Chapter 16 December 16th #2
“Is everything okay?” I ask, unsure if I should. Because clearly it’s not.
He shows me his screen, as if I could see it from the other side of the room. “My father.”
“Your dad?” I ask, sitting up straight and pulling the sheet over me. The phone stops ringing, but the knocking on the door starts again. “Wait, is he here?”
“Sounds like it.” Dec pulls some sweatpants off a nearby chair and starts tugging them on.
“What does he want?”
“Is that panic in your voice?” he asks, amused.
I shrink back into the bed. “I thought you hated him.”
“I do.”
“Then care to explain why he’s here?” Early on a Saturday morning when I’m here, naked in your bed?
Dec’s mobile starts ringing again, and this time he answers.
“Hi,” he says flatly, visibly taking in air.
Patience. “Yes, I can hear you hammering on my door.” He picks up my dress and throws it toward me.
It lands on my lap, and I look at it like, what?
“On my way.” Hanging up, he points at my dress.
“This is happening much sooner than I anticipated.”
“What? Wait, what’s happening, Dec?” Please don’t say what I think you’re going to say.
“You’re going to meet my wonderful father.” He doesn’t give me anything other than those bombshell words. “See you downstairs.” And then he turns and walks out, leaving me with a mouth like a goldfish on the bed.
“Oh my God,” I breathe, disappearing beneath the sheets.
“You can’t hide,” he calls.
“I am hiding,” I yell back.
“You can’t hide from me, Camryn.” The sound of his voice fades as he gets farther away. Closer to the front door. Where his father is.
“Shit.” I dive out of his bed and grab my dress, rushing into his bathroom and falling in front of the mirror, feeling flustered.
And I look it—a complete, agitated mess.
“Oh my God,” I murmur, prodding and pulling at my wild hair, trying to coax it into something reasonably acceptable.
Something that doesn’t look like I’ve just crawled out of bed.
“Urgh.” I flick my hair from side to side, sending water spraying onto the mirror.
I give up, accepting the disastrous, untamable waves, and splash my face with cold water, slapping at my cheeks to try and get a bit of colour.
“Fuck,” I hiss, my glowing cheek stinging.
What am I doing?
I don’t need to impress Dec’s father—he hates him.
“Huh.” I reach for a towel, pat my face dry, pull my dress on, and leave the bathroom.
Despite my head telling my hands not to, they still pull at my dress as I go.
They still faff with my hair, flicking it this way and that.
They still feel at my blemished cheek. I should have tried to cover it, but I don’t expect Dec to have any makeup lying around.
Unless, of course, he’s still not cleared out his wife’s things.
I cringe at that thought, the squishy carpet sinking under my feet as I pad to the stairs, and the moment I take the rail, I hear the telltale signs of a coffee machine grinding beans, as well as smell it.
“Meeting his bloody father,” I mumble, following the curve of the staircase down to the hallway.
A mirror on the wall entices me over, and my eyes widen when I see myself in the cold, harsh, unforgiving natural light.
Oh my Christ, I look like I’ve been dug up.
My eyes are puffy, my skin’s blotchy, the evidence of a hard, uncontrollable crying fit written all over my face.
That’s it. I’m retreating upstairs, hiding.
It shouldn’t be a problem, since Dec hates his father.
I hurry to the stairs, but my foot doesn’t even make it onto the first step. “It’s malicious and you know it!” a man’s voice booms from the kitchen.
“Coffee?” Dec asks calmly, unperturbed.
“No, I don’t want no damn coffee. I want you to face me and tell me it’s you.”
“I’m going to have coffee. Mind?”
“You’re a grown man, Dec. Do as you damn well please.”
“I am and I will.” A few plates clang on the stone worktop. “Pastry?”
“Shove your bleeding pastries.”
Curiosity races like a steam train through me, pulling me toward the kitchen.
A tall man in a brown suit is standing with his back to me, a matching Trilby on his grey-haired head, a polished wooden cane in his grasp.
When he walks a few paces around the island without using it, I conclude it’s a fashion accessory.
Dec’s eyes glimmer when he sees me in the doorway. I give him a look that I hope tells him I’m feeling more than awkward. “Dick, this is Camryn. Camryn, Dick.”
Dick?
The old man whirls around, a scowl of epic proportions contorting his face. “Who?” he barks, looking me up and down.
“Camryn,” Dec repeats, licking the sugar off his fingers, a small, sick smile hiding behind his hand.
“Hi,” I say, stepping forward, holding my hand out, praying to God that Dec’s father doesn’t go all continental on me and move in for a kiss, because it’s just occurred to me that I haven’t brushed my teeth. “Nice to meet you, Mr. Ellis.”
I shouldn’t have worried. He turns away, pointing his fancy cane back at me. “What’s this then?” he asks. “Another one?”
I recoil, dropping my hand, since it’s dangling uselessly in front of me.
“Are we done?” Dec asks tiredly, not at all bothered by his father’s disrespect.
“No, we are far from done, my boy.”
“I am not your boy,” Dec grates, a flash of anger sparking from his eyes.
“Like it or not, I’m your father.”
“You’re the man who contributed to the biological side of my making. Nothing more.”
Jesus, are we really doing this in front of me? “I’m just going to make a call,” I say, thumbing over my shoulder, dying on the inside. Dec wasn’t kidding when he said he hates him.
“No need.” Dec comes to collect me and walks me to a stool, sitting me down. “He’s leaving.”
“Tell me it was you,” his father demands, smacking his stick on the floor as Dec goes to the coffee machine and pulls a cup of coffee off the stand.
“It was me. Happy?” Then he sips, oh so casual, as his father starts to visibly shake, his face going an alarming shade of red.
“What the hell are you going to do with a failing whiskey empire?” he yells. “You hate whiskey.”
“What am I going to do with it?” Dec asks. “Oh, Dick. From a man of your stature, that’s a really dumb fucking question.” Dec sets his coffee down. “I’m going to break down the company and sell off the distilleries, factories, land, and stores, bit by bit.”
“You vengeful bastard.”
“Now are we done?” Dec asks, taking a sip of his coffee.
Dick looks like steam could start gushing out of his ears. “Your mother would turn in her grave.”
I jump out of my skin when Dec’s cup hits the stone counter with a thwack hard enough to shatter it. It’s a miracle it’s still intact. “Never talk about my mother,” he warns with a lethal edge. “Do you understand me? Now get out of my house.”
“I assume this means you won’t be at Paisley’s engagement party.”
“You mean to fly the flag for the Ellises? Show a united front in the face of adversary? No, Dick. You don’t get my compliance so your new wife and your brats get to keep up appearances.” He points past him. “The door’s that way.”
Dick huffs, but I see surrender. He walks to the door and looks back at me. “Don’t get too cosy. Dec Ellis gets very bored very quickly.”
I laugh, insulted, and give my attention to Dec, waiting and expecting an explanation.
“He’s being spiteful. I was very active many years ago.” He slides a pastry across the island to me. “And when he says bored, he means in business. Coffee?”
“Please.” And that’s that? My lips twist, uncertainty kicking me in the gut as Dec, moody, makes more coffee. He was very active many years ago. Before his wife? Is she why he’s been celibate for nearly five years? Did she burn him that badly?
I groan to myself, suddenly more curious about her than I want to be. “How many women have you dated?” I try to sound casual. Fail.
Dec looks over his shoulder. “You want to have the conversation where you ask me how many women I’ve slept with, and I tell you it’s much lower than it actually is?”
“How many?”
“Fifteen. And that’s the truth. What about you?”
Oh God, I didn’t think this through. My gaze drops to the stone counter. “A few,” I murmur pathetically. A coffee appears in my downcast vision, and I peek up at Dec. “So what was that all about?”
“Oh, no.” He laughs. “You started this. You can finish it. How many?”
“Truth?”
“Yes, the truth.”
“I’ve lost count.”
He dunks his finger in the cream on my plate and wipes it on the end of my nose. “I still love you.”
And that’s the end of that? I know I can’t hide my surprise.
“I’m not interested in how many men you’ve slept with, Camryn. All I’m interested in is that you will only sleep with one man from this moment forward.”
Fuck. Could I love you more? “You bought a whiskey brand your father wanted, then?” I ask, taking Dec’s lead and moving forward rather than back.
Although I’m still super curious about his father, which I appreciate is moving back a little, but still.
I’ve gone back in time too. For the benefit of my future.
“Correct.”
“Why?”
“Because it was a good deal.”
I raise my brows and take a bite of my pastry.
“Don’t raise your brows at me.” He leans across, wiping my face with a towel.
“No daddy issues, though?” I mumble around my mouthful, restraining my smile.
“None at all.”
“Okay.”
“Okay,” he parrots.
I shrug. “Okay.”
He narrows one eye, dumping the towel and collecting his coffee, drumming his fingers on the counter.
My lips purse, watching him trying to figure out what he can say that might convince me he doesn’t give two shits about his father.
“Okay,” he murmurs, tipping his cup to his lips, circling around the island to my side, taking slow, casual paces.