“Too bad,” Leif said, lazy smile on his face.
I gritted my own teeth.
“Darlin’,” he greeted the waitress when she came over with coffee.
She giggled. “Is this your brother?”
Run, I thought silently.
Leif laughed. “This is my son, if you can believe it. Better looking than his old man!”
“He’s not your son. You’re too young.” The waitress tucked a blond curl behind her ear and giggled as my father charmed her.
I was twisting my napkin and forced my hands to be calm. This was a mistake.
“Now you,” my father said to the waitress. “Krystal, you don’t look old enough to be a mom either.”
“How did you know?” she asked.
My father lifted up her shirt to expose her Greatest Mom In The World tattoo.
“Just a guess.”
She laughed. I clenched my jaw. My father was out of control. I should have called Garrett.
“How old is your daughter?”
“She’s twelve.”
“Is she now? I have a twelve-year-old girl. You know, you should come out west to visit. I bet our girls would really like each other.”
Do something.
I was paralyzed. It was like being a helpless kid again.
“Can I see a picture of her? Is she as pretty as you?”
Krystal the waitress batted her eyelashes at my father.
Man up, Parker.
“I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” I said, trying to adopt the bored, annoyed tone Garrett and Greg used that had always pissed my father off so much. “He has, oh, how many wives is it, Dad, eight? Nine?”
The charming mask dropped from my father’s face. It was terrifying. But I was a billionaire and successful business owner. I refused to let him scare me. I leaned back in the booth, draping an arm casually over the back, and narrowed my gaze at my father.
Krystal smiled in confusion.
“I’m serious,” I told her. “He’s a polygamist.”
She jerked back. “You trying to make me one of your wives or something? I don’t do that.”
“Shut up, Parker,” my father spat, leaning forward.
I flicked my gaze to him then the waitress. “No,” I said. “I think actually he wants your daughter as one of his wives.”
The waitress turned and ran to the kitchen, yelling to the fry cook about a kidnapper.
My father grabbed his coat. “You’re going to regret this. I’m going to make you wish you were never born.”
