5. Chapter Five
Chapter Five
Leo
T he last thing that I expect to see is a child sitting on my father’s bed. Much less him smiling at her.
“That’s not red. That’s orange!” the young girl tells Dad before breaking out into giggles.
Dad chuckles as he peers at her, not even looking my way as I stare at them in shocked silence.
I haven’t seen him like this in…forever.
After we lost Mom, it’s like he forgot that he was a dad. He treated me more like an employee. He didn’t laugh with me or praise me or listen to what I had to say.
He was harsh, and I thought that he lost this side of him.
I guess I was wrong. He just buried it deep within him.
“Who is this?” I ask once I find my voice .
Juliet looks as stiff as a statue. “She’s…my daughter.”
Did I hear her correctly?
The kid has blonde hair. Something in my chest tightens unexpectedly and the math hits me before I can stop it.
Seven years.
No.
That’s impossible…right?
“What? You have a kid?”
Juliet sucks in a sharp breath and crosses her arms. “I do.”
I blink at her, trying to remember if she mentioned anything that hinted to her being a mom. Then again, we didn’t really catch up much.
“You didn’t say anything before about being married or having a kid,” I reply as I look back at the young girl.
When she looks at me with a curious expression on her face, I quickly realize that she has her mother’s hazel eyes. She really is Juliet’s.
My lungs deflate and struggle to fill themselves again, my chest burning. What else did I miss ?
Juliet wrinkles her nose a little. “I’m not married.”
I glance at her hands, noting that there isn’t a wedding ring. I probably would’ve noticed that before if she had one. “So…”
Juliet walks closer to me, her eyes turning sharp. “He’s not in our lives anymore.”
Touchy subject. Got it.
I nod in understanding and decide not to push it. I’m endlessly curious about who she got with after I left, but I probably don’t deserve to know.
She doesn’t owe me anything.
“I’d like to talk to him,” I tell Juliet as I nod to my father.
“Not right now,” Dad replies before Juliet can even part her lips.
“Yes, right now. I have a phone meeting in an hour, so we need to talk business now,” I say, my eyes continually snapping back to the young girl as she continues to peer at me.
I still can’t wrap my head around the fact that Juliet is a mom. I always thought she’d be an incredible one, but I also thought that she would have a child with me. We planned to raise a family together once we moved away.
Dad gives me a firm look. “Piper is trying to show me her color test. We can talk business later.”
Disbelief hits me like a punch to the stomach. He doesn’t want to talk about business? That’s unheard of.
I can’t count how many times I wanted to talk to him about something, and he either interrupted me to talk about business or veered the conversation in that direction. It’s all he ever wanted to talk about.
I look over at Juliet, flashing her a please back me up expression. I get that she doesn’t want to be on my side, but she knows that Dad needs to get his affairs together. Quickly.
Juliet sighs and motions for Piper to get off the bed. “Come on, Piper. Mr. Frank needs to talk to his son.”
Piper’s eyes widen. “You have a son?”
Ouch.
Dad directs his eyes anywhere but me, and Juliet closes hers in horror. My own father talks about me so little that Juliet’s daughter didn’t even know that I existed until now .
Anger and something that hits deeper churns low in my stomach as I remain quiet, not trusting myself to speak right now. I doubt that I’ll say anything nice or civil.
Juliet takes Piper’s hand and leads her toward the door. Her eyes meet mine briefly as they pass by, an unreadable expression plaguing her face. I can’t tell if she’s sympathetic or just uncomfortable.
What can I say? My father and I have an uncomfortable relationship.
I don’t see that ever changing.
Piper looks over her shoulder at me, curiosity still glinting in her eyes. I can only imagine what questions she’s going to ask her mom on the car ride home.
I’d rather not know what Juliet answers.
Not that I think Juliet will badmouth me to her child, but I think it’ll hurt all the same to hear her refer to me as just her boss’ son. Nothing more.
“Well, what do you want?”
My father’s gruff voice cuts through my heavy thoughts, not offering me a hint of comfort. He hasn’t made me feel a scrap of peace in a very long time .
I turn back to him and move to the foot of his bed before stopping. For a while now, it has felt like there’s an invisible fence between the two of us. A boundary that we can’t cross to reach the other.
I haven’t tried crossing in a long time. I’m afraid I’ll put in the work, and he won’t even welcome me on the other side.
All that pain and effort just for the same disappointment and hurt that I felt in the past.
“We need to talk about how you want the company to be run when…” I trail off, my throat tensing.
“When I’m dead,” he states.
Another hit to my stomach. Fuck. Why does he have to say it like that?
“I’ve looked over some of the latest business reports, and a lot of work needs to be done to keep the company from going down,” I tell him, watching his face harden with every word that I say.
I’m sure it feels like a slap to the face to hear me of all people tell him this. The son who ran off to start his own more successful company .
“We’re dealing with more outside competition than ever before,” Dad replies, his voice cold and defensive.
I nod, figuring that’s one of many factors. It’s the easiest to blame the company’s downward trends on.
“There may have to be staff cuts.”
Dad narrows his eyes at me. “Those people have worked for me for years. You expect me to throw them out on their asses now?”
“When it comes to business, you have to make hard decisions sometimes. You told me that,” I remind him, my teeth slightly gritting. “I’m willing to put certain changes in place to help the company recover, but cuts may have to be part of that.”
“That’s what you’re willing to do? Make a few changes and then bolt?”
Silence follows his words as we stare at each other. Did he expect me to stay and revive his dying company?
“I have my own company to run in New York,” I tell him. “I’m trying to work with you right now to put things in motion before— ”
“Before I kick it and you leg it back to the city,” Dad cuts me, raising his voice.
It doesn’t faze me anymore when he does that.
“Were you expecting me to take over? You didn’t think to put together a board of people so that someone could take your place if you ever stepped down?” I question him, pressure forming between my temples.
“You were supposed to take over. You were supposed to stick around!” Dad bites out.
“I didn’t want to!” The words burst from me before I can reel them back, my calm demeanor shattering. “Trying to follow in your footsteps would’ve been misery for me. You wouldn’t have ever been satisfied with my performance.”
“That’s not true.”
“It is. You were never impressed by anything that I did,” I tell him, trying to lower my volume and cool down the heat flaring up inside of me.
It’s pointless to argue with someone like him, but I just can’t help but be defensive. I must love torturing myself.
“So, you ran because you were scared? ”
“I left for many reasons,” I say as I look away from him, the tension in my head starting to pound. “But I’m not here to talk about that or to argue. I’m here to help you get the family affairs in order. Are you going to help me or not?”
“I don’t need your help. I didn’t call you here!”
“I’m your only son, and you didn’t think to call me when you were diagnosed with cancer?” I snap at him, a wave of hurt crashing down on me.
“It wouldn’t have mattered!” he grits out before coughing hard. His entire body lurches from the severity, his expression twisting in pain.
My heart sinks as I watch him hunch over in bed, his hand gripping his stomach. I pushed him too damn far again. Are we ever going to stop fighting?
Or is he going to die in the middle of an argument?
I rush to his bedside and grab his oxygen mask. It wouldn’t surprise me if he was stubborn enough to not wear it as much as he should.
“Here,” I tell him as I hold the mask closer to his face. “Dad. ”
Dad sucks in a tight breath before snatching the mask out of my hand. He holds it over his face, breathing in deeply until his body collapses back against the pillows. His body trembles a little, his skin looking paler.
Even a coughing fit takes so much out of him.
“We’ll talk another time,” I say as I step back from his bed.
“Just tell me what you want to do,” Dad grumbles under his mask.
He can put on a tough face all he wants. I can tell how shaken he is.
“Later. You should rest.”
Dad shakes his head at me, disappointed as usual.
It jars me that he actually wasn’t always this way. I’ve seen pride in his eyes. I’ve heard praise from his mouth. I’ve felt his hand patting my back.
That’s what makes all this hurt so fucking much. I know what we could have instead of this.
“I’ll be in the library if you need me,” I tell him before backing away toward the door .
When he doesn’t say a word or even look at me, I turn and walk out of the room, feeling even worse than I did when I went inside. I don’t want to have these “family affairs” conversations when he’s laying in the bed that he’ll probably die in.
I don’t want to make decisions for his company. Our family’s legacy.
I head into the library and shut the wooden double doors behind me, closing myself inside one of the most peaceful, quiet places in the entire house.
There are two walls that are covered with shelves full of books.
The other wall to the right has one large floor to ceiling window that lets natural light spill inside onto the loveseat and cushioned seats in the middle of the room.
Years ago, Juliet and I would study for tests and do homework here.
At first, before I was brave enough to act on my feelings for her, we’d sit across from each other, stealing glances and smiles as we worked.
Over time, we gravitated closer and closer until we huddled together on the loveseat, shoulders touching or Juliet’s leg draped over mine.
Now, it looks like the library isn’t even used any longer. Dad had it built in the first place for my mom, but after she died, the doors remained shut most of the time unless the room needed to be cleaned.
The rooms in this house have collected memories like books collect dust. I see traces of the past everywhere I look, and I can’t tell if they comfort me or pain me more.
Either way, my chest aches so much that I can barely breathe.
I sink down onto the loveseat and close my eyes, pretending that the present reality doesn’t even exist.
Imagining that everything actually went as planned.