78. Now
SEVENTY-EIGHT
now
Marco and my mother have me dried out by dinner time on Sunday.
After taking Ella to her appointment, Amir showed up at my penthouse and proceeded to take every last drop of alcohol out of the place. Since I was passed out on my sofa—unable to confront the bed that smelled like Ellie and me and the love we made—I didn’t get a chance to object.
Next, my mother arrived. She spent about twenty minutes ranting at me in Spitalian before switching to English. Her yelling cleared what little buzz remained, launching me head-first into a midday hang over from hell. Without a drop of sympathy, she forced several glasses of water down my throat and all but marched me to the bathroom, demanding I shower and dress for dinner.
When I emerged an hour later, she silently handed me coffee in a travel mug—Ella’s travel mug. Refusing to give explanation, she simply said, “Let’s go.”
By the time Barnes delivers us to my parents’ townhome, I am an empty shell. Hollowed out. With the occasion throb of pain where my heart should be.
We eat a meal in complete silence. I don’t even know what. Some meat, potatoes. A salad course. Some other thing. I eat it all, stuffing food down my throat to keep a lump from forming there, hoping it will smother the seethe in my stomach.
Plates are cleared. Mom goes to make even more coffee.
“Son.”
I know it’s coming. I’ve studiously ignored my father’s heavy stares since I arrived, but I figured he wouldn’t be able to hold his tongue all evening.
“I have nothing to say to you right now.”
It’s the most diplomatic thing I can come up with. And true. I don’t have a single idea of what to say to him. He helped my uncle cover up Daniel’s “youthful indiscretion.” And encouraged Mom to hide Ella’s apology letter from me.
“You need to listen to me,” he argues. “The girl from his prep school?—”
“Save it.”
The lash in my voice surprises me. Through all the years my father and I spent going around in endless disagreements, neither of us have ever been cruel.
He seems to have aged years in a day. Weariness saturates his eyes as they meet mine. “I only want to say—there’s no excuse for disregarding allegations like the ones leveled against your cousin. I hold myself personally responsible for every woman he harmed thereafter. And doubly s o for anyone that he’s attacked since he’s been in our employ.”
A new sort of guilt invades. I didn’t know there could be another type. I thought I had felt them all. But, sitting there, listening to my father take full responsibility for the depraved actions of a monster lends a new sort of chagrin.
“You’re not personally responsible,” I mutter, deflating slightly.
He drops his gaze to the table between us. “I feel as though I am. I should have asked more questions. Gotten more involved. Had him followed or monitored or…”
Jesus. He sounds like me. Or I sound like him.
Graham often tells me I’m too hard on myself. He claims I always take responsibility for things that aren’t my doing. Seems I come by it honestly.
While that realization sinks in, the last of the fight drains out of me. There isn’t much left, after all. With everything I once loved lying in waste, I don’t know if I’ll ever summon the strength to move forward.
“What do we do now?” I ask.
My father straightens in his chair, his expression hardening. “We’ll find a way to disinherit him. And see him locked up for the rest of his life.”
I already have Marco working on both of those goals. Fury and determination clench my jaw. “I’ll use every resource at our disposal to make sure he never gets out. I have to know he won’t ever come after her again, or I won’t be able to live with myself.”
Something dark moves through Dad’s eyes. “Neither will I.” He pauses. “Have you… spoken to her? Your mother is quite concerned about her. So am I.”
But neither of them can possibly be as worried as I am.
The nauseous disquiet roars back to life within me. I reach for a leftover basket of bread and swallow half a roll in one bite, piling more food on top of it.
“No. ”
I can’t. I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve picked up the phone to call her. And every single time I realize I have no idea how to adequately express how much I hate myself for everything I’ve done. And all the things I failed to do.
I feel like I have a new regret to languish over every hour. Why did I believe she ran when, in my heart, I always knew better? Why did I let my pride take over and stop me from trying to find her? Why didn’t I ever question how Daniel got so many women to go home with him, why he always insisted on purchasing and delivering their drinks for them? Why the fuck did I go around chasing girls to drown out my loneliness instead of waiting for Ellie the way she waited for me?
Sitting in the dining room, immersed in grief, one of my most poignant regrets rises to the surface. “I never even told her I loved her.”
“Yesterday, you mean?”
“No,” I murmur. “Ever.”
I’ve spent years under my father’s tutelage.
As his son .
As his heir .
As the future of our family and our company.
I’ve fucked up more times than either of us care to remember. But never, in twenty-six years, has my father looked at me like I’m a failure.
Until this moment.
“Grayson.” He blows out a sigh and shakes his head, unfolding from his seat as he returns my earlier words to him. “If that’s true, I have nothing to say to you right now.”
The crushing weight on my soul bears down harder, pulverizing the shards into dust. Prickling, heated self-loathing joins the smolder in my stomach.
What the fuck am I doing?
I don’t stay long enough to think about it.