39
Parker
Ifelt like I had displayed impressive self-control, especially when Sadie was begging me to fuck her. All I wanted to do was slam my cock into her. I was still hard. But when I came back with the wine, Sadie was sound asleep, sprawled out on the bed. I admired the way her hair flew around her, the fullness of her breasts, the way her waist tapered then curved to her hips. I wanted to wake her up and fuck her. Instead, I draped a blanket over her, drained the glass, and put the bottle back in the fridge.
I left her apartment, satisfied that I had left a good enough impression that she wouldn’t feel the need to go on the dating app. My good mood dissipated as soon as I was back at the estate.
“You missed dinner,” Hunter said as soon as I walked into the dining room.
“I was busy.”
He leveled his gaze at me. He was a lawyer and had a knack for knowing when clients or witnesses were hiding something.
“Garrett thinks you’re hiding something.”
“I’m having a torrid workplace affair with Sadie,” I said.
“It doesn’t have anything to do with Dad, does it?” Hunter said, not taking the bait. “He’s been spotted in Pennsylvania. There was some big polygamist gathering. Supposedly a bunch of people looking for additional wives.”
“I don’t know anything about that.”
“Let us know if you hear from him,” Hunter said finally.
* * *
“Is this going to be awkward?”Sadie asked the next morning when she saw me at work. I didn’t even bother looking to see if anyone was watching. I gathered her in my arms and kissed her, my hands sliding under her skirt. “Come spend the day with me.”
“I have to meet with the PR team about the event with the local farmers tomorrow.”
“I have a meeting anyway,” I told her. “I’ll be out of the office for a few hours.”
“I’ll see you later then?” she said, looking slightly concerned.
I kissed her again. “Of course.” If I survived seeing my father.
“You are not a child,” I told myself as I drove south down the highway to New Bristol. The town, an hour from my office, was smaller than Harrogate. It also didn’t have the benefit of me and my brothers investing in its improvement. It was run-down and empty; the people looked sad.
Sadie had insisted that the Rural Trust’s area of operation encompass a greater region than just the immediate Harrogate area. New Bristol would be included. It desperately needed the investment. The general decay and disinvestment reminded me of the compound where I had grown up. There were never enough resources. My father had insisted that none of his wives work. They drew money from welfare, scamming the system. With all of us kids, that money didn’t go far. We lived in a series of decaying trailers. My father would go between them, making new kids.
I rarely talked about the compound with my brothers. Each of us wanted to just forget. Sometimes when Greg and Hunter were drunk and had finished screaming at each other about Meg and the Holbrooks, they would laugh bitterly at the irony that my father seemed to only be able to produce sons, with only a small handful of daughters.
You could call Garrett. You could call Remy. You could stall Leif, and they would come get him.Then what? What if he had my remaining sibling still in the compound on some sort of kill switch? My father wasn’t dumb. He was, however, crazy and paranoid.
My father wanted me to meet him in a derelict café on the main street. Sandwiched between a pawn shop and a title loan shop, the café boasted the best pie in New York State and all-you-could-drink coffee. My father was the only person in the café. He was sitting in the back corner, long legs stretched out before him.
Call Garrett!
Too late. Leif saw me and rose to greet me. He was tan from being outside in the sun, but he had my same build and blond hair.
“Parker,” he boomed, spreading his arms wide. During his rare good moods when I was a child, my father would make that gesture then sweep me up and toss me in the air. I wasn’t going to hug him though.
I extended my hand. “Father.”
Leif shook my hand and patted me on the back.
“Pie?”
“I’m not hungry.”
