My father studies me quietly while I stand beside my chair, frozen. Stone pulls it out for me. “For God’s sake. Just sit down.”
My entire body is stiff from the shock of this. Every limb feels heavy as I lumber into the chair and sit across from my dad.
He watches me with eyes full of questions. I drag my gaze away, refusing to look at him.
Stone’s phone rings. He slides it from his pocket and gives the screen a nonchalant glance. “I’ve got to take this. You two get started. Order me a water and the rib eye.”
“Wait.” But it’s too late. My brother’s already gone, slipping into the crowd of waiters as they approach their tables.
How convenient. Perfect that Stone would receive an important call and have no choice but to abandon me with our father.
I scoff. This is unbelievable.
My dad watches me like I’m a tiger just escaped from its cage. That’s how I feel. Like my skin’s too tight to contain me, like I’m on the prowl, searching out anything smaller and weaker, something I can sink my teeth into and destroy.
How could Stone have done this?
As much as I’d love to walk away, in the corner of my vision, waitstaff convenes, slyly looking over their shoulders at me and whispering to one another.
Great. I’m on display.
Someone’s probably getting video of this. Capturing the newest CEO on the verge of a complete meltdown.
Making a scene is not the right choice here.
“Look, I don’t know why Stone set this up, but there’s no point in it. I have nothing to say to you.”
He folds his hands on the table, and I take a moment to study him. He looks the same as he did when we were children, except his hair is now white. It’s also thinner, and his jaw is weaker. He has that same quiet confidence that I remember, and when he smiles slightly, all those times when he declared the platitude of the day, the cliché of the hour, flood back to me, and I remember how much I loved him.
And how quickly he destroyed our family.
I don’t know why I’m here. I adjust in my seat, leaning forward and smiling so that none of the waitstaff or managers sense that anything’s wrong.
“I’ll stay for fifteen minutes, but there’s nothing you can say that will change anything. You left us, walked out on our lives, and not once, in all these years, have you tried to reach out to me. But here you are, now that Stone and I have established ourselves within the company. What do you want? Money? Have you spent everything our mother gave you?”
He frowns. “Your mother never gave me money.”
A laugh explodes from my throat. “Oh, that’s rich.” I repeat his words with so much bitterness that a sour flavor bleeds across my tongue.
“It’s true.”
The waiter arrives and I order Stone’s rib eye, as well as a water and salad for myself, wanting to get the hell out of here as quickly as possible.
“Look, Pane,” my father says when the waiter’s gone, “I know what you think of me.”
Fury burns a hole in the bottom of my stomach. “How could you possibly know what I think?”
“Because I know what I would think if my dad had abandoned me like I did to you.”
“At least you admit that you abandoned us,” I growl.
He folds his hands and stares down at them. “Your mother made me.”
When he doesn’t move, I say, “What are you talking about?”
He opens his mouth, but pauses, seeming to weigh his words. “I never wanted to leave, but your mother had this idea that I was a threat to the family business. So she divorced me, got a restraining order, and threatened that if I ever came within an inch of either you or your brother, she’d have me arrested and thrown in prison for the rest of my life.”
I freeze. “What?”
