Chapter 17
The dining room was just as lavish as the rest of the apartment with a long table that ran alongside one of the huge windows overlooking the city.
At the far end of the room, I could also see an outdoor terrace with a swimming pool.
It was emitting a warm blue glow as lights shone up from below the surface of the water.
The room felt too big and too grand for a father-daughter dinner.
It felt so formal and nothing like my meals back home with my mom.
We always sat on stools at the kitchen counter whenever we ate.
We didn’t have a proper dining table, and I found I was somewhat grateful for that.
Matthew’s setup didn’t feel comforting or homely at all.
We took a seat at the massive table, and waitstaff arrived moments later. I hadn’t seen them in the kitchen, so I had to wonder if there were other rooms I’d missed on the tour. It wouldn’t have surprised me.
“I know you’re not feeling well, so I had Jacques prepare something light to start with,” Matthew said. “If you’d like something else, I can have him put it together—”
“This is perfect,” I said, interrupting Matthew as a bowl of chicken soup was placed before me along with a freshly baked but plain bread roll. “I’m not sure I could handle much more than this.”
He smiled at me before he started on his own bowl of soup. I felt bad he was being subjected to the same bland food as me, but I was glad he hadn’t had his staff go to extra effort to accommodate two different meals for us.
I took a small mouthful of the soup and was immediately surprised by how something so basic could taste so good. It made me wish I were feeling better so I could try more of Jacques’s cooking. If he could make chicken soup taste this good, I couldn’t begin to imagine what else he was capable of.
I lowered my spoon after taking several mouthfuls and considered my father.
I knew I needed to ask him about Noah’s family, but I wasn’t sure where to begin.
I also wanted to find out what Noah was doing at his office today, but I didn’t know how to bring that up without admitting I’d gone there to ambush him.
“How has school been?” Matthew asked, breaking the silence between us before I had a chance to broach any of the topics on my mind.
“It was fine. Nothing too exciting going on really.”
“Have you had a chance to take your car for a spin yet?”
“Uh…” My cheeks reddened as I remembered what a disaster my attempt to drive it had been. “Once. It didn’t go well. I’m not a very good driver.”
“Your mother said you were still getting comfortable on the road.”
I was surprised he’d spoken to my mom about it. Perhaps he’d wanted to get her approval before getting me the car. If that was the case, I’d be even more surprised she didn’t tell my father the car was unnecessary. Mom accepted charity even less easily than me.
“That sounds like she was trying to put it nicely,” I said. “I’m a terrible driver. I just get so nervous.”
He gave me a conciliatory smile. “Would it help if I arranged a driving instructor for you?”
I hesitated.
“They might be able to help you gain a little confidence?”
After my disastrous drive with Anna, I’d been determined not to get behind the wheel again, but perhaps Matthew was right and with an instructor I could build the confidence I needed. “Uh, yeah, that might be a good idea,” I agreed. It couldn’t be worse than my experience with Anna.
“Okay, I’ll have Caldwell set it up.”
“Thanks.” I smiled.
“Also, Caldwell tells me you haven’t used the credit card I got for you.”
“Oh, uh, I haven’t really needed to yet. They have everything I need at school.” I’d completely forgotten I even had the credit card. I felt uncomfortable at the idea of using Matthew’s money. It was bad enough he’d paid for my schooling and given me a car.
“Well, it’s there to be used.”
“Like I said, I don’t really need anything.”
He chuckled under his breath. “You must be the first teenager that has to be encouraged to use their parent’s credit card,” he said.
I shrugged. The whole thing made me uneasy. I didn’t like spending money unnecessarily, especially his, and I had enough money saved in tips from working at my mom’s café to get me by.
He took a sip of his drink before he continued. “I hear you’re doing well in all of your classes.”
I guessed that meant he’d been checking up on me again. “Yeah, I’m doing okay. I like schoolwork and kind of throw myself into it.” Especially when I was trying not to think about a certain boy who’d broken up with me. Not that I was going to admit that to Matthew.
“I was the same at your age,” he admitted. “I always had my nose in a book.”
“Really?”
He nodded. It wasn’t surprising given what a successful businessman he seemed to be. But it felt nice to know we shared that in common.
“Mom never really understood it,” I said. “She’s always been better at hands-on learning rather than book learning.”
Matthew chuckled. “Candice was the same back when we dated. You could show her how to do something once, and she’d be a master in minutes, but there was no way you could get her to learn it out of a book.”
It was strange hearing Matthew talk about my mom. My whole life, I’d never heard details of their relationship. I had only ever focused on the fact he’d left and wasn’t around. “Mom never really told me much about the two of you dating.”
The lightness in Matthew’s eyes dimmed somewhat at my words. “I don’t blame her. She must have hated me, thinking I’d abandoned the both of you.”
I shook my head. “I don’t think it was that. I get the feeling she never talked about you because she found it too hard.”
“I find it hard to talk about too. It took me a long time to get over your mother,” he murmured. “To this day, I haven’t met someone as special as her. I can’t tell you how many sleepless nights I’ve experienced since finding out I could have had the both of you in my life all this time.”
I slowly stirred my spoon around the bowl as I summoned the courage to ask my next question. With a deep breath, I blurted it out. “What would you have done if you’d got my mom’s letter about me?”
My stomach twisted with nerves, and I couldn’t look him in the eyes as I waited for his reply. Matthew reached across the table and took my hand in his. Slowly, I peered up at him.
“I would have done whatever it took to keep you both in my life,” he said. “I had a difficult relationship with my father, but I will never forgive him for not telling me about you. I regret that we’ve missed the last seventeen years together more than anything.”
Matthew really wanted me in his life. He truly wanted me.
And I could see it now so clearly in his eyes.
I gave him a smile as he squeezed my hand.
When he released it, he coughed and glanced away, like he was struggling to keep his feelings at bay too.
He turned his attention to his food, and I took this as my cue to eat something myself.
It was hard sharing emotions with someone when you were still only on the precipice of getting to know one another.
The soup Matthew’s chef had prepared was amazing, but I barely seemed to taste it anymore. It was hard to focus on eating when your long-lost father had just told you how much he wanted you in his life.
“I suppose you would like to hear about what happened with the Hastings family,” Matthew said.
My eyes lifted in one swift movement to meet his.
After everything Matthew had just admitted, I didn’t want to put a dampener on our dinner by turning the conversation to a topic that seemed so fraught with pain and anger.
I also didn’t want to hear what he had to say if it was going to support Noah’s claim that Matthew was a bad person.
The thought made me a little queasy. It felt like we were finally bonding, and I didn’t want to ruin that.
I wasn’t sure when I’d have another opportunity to talk with him about this though. And if my father truly had a malicious side, it was better I know that now. I had Noah’s side of the story, but I needed my father’s too. It was time I had the whole truth.
I slowly nodded. “I just feel like I’m stuck in the middle of something I don’t fully understand. You seem to hate them just as much as they hate you. And me... They hate me too just by association.”
“I’m sorry you’ve been made to feel that way. I’ll do my best to explain,” Matthew started. “There’s a history with our families, and it’s not very pleasant.”
He drew in a breath as if bracing himself for the story he had to tell.
“Back when your grandfather and Noah’s grandfather were young and just starting out in their careers, they worked together,” he said.
“James LaFleur and William Hastings were both brilliant and determined scientists, but they also shared a stubborn competitive streak and an inability to compromise or forgive.
“They fell out after a fire started in their lab and destroyed years of hard work,” he continued.
“To this day, no one could tell you for sure what caused the fire, but they both blamed each other and went their separate ways. That might have been the end of the feud, but William Hastings lodged a patent on the cancer treatment they’d been working on together.
A treatment my father believed had been lost in the fire. ”
“Wait, so you’re saying that William stole my grandfather’s work?” I asked.
“It was both of their work, but yes,” Matthew said.
“It only confirmed to my father that William had started the fire to cut him out. It commenced years of backlash and fighting. They were constantly competing or attempting to sabotage one another. My father was in and out of court for almost a decade trying to prove he had a right to his own work.”