Page 4 of Winning Her

I’d always wanted to leave after my mother died. She had pretty much been my world growing up because dad was always busy. Losing her had been a big blow, and what was worse was how quickly Dad found a woman to replace her. I was against him remarrying and he’d done it anyway. He gave all his affection to his new wife and the family she gave him, and I moved myself to the side, distancing myself before they had the chance to push me out.

My brothers were the only ones in the family I talked to with any regularity, and even then, they rarely wanted to talk to me because I’d made it clear I wanted out of the family’s clutches.

Now, here was my sister, calling me over something to do with my father. It was just strange enough to have me curious.

I refocused on my PA who was still squirming in front of me and sighed as I waved a hand at her.

“Patch her through.”

She looked visibly relieved as she left my office. A moment later, the phone at my desk rang. I took a deep breath to steel myself, before picking up the call.

“Hello?” I said, my voice coming out the same as if I was taking a formal business call, the pitch just right to make a man think competence and a woman think of sins.

“Trent?” came the light voice. “It’s me, Emily.”

“What can I do for you, Emily?” I tapped a rapid beat on my desk with my fingers as I worked to keep my impatience out of my voice. She’d barely spoken, and already I wanted to cut the call.

“Sorry for calling you up at work,” she said. You don’t sound very apologetic to me, Emily, I thought to myself as she hesitated. “But I’m afraid it’s something important. It’s Dad.”

I rolled my eyes. “Not everything to do with Dad has to be important, so you’re going to have to be a little more specific than that. I am in the middle of my working day, and you’re holding me up right now.”

There was a short silence. When her voice came again, it was just a tad colder. Not too much though. I’d never heard Emily ever sound cold or angry, even as spoiled as she must have been, growing up the only daughter for Dad to dote on.

“You’ll want to come back home for this, Trent. I know you can't be bothered with the rest of us but don’t you at least care what’s happened to him? Just come back home, Trent,” she finished with a lilt of pleading at the end.

Why the fuck should I? I wanted to growl down the line. After everything I’d done to distance myself from my family, to act like I wasn’t one of them… I was finally free of them. And now what? Just because she said so, I had to head back to Charlotte, the place I’d left all those years ago without a single glance back? Back to a life I’d wished for so long that I could leave behind, a name I’d wanted to leave behind.

It wasn’t that I hated my father. If something were really up with the old man, it would worry me. The first few years when it was just me, Mom and Dad had been wonderful and the best years of my life. I did, however, resent all of Dad’s choices ever since Mom passed away, and the demands he’d made on my life as if he had the right to just because he’d fathered me.

My life was mine to live how I wanted. I wasn’t ready to give that up, even for my father.

“Trent?” Emily said, her voice questioning.

I was brought out of my revelry, and I realized I must have been silent for too long. I couldn’t help myself. I was in control of everything else in my life, but this was something I couldn’t do anything to change. When it came to my complicated family, it was so easy to forget myself.

“Yes?” I murmured to let her know I was still listening.

“Can't you come back?” she asked simply, but the question was far more complicated than any of them truly realized.

I kept my silence. If this was another of Dad’s schemes to try and drag me back there… he was going to be so fucking disappointed.

“Dad had a heart attack,” she said, at last, a note in her voice I’d never heard before. Was it desperation? Grief?

The words were dropped so suddenly, so quietly, that it took me a minute for the words to sink in. When they did, I felt my gut clench uncomfortably.

“I’m sorry, what?” I said, my voice tight, hoping I’d just misheard. “Dad had a what?”

“A heart attack,” she repeated, her voice clear. “For this much, do you think you can finally come home? I know he’d want to see you, Trent.”

When… how?

Those were the primary thoughts running through my brain. I wanted to say it was impossible, but when was the last time I’d talked to Dad? He’d been fine then, but I was pretty sure it was more than a year ago. It was a hard pill to swallow that a strong, proud man like my father could have had a heart attack. He worked himself hard but he’d always kept fit and healthy!

At least… as far as I’d seen, which I had to admit, wasn’t much lately.

Well, fuck.

“Give me a day,” I said to Emily, my voice a bit abrupt, but I didn’t care.