4. Dan
CHAPTER FOUR
DAN
That fucking ribbon sits so sweetly in her hair. I want to rip it from her head and wrap it around her tiny wrists, shackling her to my bed.
“Dan?”
I blink away the fantasy, finding Ally waiting for an answer to a question I never heard because I was too busy thinking about her naked. It’s all I’ve been able to think about this entire weekend.
“You’re staying for dinner, right?” Ally peers up at me from the passenger seat of my Aston Martin with this soft look in her eyes that pushes blood to my cock. The sun is low in the sky as we sit idle in the driveway of Dad and Amabella’s beach house in The Hamptons. Beethoven’s Funeral March plays quietly from the speakers. I take it as a warning sign to turn down the dinner invitation.
“Why, so I can get into a fight with my father? No thanks. I’m dropping you off and heading straight back to the city.”
“There won’t be any fighting. Josh will be happy to see you. Mom says you haven’t spoken to him since I left. ”
“That’s not true. My father and I have lovely chats every time my name lands in the media and gets him in trouble.”
She smiles at my joke. I can see she wants to retort with some speech about how my father is a good man and that family is important. It sounds like something that would come out of his mouth too.
“Oh my God, there’s Mom!” Ally jumps out of the car and races toward Amabella standing on the front porch of the house.
Ally’s mom I have no issue with. She’s lovely and oftentimes I’ve felt like she’s my own mother. Despite the broken relationship between me and my father, I lived at home with him, Amabella, and Ally right up until she left for Paris, because Ally and Amabella made it bearable. Even though I’ve kept my distance this last year, Amabella always phones to check up on me.
I grab Ally’s luggage from my trunk and carry it to the front door, by which time Amabella has her daughter wrapped in a hug.
“Sweetheart.” Amabella wipes the tears of joy from her eyes. “My goodness, look at you. So beautiful. I’ve missed you so much.”
Dad really did get lucky landing Amabella as a wife. He’s in his early fifties. She’s still in her thirties and is stunningly beautiful like her daughter. Long, blond hair, and always dresses in designer labels. Even with all the hardship she’s been through—a teen mom and losing Ally’s father to sickness when Ally was only a baby, then the physical abuse from her next partner—she still had the courage to open her heart to my father, along with all four of his sons.
“Dan, you’re not escaping a hug.” She lets go of Ally and draws me into her arms. “Come here, darling. ”
“It’s good to see you again,” I tell her, and it’s the truth.
She’s the only mother figure I’ve ever known and has always been good to me. Too good, considering what I’ve done with her daughter. The whole family is under the impression that Ally and I are just really close friends and I’m a protective older brother due to the bullying and social struggles she’s dealt with. Fuck. If only they knew. I’d lose any credibility I have with Amabella. She’s a big part of the reason why I never took things further with Ally.
“Please tell me we’ll be seeing more of you now that Ally is back from Paris,” she says.
Before I can answer, the front door opens and my father steps out, all smiles for Ally. My jaw works, tensing at his presence. The sight of him in his casual attire, willowy cotton shirt and long pants, takes me a moment to adjust to. I’m used to the city version of Josh Blackwood. The version of him that’s always in the media. Business suits every day of the year and gelled, black hair.
“Ally, I thought I heard your voice.” He tucks Ally beneath one arm. Beneath the other, Dad draws Amabella into a group hug. I stand on the outskirts of the reunion, observing this happy family I’ve never fit into.
Felix was only five when Mom died giving birth to me, but he tells stories from that time and the following years, of how distraught our father was over her death. Understandably so, but his coping mechanism was the issue. Our father threw himself into work, focusing on his hotel development projects that brought in the big money, and hired full-time staff to take care of me and my three brothers. Maybe he thought the best way to be a father was to give us financial stability, opportunities, and an education. He did give us all those things, but at the cost of no relationship with his sons .
Most of my childhood memories of my father are of seeing him on TV in a press conference or an image of him in the tabloids. He’d leave early in the morning and return late at night. Some days I wouldn’t see him at all.
I spent my early years trying to impress him with academics, believing I could earn his affection that way. He never seemed proud, so I stopped trying. I always got the sense I wasn’t good enough, and that every time he looked at me, he was reminded of my mother’s death.
He went through women like crazy. Never any girlfriends and he never brought them home to meet us. But I’d hear all about it in the media. When he started dating Amabella, he was suddenly a changed man. He was all about us being a family. He insisted we all spend quality time together and take family vacations. But the effort was too late for me and my brothers. The damage had been done. Tyler and Felix had already moved out of our home and were lucky enough to escape the forced family time. Killian and I were still finishing high school.
“Dan, join the family hug,” Amabella urges.
I force a smile. She tries to fix the tension between me and my father, but that’s a task she’s not capable of. “I’m fine where I am.”
Finally, after the initial reunion is over, my father steps back and looks at me for the first time. He offers me a firm nod. “Son. It’s good to see you. Thank you for dropping Ally off.”
“Actually, Dan is staying for dinner since he hasn’t seen you two in a while.”
My eyes dart to Ally as soon as she says the words. She sees the frustration in my eyes and responds with an innocent smile. The sweet girl act she loves to pull. It’s what makes me feral for this girl, knowing I’m the only one who sees the real Ally and that there’s nothing sweet and innocent about her. She knows what that smile does to me, and she has the nerve to use it on me right now. The fucking little brat.
“You’re staying, Dan? Excellent,” Amabella says. “I’ll add an extra place setting to the table.”
Staying for dinner hasn’t turned out to be such a bad idea. With all the focus on Ally as she retells her time in Paris, I’m barely a part of the conversation. Amabella’s cooking is delicious, and the beach views from where we’re dining on the back veranda are nice. The house is right on the water with every luxury you’d expect to find in a Hamptons mansion.
When Dad and Amabella started dating, we made proper use of this beach house for the first time and migrated here as a family every summer. Those vacations weren’t so bad, considering how massive this place is and the freedom we had. I basically never saw my father except at mealtimes. I was always doing something with Ally and my brothers, whether it be lounging around the pool, using the tennis courts, wandering the gardens and hedge maze, even playing secret games of poker in the library. The list of things we got up to was endless.
“Oh, Ally, honey, there’s something I need to ask of you.” Amabella finishes her meal, dabbing the corners of her mouth with a napkin. “Forever Families has a benefit next Saturday night. I’d love if you could play a few songs on the piano as a little entertainment. Can I count you in?”
“Of course. I’ll happily perform. Where is the event held at? ”
“Thank you, sweetie. Here in The Hamptons.”
Great. I guess I’m not seeing Ally next weekend if she’s busy up here.
“We really appreciate you playing at the benefit,” Dad tells Ally. “Since you’ve been gone, your mother has been suffering from empty-nest syndrome and has been pouring all her energy into Forever Families. It’s her new baby.”
“Yes, and my baby is thriving.” Amabella laughs, then switches her focus to me. “Dan, what have you been up to lately?”
I lean back in my chair, having finished my meal too. “Same old.” No point on elaborating. It won’t get me anywhere good.
The sound is quiet, but I swear my father scoffs in response. He swirls a glass of red wine and clasps his other hand with Amabella’s in the chair beside him. “Now that you’re back from Paris, Ally, your mother and I would like to organize a family lunch to officially welcome you home. Dan, I hope you’ll be here for it. Your brothers have confirmed. We’re planning on hosting it here in a couple of weekends once Daxton and Jordan have returned from a work trip.”
Daxton is Amabella’s cousin and one of Ally’s closest relationships. He helped raise Ally and took care of them both when he learned how bad things were with Amabella’s ex. Being a big name in hotel development, he also worked alongside my father, back before Dad decided to focus solely on Forever Families, which is how Amabella and Dad met. Jordan is Dax’s fiancée and also extremely close with Ally. I know she’d love to see both of them.
“That sounds really nice,” Ally says.
“Dan, can we expect you at the lunch?” my father asks. “We’d like to see you more. ”
I don’t believe that statement. He’s only saying it to look good in front of Amabella. The man thinks I’m more hassle than I’m worth. He cut me off from receiving my trust fund when I turned eighteen, insisting my life choices didn’t warrant the reward and that I was a disappointment. If it was a parenting tactic, he failed yet again. I’ve never wanted his money.
Any event where I have to interact with my father sounds like a nightmare, but if the lunch is for Ally and my brothers will be here, chances are I won’t have much to do with him. “Sure, I’ll be at the lunch.”
This lunch can’t be too far off if they’re hosting it at the beach house. Summer is about to end, which means my father and Amabella will be returning to their penthouse on the Upper East Side.
“When do you two plan on returning to the city?” I speak up at a lull in conversation.
Amabella pours herself a glass of water, smiling excitedly at Ally. “Actually, we’re thinking about staying here.”
“Really?” Ally gasps, matching her mother’s enthusiasm. “Oh my God, I love that. You’ll be here with me?”
Dad laughs, pleased at Ally’s response. “We haven’t seen you in so long and thought it would be nice if we were all under one roof again. Your mom and I can both work remotely and travel to the city when needed.”
“Absolutely,” Amabella adds. “We also thought living here would be a nice way to help you settle in with your new job, seeing how busy you’re about to become. I’ll cook all your meals. Do your washing.”
“Mom, I’ve been living away from home for a year. I know how to do all those things,” Ally laughs. Apparently, her year abroad has done nothing toward helping Dad and Amabella view her as an adult .
“I know, darling. But I’m your mother and I’ve missed taking care of you.”
I seem to be the only one confused by the conversation. Ally will be living in this beach house permanently? I enter a downward spiral of thoughts, trying to figure out Ally’s motives for wanting to live here, as the three of them continue sharing their excitement for being a reunited family. Call me selfish but I thought now that Ally has returned from Paris, she’d be in the city and I’d actually get to see her again.
Is that why she’s moving here, to keep her distance from me?
“Dessert time.” Amabella stands from her chair. “Josh, honey, can you help me in the kitchen?”
“Certainly.”
The two of them leave Ally and me alone on the veranda. I keep my mouth shut until they’re out of earshot. Perhaps I shouldn’t say anything at all, but frustration gets the best of me and I need to know the truth.
“If you’re moving to The Hamptons to get away from me because of what happened?—”
“Dan,” she hisses, her eyes shooting to the door with panic that this conversation isn’t private. “I got a job here, okay. This has nothing to do with you.”
I’m not convinced. “What kind of job?”
“Killian got me a job at the school he teaches at. I’ll be a private piano teacher.”
My brows narrow in confusion. “Is this job a temporary thing until you get accepted into Juilliard?”
She scoffs and looks away from me, out at the ocean. “Juilliard isn’t going to accept me.”
“That’s fucking bullshit and you know it. You got accepted out of thousands of applicants for that scholarship in Paris.”
“Juilliard is more competitive. The only reason I received that scholarship was because you filmed me playing the piano without me realizing, then secretly sent off the application. I can’t do auditions. The panic attacks haven’t gone anywhere.”
“What’s your point? See a therapist and work on overcoming your anxiety of auditions. That was your plan all along because you wanted Juilliard so badly.”
She looks back at me, her voice just as sharp as mine has turned. “Why are you so worked up over this?”
“Uh, maybe because I fucking care about you. Since when have you ever wanted to be a piano teacher?” I ask, right as I hear the door open behind us.
“Don’t discourage Ally,” my father reprimands, placing a stack of dessert plates on the table. Here we go.
Amabella is right beside him holding a lemon tart with concern etched on her face. For her sake, along with Ally’s, I hold back a groan and maintain my calm. “I’m trying to encourage Ally to chase her dreams.”
“Ally is on her own path. At least she is making sensible, adult decisions that don’t publicly humiliate and disgrace this family and all the good we are trying to do in this world.”
Fuck this. I push my chair out, the legs scraping loudly against the ground, and stand from the table with my car keys. It’s always about the Blackwood name and his goddamn Forever Families, but where the fuck has he been for the majority of my life?
Ally stands too, clutching my wrist. “Dan, don’t leave like this. Please.”
“Ally, I’d like you to stay out of this,” my father says, then directs his anger at me. “I didn’t want to say anything during this dinner, but you’ve pushed my buttons too far. Five hundred thousand dollars? Where is your brain, because it’s certainly not in your head.”
Shit. So, that news hit the media at some point since I checked my phone in the last few hours. “I’ve explained this to you before. The money I gamble with is all money I’ve won from poker. I never go into debt. Why does it matter what I do with it?”
“Dan,” Amabella interjects with a calm voice of reason. “It doesn’t matter where the money comes from. It’s about the image the gambling presents to the public.”
“Exactly,” Dad agrees, yet with none of the patience. “Money is money, and you make Amabella and me look like frauds and scammers when we are running a non-profit organization. How do you think your actions look in the public eye when we’re trying to raise money for a good cause, yet our son is throwing money down the toilet?”
“I’m leaving.”
I head for the door. Before I make it off the veranda, Dad raises his voice again. “And how dare you bring Ally into your mess.”
“What are you talking about?” Ally’s voice is timid. I hate hearing her like that.
Instead of responding to Ally’s question, Dad directs the answer at me. “Ally’s name is in the media too. Underage at a strip club. Entering a private room filled with several men. I don’t know what’s going on but that is not in line with Ally’s behavior. She would have only been placed in such a compromising situation because of you.”
Ally’s cheeks turn red and her shoulders rise, clenching into her neck. “It wasn’t a strip club. And the room I entered was to watch a poker game. ”
“Honey, you don’t need to explain yourself to me,” Dad says. “I understand. None of this is about you.”
For fuck’s sake. I head back inside, making an exit before the man has a chance to finish speaking.
“Daniel, do not walk out of this conversation.”
I don’t look behind me but I take a guess that the footsteps running after me don’t belong to my dad or Amabella.
She grabs my hand but I slip out of her grasp and continue through the house, out the front door and down the front steps to my car.
“Dan, wait,” Ally begs.
“Ally, don’t. There’s nothing you can say or do.”
She catches up to me and steps in front of the driver’s side door, barricading it with her body. “Don’t leave. Not like this. Please.”
“Why? So I can argue with both you and my father more?”
“No. I’m sorry. I hate it when we fight. I know you were just trying to help me. I planned to tell you about my new job and living in The Hamptons. It just hadn’t come up in conversation yet. Please don’t drive when you’re angry. Just… stay until you’ve calmed down.”
“There’s no chance of calming down when I’m anywhere near my father. This is why I have no relationship with him. It was a mistake agreeing to this dinner.”
I try to move around Ally to open the car door, but she grabs my wrist. “Stay for me, because I’m asking you to.”
“Ally…”
“Stay because… you’re my person.”
The history behind those words hits me hard in the chest. The way I spoke them to her for the first time right after my seventeenth birthday, begging for her forgiveness. I’d gotten drunk on my birthday—an annual habit—to forget how my mere existence in this world was the cause of my mother’s death, and how it feels like my father blames me for her death. I wanted to stop feeling guilt over how I’m the reason my brothers lost their mother.
It was the first year I’d known Ally and had asked for privacy on that day. I didn’t even want her to acknowledge my birthday. Of course, she didn’t listen, gifting me a deck of cards. The present was small and understated. Perfect, really. She said she cared too much about me to completely ignore my birthday. We got into a fight about it, and I later realized I’d been a complete dick. She wouldn’t talk to me, so I surprised her after school the next day, waiting at the gates with a bouquet of red roses.
“I’m sorry.” It was the fourth time I’d said the words that day, begging for her forgiveness. “You have to forgive me because you’re my person and I don’t know what I’ll do if you stay angry at me.”
“Your person?”
“My favorite person.” I was young. I didn’t know how to express such intense feelings to a girl, especially a girl who was about to become family and I shouldn’t have had feelings for at all. In hindsight, the words were my way of saying I love you.
“You’re my person too.” Finally, she accepted the roses and smiled at me, and I knew the words were just as meaningful leaving Ally’s mouth.
The words took on even more meaning the following year when I brought Ally to a party which ended in her having a panic attack because she felt so uncomfortable.
I remember the explanation for her anxiety once I finally managed to calm her down. “I’m not like you or any of the people here. I’m boring. I sit in my room and play the piano all day. I don’t party. I don’t even have friends outside of the family. But you thrive in this setting, and it’s easy to forget that there’s a whole other side of you I don’t know about. It makes me feel pathetic.”
Her feelings took me by surprise, that she didn’t realize how much I adored her. “Ally… you have no fucking clue, do you?”
“About what?”
“You’re my person, remember? You get the real me. You’re the only person who does.” I reached into my pocket and retrieved the deck of cards she’d bought me for my birthday. It had become a habit to carry them on me and mindlessly shuffle them whenever I had an issue on my mind. I’d think of Ally and it would calm me. Standing before her, I searched through the deck, stopping at the Queen of Hearts, and handed it to Ally for safe keeping. “This belongs to you. You’re my Queen of Hearts. Never forget it.”
Another love confession.
She told me she wouldn’t let go of the card.
That turned out to be a lie.
Along with the letter she wrote me when leaving for Paris, she slipped the Queen of Hearts into the envelope, returning it to me with the words written across it: You’ll always be my person .
“Ally…” My eyes shut tight, the pain of all those memories returning to me. “Don’t pull that bullshit on me right now.”
“It’s not bullshit. And…” Her gaze drops to the ground, her voice lowering. “I missed you too, okay. More than I want to admit. I also thought about you a lot. You know I did.”
I take her chin in my hand, tilting her head up so she can’t escape my eyes. She’s nervous but sincere. The touch of her smooth skin is electric on my palm. I notice the quickening pulse in her neck. The flush of her cheeks. Her lips open to suck in a quick breath.
She steps back from me, out of my grip. “You can’t touch me like that, Dan. I just… want things to go back to the way they were, when we were just friends.”
My hand flexes by my side, the skin on my palm tingling from the high of touching Ally’s face. “You know we were never just friends. And don’t tell me I’m your person if you don’t mean it.”
“I do mean it. Just… as friends.”
I rake a hand through my hair and groan. “Always so fucking ashamed of your feelings. I need to get out of here.”