2 #2
Gathering what little courage I could muster, I forced myself up to the front door. Before I could even raise my hand to knock, it swung open, revealing a woman I didn’t recognise.
I blinked, my gaze flicking over her neat uniform, and that alone told me enough. She was the new housekeeper, even if her face was unfamiliar.
I wonder where the tradition of keeping a housekeeper had begun.
The thought crossed my mind before I could properly register. Tucking it away to look up later, I gave her a smile.
“Miss,” She said with a small nod, and a practised smile. “Your father is in the news room.”
Of course he was.
I stepped inside, the warmth of the house calming the bite in my cheeks, the scent in the air was familiar, and yet there was a hint of change in it too.
The inside of the house looked exactly as it always had, every surface in it’s place, every detail controlled, as if nothing here was ever allowed to shift without permission.
“Would you like something to drink?” She asked, shutting the door behind us. “I’ve just put a kettle on.”
I cleared my throat, forcing to remember she was a kind lady, and probably didn’t need to know the inner workings of my father—just yet. “I’m not sure if I’d be staying around long enough to finish that drink.”
Her lips pressed into a thin smile, like she knew exactly what I meant, and nodded.
Wonderful.
Without bothering to take off my coat, I murmured a quick thank you before heading past her.
Growing up I had learned that there was a clear difference between domestic houses, and well, my father’s house.
Where you’d normally find a living room, and open space…
my father had a custom build news room. And yes, it was as horrific as it sounded.
Multiple smaller screens lined together, displaying different channels while the biggest screen in the middle played the one he was most interested in.
Although, there were times I’d caught him playing game footage too, but I’d always considered it to be an outlier, and not something worthy enough to replace the name it held.
I hovered near the door frame, my eyes landing on the screens first as they debated the same story, headlines looping, commentators dissecting, voices rising and folding over one another.
My name crawled across the bottom of one screen, paired with the contents of my research paper that held my attention before I registered what my father was saying. “I’ll handle it. She’s on her way—”
I stepped in properly then, careful, like the room might turn on me if I moved too fast.
His head snapped in my direction, sensing my presence and something close to disappointment passed through her expressions, and I stilled.
At forty-four, Mason Knox was exactly like the kind of man the screens loved, tailored, composed, and always half a step ahead of the narrative he was feeding them.
There was something unmistakably athletic in the way he carried himself, like he hadn’t entirely left the field behind after a bad injury, just traded it for sharper suits and sharper words.
His voice carried easily, low and assured, the kind that didn’t need to demand attention because it expected it.
And as much as I hated it, there was still something familiar in it, something that settled somewhere deep before I could remind myself why it shouldn’t.
He ended the call without even bothering to finish his sentence, before flicking one button on the remote and muting all the screens simultaneously.
“What happened to Mrs. Smyth?” I asked, keeping my tone even, like that was the only thing I’d come in for.
“Retried.” He replied, his voice clipped and short.
I nodded, because what was I supposed to say to that?
I rocked on the balls of feet, remaining silent.
This is weird.
It was then that I realised that my father has never asked me to “come see him” before.
Even when I’d done something worth reprimanding me for, or something worth questioning, he’d always kept his distance, choosing calls over conversations, short clipped texts over anything that required him to actually look at me.
And when he used to finally see me, he used to joke about it.
Called me trouble with that half-smile of his, like it was something to be managed from afar rather than understood up close.
So this wasn’t routine. It wasn’t obligation, either.
It felt deliberate.
And standing there, his gaze focused on me, made me realise a part of me was equally happy as it was terrified.
Clearly, the so called daddy issues were breathed life into that I’d finally gotten enough attention to have this. Well, until he spoke and broke the bubble, anyway. “You’re late.”
By two minutes. I had to bite my tongue hard to make sure the words didn’t escape me. When I was sure I had complete control of the next words, I nodded. “I got caught up in traffic.”
He shook his head, like silently chiding me for not leaving early, but I didn’t bother to fill in the silence to tell him that I had.
A beat of silence turned into two, before it extended long enough to rattle frustration in him.
“Is that all you have nothing to say, Maeve?” I frowned, my attention focusing immediately on the absence of my usual nicknames.
All my life, I’d either been trouble or Eve to my father—the only person in the family to ever call me that.
Never Maeve. Hearing my actual name now only made me more aware of just how angry he was; far angrier than I’d predicted.
“What exactly do you want me to say?” I forced out, keeping my voice steadier than I felt. “It’s not like I wrote the paper on you—”
“You wrote it on my player,” he cut in. “They’re questioning my judgement for letting him play as much as they are him for not stepping back himself.”
“I think everyone’s overreacting,” I replied, sharper now even though my voice held a bored tone to it.
“The paper’s been out for a month. I’m not even sure why the media’s suddenly decided to care.
” I exhaled through my nose. “And if they are questioning your judgement, I’m sure you can show them the same confidence you showed Mr. Egotistical himself by not benching him the entirety of last year.
He was one of the players with the highest number of injuries all year. ”