister,” she said. She had done some digging when she found out that her father was alive. She had a hard time finding anything about him—even his name was a mystery, she knew that she had a sister named Ember. Her sister’s name was written on a slip of paper in her mother’s box, and next to it was written, “Lillith’s sister” with a question mark behind it. It was all she really had to go on when she started searching for answers.
“You do,” he said. “Have you contacted her?”
“Not really,” she admitted. The thought of calling someone out of the blue and saying, “Oh, by the way, I’m the sister that you never knew about,” wasn’t really her jam.
“I’d like to say that I could introduce the two of you, but Ember hasn’t spoken to me in years. Like I said, I wasn’t in agood place back in the day. I’m afraid that I wasn’t a very good father either.” Lillith wanted to press him for more answers, but the silence between them was almost too much.
“I guess I'd better get back to work,” she said, trying to ease the tension.
“Before you go, I’d like to give you this,” he said, holding out an envelope to her.
“What is it?” she asked, almost afraid to touch it.
“Just take it and use it for whatever you need. I’m sorry that I wasn’t there for you when you were growing up or when your mother died. I was sorry to read about her passing in your letter.” Yeah, that was a shitty way of telling him about her mother’s death, but at the time, she was bitter and wanted answers.
“I don’t need anything from you,” she insisted.
He tossed the envelope onto the table in front of her and stood. “Just take it, kid. I’m loaded now, and well, what I have will belong to you and Ember someday anyway. Let me do a little bit to help you now. My number is in there, too, if you’re interested in getting to know me. I’ll leave that up to you, though.” He grabbed his bike helmet and walked to the front door. Lillith turned to watch him leave, not taking her eyes off the man who claimed to be her father. She knew the truth—he was, but it was easier to pretend that there was still some kind of question surrounding their relationship or lack thereof.
She waited until he got on his bike and rode down the road before grabbing the white envelope from the table. She pulled out what had to be thousands of dollars and gasped. Lillith was sure that she had never seen so much money before in her life—let alone hold it in her hands.
“Wow, now that’s a nice tip,” Jenna said. Lillith stood and quickly shoved the money back into the envelope. “Can you handle the rest of the day alone?” she asked.
Jenna looked around at all the empty tables and nodded. “Yeah, I think I can handle this big crowd,” she teased. “Why, did you just remember that you have somewhere you need to be now?” she asked.
“Actually, yes,” Lillith said. “I’m going to New York to meet my sister.” She took off her apron and name tag, tossing both onto the counter. “Tell Sandy that I quit,” she said on her way out the door. She wasn’t sure if she was going to count her little visit from her father as a lucky break or not, but she knew never to look a gift horse in the mouth—and she wasn’t going to start now.
Lillith walked into the church that seemed to be abandoned, and looked around the room and back to the group of women who were watching her. “We do have our work cut out for us, don’t we?” A woman asked from the front of the room.
“We’ll knock this mess out in no time,” another woman assured. “Hurricane and the guys are on their way over now. Give it a few weeks, and you won’t even recognize this place.” Lillith searched the room again and wondered if Hurricane and the guys were actual miracle workers, because that was what it would take to turn the old church into anything functional.
Lillith cleared her throat, trying to get the other women’s attention. All eyes were on her, and for a split second, she thought about turning around and just leaving, but she had come too far for that to happen. “Um, I’m looking for Ember Wolfe,” she almost whispered.
The woman standing in the front of the room stepped forward, and Lillith immediately saw something familiar in her.She stepped forward as everyone else around her stood silently by. “I’m Ember,” she admitted.
“Oh, hi,” Lillith said, giving a slight wave. God, she was such a dork. “I’m Lillith.” She said her name as though Ember should somehow know it, but she didn’t seem to.
“What can I do for you?” Ember asked, as though hoping to get to the bottom of Lillith’s visit.
“I need to talk to you,” Lillith said, looking around the room at the rest of the women. “Alone, if you’re okay with that.” Ember turned back to the other women who were all flanking her back.
“It’s okay, guys,” Ember breathed. “I’ll be fine. Just meet the guys in the parking lot and help them bring in the tools and stuff.” Ember led Lillith to the corner of the church and nodded to one of the pews that was still intact. “Have a seat,” she ordered.
“The other women all listen to you,” Lillith observed, “are you in charge of them or something?”
“Kind of,” Ember said, wrinkling her nose. “I’m this club’s Prez. Well, I will be just as soon as we have a building to house our little MC. We’re the Royal Harlots.”
