Chapter 13
My father insisted we leave a few minutes early so he could inform the doorman that we’d be receiving guests. I knew he wanted to be alone with me, somewhere he could confront me about the events I’d set into motion. Fortunately, I was saved from this interrogation for the time being by Maddox’s insistence that we share a cab with him and Kristin. She slid onto the leather seat after me and crossed her legs, graceful, birdlike. A seagull who would not stop squawking.
Maddox watched me in the rearview mirror from the passenger’s seat, his gaze bold and unwavering. He wanted me to know I was of interest to him.
We made small talk in the elevator, my father thumbing at his phone while Kristin rambled, and I made encouraging non-word noises with my throat. He hadn’t said a word to me since we’d left the restaurant, hadn’t so much as glanced in my direction. Still, I could sense his anger acutely in the muscles of my shoulders and neck, like gravity dragging me to the ground as we climbed skyward.
The metal doors parted. My father let us into the apartment, leaving the front door ajar for the remaining guests. He poured glasses of wine for Maddox and Kristin, and a tumbler of scotch for himself. I was about to pour myself a drink when my father put his hand over my glass.
“What do you think you’re doing?” His voice rumbled at a simmer, quiet and controlled. Maddox and Kristin had drifted into the living area, far enough to escape our conversation, but not so far that even a quiet standoff would go unnoticed for long.
“Getting a drink,” I said.
His stiff posture made him seem more formidable than usual. He took my glass and filled it with water from the tap, then plunked it on the countertop in front of me. Water sloshed over the sides and onto the stone.
“Sometimes I forget that you’re still a teenager,” he said. “Then you pull this shit and I’m reminded of just how immature you can be.”
“You don’t seem to mind my immaturity when I’m sucking your cock.”
“Watch your fucking mouth,” he growled. The disapproval in his stare was sharp enough to pierce muscle and bone. I grasped my elbows, wishing I could collapse in on myself like a star, brilliant and destructive. How cute, I thought, the man who’d been missing-in-action for most of my adolescence was disappointed.
Until recently, his last memory of me had consisted of a gangly kid in braces shouting, “See you next weekend, Daddy,” from the front stoop. He had no idea how much or how little I had matured since he left, and no clue how his disappearance had stunted me. Time had stopped the day I realized he was never coming back.
My heart cracked like an egg, oozing blood-red yolk into the pit of my stomach.
“I’m just giving you a taste of what you missed,” I said. “Parenting is hard, but you wouldn’t know anything about that.”
He balled his hands on the countertop like he was struggling not to use them.
“Have you forgotten that I raised you for twelve years?” he rumbled. “I know damn well how hard it is to stay calm when your kid throws a tantrum because they want something, and you won’t give it to them. I just didn’t think I’d still be dealing with that kind of behavior at your age.”
He was only half-right. I wasn’t courting chaos because he wouldn’t fuck me, though I still wanted him to. I was shaking the tree and assessing the dropped fruit, looking for clues I’d been too distracted to notice while I was busy falling in love. Once again, I’d found myself in the position of being coddled like a child who couldn’t handle the truth. After trusting him with so much of myself, it felt like the ultimate betrayal.
I hissed, “And you think you can keep your conscience clean by fucking my mouth instead of my pussy.”
Kristin’s laughter pierced the air. My father glanced over my shoulder, no doubt to make sure she and Maddox were still out of earshot.
“Trust me, sweetheart, my conscience is anything but clean.”
“You’re a liar. Just like Mom.”
“I never lied to you, Paige.”
“A lie of omission is still a lie,” I said a little too forcefully.
The elevator dinged in the hallway, spilling the gaggle of drunken painters, art dealers, and stupidly wealthy collectors from its maw. They filed into the apartment, remarking on the incredible views and my father’s impressive collection of Baroque paintings. He shot me a stern glance before going to greet them.
I dumped the water down the sink and refilled the glass with three fingers of scotch. The caramel-colored liquor burned my throat and raised the temperature of my blood. My head felt swimmy after just a few sips.
My father stood with Michelle and her husband by the dining table, the three of them taking particular interest in the centerpiece of a serpent eating its own tail my father had recently bought from a gallery show. I avoided his gaze as I made my way to the sunken living room, swaying a little as I went. I was going to trip if I wasn’t careful. Kicking my heels off, I weaved between the clusters of guests, mentally batting away bits of their conversations.
“I heard he’s still fucking her. He has to be…”
“There’s no way he bought that at full-price?—”
“I heard it was a gift.”
“More like payment for services rendered.”
Kristin had joined one of the artist couples and a journalist for Art in America on the couch. I tried to slip past them, but halted when I felt a tug on the hem of my dress. A smug-looking guy in a black felt hat whose name I couldn’t recall had caught hold of my dress and was not-so-stealthily attempting to peek under it.
“Paige, come sit with us,” Kristin slurred.
I shot the pervert a nasty look and forcefully removed his hand. “There isn’t any room.”
“You could lay across our laps,” he said, patting his thigh. The grin on his face made my shoulders want to kiss my ears.
“I’ll pass.”
The two made drunken sounds of disappointment. I scanned the room. The man I wanted to speak to was watching me from my father”s favorite club chair. I extricated myself from the others and came to stand before him.
Maddox smiled like he’d been expecting me.
“Hey there.” He patted the cushioned armrest, and I sat down, resting my legs over his thighs.
I took a sip of liquid courage and coughed.
“Careful,” he said. “That’s a stiff drink for such a little girl.”
“I’m not little.”
His mouth tipped. I felt his hand on my back, warm fingers gliding through the ends of my hair. Instinctively, I thought to pull away. Then I remembered that this was Maddox, the man my father had described as the closest thing he’d had to family growing up, and the only man he’d ever agree to share me with. In a way, it felt like I was meeting another long-lost relative.
“How did you meet my father?” I asked.
He whistled. “That is a long story.”
Maddox swirled the wine in his glass. From up close, it was easy to tell what Kristin saw in him. He wasn’t blatantly handsome like my father, but his eyes were ocean blue and probing, his smile warm enough to melt even the coldest of tempers.
“I like long stories. That’s why I’m here.”
“Here in my lap, or here at this party?”
“Both.” I nestled my feet between his legs on the seat cushion. He eyed me shrewdly and spread his knees a little to grant me more room. “Where are you from?”
“Texas originally, but I moved up north to live with my aunt right after high school.”
“Did you meet my dad at college?”
“Nah, I wasn’t a fan of classrooms, though I did a short stint as a night custodian up at SUNY Albany.”
Judging by his Rolex and tailored suit, he no longer made his living working as a custodian. He leaned over to set his wine glass onto a nearby table. I stole the chance to breathe him in. He smelled expensive, like leather and citrus.
“My aunt took in foster kids,” he said. “That’s how your daddy came to live with us. She bragged about doing God’s work at church, but I suspect the extra income was the real driving force. She didn’t do it out of a love for kids, that’s for sure.”
Maddox examined my face as though he were searching for evidence of something. Feeling self-conscious, I raised my glass to my lips. He chuckled, his voice deep and velvety, as he walked his fingers up my spine toward my neck. With his other hand, he encircled my ankle. No doubt if he’d had extra hands, he would’ve wrapped them around my wrists, too. Oddly, I didn’t feel trapped so much as strapped in place, secured for my own safety. I felt like I could talk to him, though I wasn’t sure why. He was a stranger—a stranger who knew more than I did about the two most important people in my life. But still, a stranger.
“Did you know my mother, too?”
Maddox’s smile widened.
“I sure did.” He stroked my calf. Arousal skittered up my leg, burrowing into the rich, fertile soil of my groin.
A squeal pulled my attention over to the couch where Kristin had somehow found herself on the floor. Drunk off her ass and practically spilling out of her top, she crawled up to the chair where Maddox and I were sitting.
“You two look awfully cozy.” She knelt at Maddox’s feet, using his thigh as a pillow. “Paige, your eyes are so big.”
I wasn’t sure whether to take that as a compliment.
Maddox shushed her and relinquished my leg to fix the strap on her dress. Jealousy pricked the spot on my leg where his hand had been. “Looks like you’ve had more than enough to drink, darlin.”
She giggled and shook her head no.
“What was that?” Maddox cupped her chin firmly, forcing her to look at him.
She kissed his thumb. “Yes, sir.”
I glanced between the two of them. Given what little I knew about Maddox’s sexual taste, it didn’t surprise me that he and Kristin seemed to enjoy playing with power dynamics. She noticed my curiosity and patted my foot.
“Henry’s daughter is so sweet, isn’t she?”
Maddox’s smile shifted from contemplative to condescending.
“The sweetest,” he said.
My neck burned where Maddox still held me. I rose to my feet as irritation flared like a match struck against the lining of my stomach. I was sick of Maddox and Kristin and everyone else here shamelessly mooching off my father. They all wanted a piece of him, whether it was his wine or his favor or a peek at his daughter’s underwear. Inviting Kristin had been a mistake. I saw that now. Even if he did know something about my parents’ enigmatic past, he wasn’t about to offer up any quality information with this half-naked idiot hanging off his leg like a tumor.
Skirting the sunken living room, I made my way to the kitchen where the island was littered end-to-end with half-empty wine and liquor bottles. I topped off my drink and then gulped down the contents in a series of forceful swallows.
“Easy there, hon.” Michelle rubbed my back. I coughed as the last of the scotch tore down my throat like shards of glass. “Whisky that expensive should be savored, not chugged like cheap beer. You’ll get plenty of that in college. Speaking of, when do you start?”
I shrugged, afraid that trying to talk would send me into another coughing fit.
“Summer’s almost over, so it can’t be long now. I remember my first semester at Brown. Living away from home can be scary, but you’ll have your dad nearby.”
“I’m not...” I braced myself against the counter as a wave of nausea rolled over me.
“What’s that, hon?”
I shook my head to try and clear the mental haze.
“I’m not leaving.” Considering how inseparable we’d become, it only made sense that I would stay with my father and make the short commute to campus.
“You’ll be living here then?”
“No, she won’t.” My father scrutinized me from beneath the three permanent lines time had etched into his forehead. I hadn’t even noticed his approach. “She’ll be living on campus,” he said, as though it were already decided.
Betrayal shuddered through me. How could he make a statement like that without talking to me first? I met his gaze and the displeasure in his stare was like a shrink ray. It made me feel insignificant.
“You’re evicting me at the end of the summer after everything we’ve done?”
Michelle looked confused.
My father rounded the island and grasped my elbow. “It’s time for you to go to bed, Paige. We’ll talk about this tomorrow.”
“No.” I disentangled myself from his grasp and stumbled back against the fridge. Michelle reached for me. I waved her off.
“Paige.” My father’s voice held both a warning and a plea.
The floor seemed to tip beneath me. I cradled my face in my hands and fought to turn the world right-side up again. My father wasn’t going to let me stay with him, just like he wasn’t going come clean about why he’d abandoned me. He’d turned my whole life inside-out, and now he was deserting me. Again.
I couldn’t be around all these people for another second.
Brushing past Michelle, I walked in what I hoped was a straight line out the door, through the hall, and into my father’s studio.