He held up his hands to calm me. “I’m sorry. Please just give me a chance to explain. If not for me, maybe for your sister. So things aren’t so strained at the wedding. I can’t stand what has happened between us. We’ve always been so close. And I miss you, Son.” His voice cracked on the last word. My heart ached as memories resurfaced. How he’d always been so proud of me. I couldn’t remember a time I’d heard him, almost to the point of tears.
Clenching my jaw, I balled my hands into fists as I sucked in a sharp breath. “I might be wrong, because I wasn’t raised with the best examples of love and kindness, but I don’t think people who claim to love you do what you did, Dad.” I glanced over myshoulder at Lennox. “And I have company right now. This isn’t a good time.”
Stepping back, I grabbed the doorknob with every intention of closing it in his face. But before I could do it, Lennox put his hand on my shoulder. “Hey, Mase. I’ll go. Just give me a call later, okay?”
Turning to my friend, I tried to get him to stay. “You don’t have to leave, Lennox. I have nothing to say to him.” I turned my gaze to my dad. “There’s nothing he can say to make what he did okay.”
My father hung his head as he ran his hands through it again.
Lennox put his hand through my arm and drew me back from the door. He stood in front of me like he did in the huddle, looking up at me with serious eyes. “Hear me out. You know how I feel about my Dad. And I know he has hurt you beyond belief. But I think you should hear him out, and I don’t say that lightly. I know you, Mason. And if you carry all this inside, it will eat away at you. If Thomas were here, I think he would agree.”
I turned to look at the disheveled man with dark circles under his eyes and wrinkled clothes. He looked like he’d been up all night. Turning back to Lennox, I nodded. “Yeah. Okay.”
“I’m a call away if you need me.” Lennox pulled me in for a hug, then walked out the front door.
Walking back to the doorway, I opened it wider, inviting him in. My father walked across the room and took the seat Lennox had vacated, while I sat in the chair across from him, observing the man I’d admired my entire life.
“I know you’re still upset with me. And I don’t blame you. I would be, too.” He put his head in his hands and looked at the floor. When I didn’t reply, he went on. “I just hope you can forgive me one day.”
My emotions were all over the place, vacillating between disbelief, hurt, and rage. The hurt was winning, because thetruth was I still loved my dad even though I was still raw. “It’s not that easy, Dad. And it’s not just me you hurt. Do you understand that? You had two families at one time. I’m not sure I’ll ever understand why you made the choices you did.”
When he looked up, I could feel his pain. “I didn’t know what to do, Mason. I had one more year of school to finish my master’s when your grandfather asked me to find a way to bail out the family business. When I couldn’t come up with anything here in the States, I asked him to send me to London for the summer to find a European backer. I was twenty-three when I met your mother,” he smiled at the memory, “and I fell in love with her the night we met. We couldn’t get enough of each other. She agreed to wait for me to finish school and to come back, but when I returned to New York, your grandfather was working on a deal with Harry Covington. His one stipulation was that I marry Melinda. He wouldn’t sign the deal otherwise.”
I sat forward and braced my elbows on my knees. The ache in his voice tempered my anger. “So you gave in?”
He shook his head. “No. I fought it for months. At every break, he agreed to give me time to find another company to invest in. So I went to London as many times as I could, but failed. Every time I left without an investor, it pushed us closer to the Covington deal. And the last time I went back after graduation, I told Shannon the truth. That was our last summer together, and when I got back, she called me two months later to tell me she was pregnant.”
I shifted back in my chair and looked at him. “Then what happened?”
He sighed. “I told my father, but it didn’t change anything. He told me it was my duty to save the company, and my happiness was irrelevant. It wasn’t just about me and what I wanted.” He laughed humorlessly. “I thought if I told Melinda that I was having a child with another woman, she’d drop meand want nothing more to do with me. But that didn’t happen either. She said she’d adopt the baby as her own, that way everyone could win. We could marry and start a family, and my father’s company would be secure. But when we found out we were having twins…”
I released a heavy sigh, wishing Thomas were here for all of this. “Everyone didn’t win, Dad. In fact, we all lost. Melinda was terrible to me, and you let that happen. I’ll never understand if you loved her, how were you okay taking one of us away?”
He swallowed. “I never planned to stay with Melinda. I needed to get through the merger, then I could file for divorce before the adoption went through. We married before the two of you were born.”
“I don’t understand,” I said. “If you were planning to divorce her, why did you have Maddie?”
My father scrubbed his hands over his face before looking at me. “I know this sounds fucked up, but she wanted a baby of her own. And I was her legal husband. In my mind, if I gave her a child, she’d be more inclined to let me leave with you.”
I looked at my father. “So you made a deal with the devil.”
“It was the devil I knew at the time, but I didn’t know I was creating my own version of hell.”
“Why didn’t you ever leave?”
My father looked down. “Because I was young and ignorant of the world. I tried to have it all, but ended up losing my sons anyway.”
“I’m still here, Dad. I just don’t know how to reconcile all of this. I’m going to need some time.”
“I’m willing to do whatever you need. I’ll go to therapy or whatever you both want me to do to start the healing process. Just say the word, and I’ll pay for it all.”
Before I could respond, the quiet hum of the garage door opening caught my attention. My father looked at me, knowingour conversation was over. He nodded to himself, then stood. “You have company. I should go.”
I released the caged breath, then stood as Thomas entered through the kitchen. He placed his keys on the counter, just like he did every time he came in, making me smile. When he looked up and saw my father, he stopped, then turned his attention to me. His immediate assessment of my mood made his shoulders drop. “Everything okay?”
With a half smile, I nodded. “Yes. It’s fine.”
My father’s brow furrowed as he took in me and Thomas. He looked back at me as the realization set in. “I’d better go.”
