Chapter Twenty-two
Emery
Simeon seemed glad he had a job. After barely any arranging, he drove me into town.
So, okay, the three wolves all sitting in the back seat were a little intimidating, but I supposed I couldn’t have it both ways.
It was also going to be late enough that Simeon told me Phoenix would collect me, which I really liked.
Dad was already in the café when we got there, and I appreciated the wolves making themselves scarce, or nearly.
Simeon and one of the gammas took a table by the door and never once looked like we were together, merely arriving at the same time.
Dad smiled and waved a waitress over when I sat down. He ordered coffee for both of us, which I immediately corrected to herbal tea for me, and then he ordered cake. Which astonished me. Neither Dad nor Mom ever ate cake, well, not in my presence, anyway.
And he seemed different, genial almost. I didn’t know whether to be relieved or suspicious.
Small talk lasted through the waitress visiting, but then Dad said, “I’m sorry I put you on the spot with Graeme.”
If I’d been trying to swallow my tea at that point, my dad would probably have been wearing it. “I’m glad to hear it.”
He grinned. “So tell me about your new guy.”
I hesitated. I hadn’t mentioned Phoenix was my boyfriend. He chuckled. “It was a little obvious when he collected you.”
I smiled ruefully. I suppose it was. “He lives locally—”
“But didn’t you say you’d got a new job farther away?”
I nodded. “I haven’t made a final decision.” Expecting an argument. He shocked me when he didn’t protest. “Phoenix is a local contractor.”
Dad nodded and took a sip of his coffee.
“I met him when he came to work at the school.” Had I already said that? I think I did. Why was I nervous? “I can’t get anywhere with Graeme,” I said again, in case he was hoping I was just being difficult.
He sighed. “I suppose.”
But his apparent agreement didn’t feel like a capitulation. I wasn’t sure what it felt like, but you know how everyone says, the hairs on the back of their neck rose? Well, it was like that. Just like that.
I waited because I wasn’t going to talk just to fill a silence.
I was too used to that with Graeme. In the end, he’d used that trick to make me apologize for things that just weren’t my fault.
And it had taken me a long time to accept my parents would never love me for who I was, so I was through apologizing.
“Did you ever contact or try to contact your birth mother?”
For a long few seconds, I wasn’t sure I’d heard him correctly. “I can’t,” I said slowly. “It was a closed adoption agreement, whatever. You had a lawyer.”
He shrugged. “I’m surprised you never wanted to find out. It isn’t like your mother would ever be in line for Mom of the Year award.”
“Bit like you for Dad of the Year, I guess,” I snapped out. “Let’s be real here. The only reason you’re doing your paternal once-a-year summons is because you have this insane idea I can get you some money.” I finished my tea and beckoned the waitress for the check. This was pointless.
Then Dad laughed. In fact, he laughed so hard other customers glanced at us.
“Dad?” I said, glancing around, but really, what the hell had gotten into him?
He grinned unrepentantly. “You don’t look any different.”
A sick feeling chilled my body. “What?”
“Shall I come clean?” He pondered it like it was the meaning of life. Then he leaned forward. “It’s a full moon in three days.”
“And that has what to do with anything?” I managed to get out, knowing that at least he couldn’t hear my heart trying to beat its escape out of my chest.
“You mean you won’t be hanging with your new boyfriend and his buddies?” He paused. “Hmm, maybe boyfriend isn’t the word I’m looking for.” He stood. “Maybe it should be mate?”
I froze. He couldn’t possibly know. It was impossible.
Dad threw some notes on the table and eyed me, triumph shining from his eyes.
“You’ve been a waste of space for all these years, but you’re about to make up for it.
I’m giving you three days to come up with the money I need.
” He shrugged. “I’m sure the pack can afford it.
Either that or the photographs and video I have will make the front page of whatever paper offers me the most.” He inclined his head. “You have my number.”
And Dad strode out of the coffee shop. I don’t think I took a breath until Phoenix sat down. “Em? You okay, sweetheart? I was hoping to meet your dad and chat. He didn’t stay long.” He took my hand.
I gazed at him. “He knows,” I whispered.
I gave Phoenix credit for not panicking, but then I was panicking enough for both of us.
“Knows what?” Phoenix asked slowly, as if daring me almost to answer with anything other than his first suspicion.
“He says he has pictures,” I whispered. “He called you my mate, mentioned the word pack.” I was going to be sick, and I bolted upright, nearly knocking down the server with the check as I raced for the bathroom.
I vaguely knew the door had opened behind me as I ran into one of the two empty stalls and just made it before it felt like everything I’d eaten that week came back up.
I retched another couple of times but managed not to collapse on the floor, mainly because we were in a public restroom.
Yes, we. Phoenix produced a bottle of water to rinse my mouth out with and made sure I was still standing.
I flushed the toilet and just stood there for a moment, tears pricking at my eyes.
I couldn’t get Dad’s words out of my head.
And I needed a toothbrush.
An hour later, I didn’t feel much better.
I had to admit Phoenix had tried to take care of me, but to say I was less than responsive was the understatement of the damn century.
I was curled up in a blanket while all Phoenix’s betas trooped in.
Draven, Isla, Simeon, Matthew, Nicholas, and Esther.
Kaylan finally arrived, and while a couple of the betas looked shocked that Phoenix’s friend was here, I suppose I wasn’t.
This wasn’t just going to affect the wolves.
Kaylan sent me a gentle smile, and I appreciated it. “I can’t even get a message to Bayer at the moment,” he said gloomily and sat.
“From what I understand, Micah has just about closed the pack,” Draven said.
“What does that mean?” I spoke for the first time in an hour.
“It means no outside contact with either other packs or humans.”
Simeon snorted. “The Last Drop’s takings will halve.”
I assumed that was a bar, and I felt sorry for Phoenix’s friend, but my brain was too full of the current problem to have so much as an inch of space for anyone else’s.
“Em?” Phoenix said. “Now we’re all here. Can you tell the others what you told Simeon and me earlier.”
I looked beseechingly at him. Why couldn’t he tell them?
“I know it’s hard, but I’d like them to hear it right from you. On the off chance you remember anything else.”
I suppose that made sense, and I thanked Esther as she put another mug of tea in my hands. The first one Phoenix had made was cold now.
“I got a text from him yesterday asking me to meet him at The Pancake Place.” I rubbed my head.
“He told me he had financial problems, serious ones. I didn’t understand exactly what he meant, but the short of it was he still thought I was with my ex.
Not that Graeme was rich or anything, but his godmother has just died, and he’s due to inherit a house worth ten million dollars. ”
Draven’s eyebrows shot up, and Matthew whistled.
“And apparently, my dad was hoping to get his hands on seven million of it,” I added morosely. “He told me that, and I’ve thought about both conversations, and there’s no way he knew about this”—I waved my hand around—“yesterday.”
“Knew what exactly?” Draven asked and leaned forward.
“I got another text to meet for coffee this morning, and I half expected him to press me about Graeme again, but he was completely different today. He apologized. Then—” I looked at Phoenix. “I forgot.”
“What?” Phoenix was sitting next to me and took my hand that was clutching the blanket.
“He asked me if I’d ever tried to find out who my surrogate mom was.”
“Your what?” Simeon asked.
This was getting worse. “Mom didn’t give birth to me. They chose a surrogate from some catalog.” I laughed bitterly.
“Humans can do that?” Matthew asked in astonishment.
“If they have enough money,” I muttered. “My mom didn’t want to give birth to me herself, so they got a surrogate.”
“Emery,” Esther interrupted. “Do you know if they harvested your mom’s eggs?”
Matthew and Nicholas both looked confused.
“Usual surrogacy is using the surrogate mother’s eggs and Emery’s dad’s sperm,” Isla spoke for the first time. “There are some that use the mom’s eggs, fertilize them, then insert them into the surrogate’s body, but that’s a lot more complicated obviously, and a lot more expensive.”
Maybe I should have been surprised Isla knew, but given the problems conceiving, I suppose I shouldn’t have been.
“I think it was the usual method,” I said. “Because I remember Dad telling me he’d picked the way the surrogate looked so I would have a greater chance of looking like him. Hair, eye color, etcetera, even with his sperm.”
Isla glanced at Esther. “Are you thinking the surrogate had wolf shifter blood?”
Esther shook her head. “She could have, but there are incidences of blood mates being turned from humans.”
“Anyway,” I said. “I told him no because I understood that wasn’t possible, and then he got clever, and he stood to go. That’s when he started talking about Phoenix. He said he was surprised to see them yesterday, as it’s the full moon in three days.”
“Bullshit human superstition,” Phoenix said. I nodded, but really, I didn’t have a clue.
“Then he said he shouldn’t use the word boyfriend when it should be mate. He said he wanted the seven million from the pack, or he would take his story to the newspaper that would pay him the most. He said he had pictures.”
It wasn’t true, when people said silence was deafening. Right at this moment, we would’ve needed ear protectors for a tiny pin.
It was Simeon who broke the barrier. “So if I understand what you mean, somehow, between yesterday and today, he found out that shifters exist and decided to blackmail you?”
I didn’t blame his skepticism. “He was different today.” I threw my hands up. “He ordered me cake.”
“That isn’t usual?” Kaylan asked after another long moment of silence.
I shook my head.
“And there’s absolutely no way you might have slipped up and given it away yesterday?” I focused on Simeon, and my blood was beginning to boil at such an asinine question.
“Slipped up?” My voice rose a fraction too high.
“Slipping up is telling someone what you might have gotten them for Christmas. Slipping up isn’t, Oh by the way, Dad, meet my new boyfriend, great guy if you ignore that fact he shifts into a freakin’ monster with claws and fangs when someone pisses him off. ”
The words were out before I even knew I was going to say them, and I couldn’t take them back. I didn’t dare look at Phoenix. The reprimand was obvious in the look Esther gave me was enough.
I’d had enough. I couldn’t do this anymore. I swept the blanket off and bolted for my room. That was it. I was calling Gemma and getting the hell out of Dodge.