The next day, I find myself at the park with Isabella. I look around at all the families playing, and jealousy seeps into my blood. That’s what I long for. I long to be a family. To see Isabella on the swing, being pushed, but I don’t see Chelsea’s face in this dream. It’s Bridget I see. Bridget smiling at my daughter, making her giggle. It hurts to think about it because I can’t have it. Not now. Maybe not ever.
I watch as Isabella runs toward the slide. Her smile lights up my life. She’s always able to pull me from my somber mood. As she rushes down the slide, I watch her face. She doesn’t look like Chelsea, but she’s so familiar to me. I can’t put my finger on why. But to be honest, I probably know who her father is. There’s a long line of business associates Chelsea has flirted with over the years. No doubt one of them or maybe multiple ones had an affair with her. I don’t put it past anyone in my acquaintance to stab me in the back and sleep with my wife. I don’t want to think about it, though. Putting a name to the betrayal would be too much for me. Instead, I watch my daughter and let my love for her be enough. I feel my phone ringing. Spencer.
“Hello,” I answer.
“Hey,” he responds. “So, about Chelsea,” he starts and my stomach drops at her name. “I’m looking into her and your little problem, but I’m going to need a place to start. Do you have any information that might help?”
I rake my brain for anything that could help him and then something comes to me. “Miles, my head of security, has a few files on his computer. Maybe one can be helpful,” I suggest. “Also, I had a private investigator a while back get me Chelsea’s email password. I’ll text you the info.”
“Okay. Perfect. I have some people working on it with me. I’m sure we’ll find something real soon.’’
Hearing him say that, I let out the air in my lungs I didn’t even know I was holding.
“Great. Let me know if you find something.”
“Grant,” he pauses, “do you have time to go see Dad with me later today?”
“Yes,” I say before I can second-guess my decision.
“About damn time,” he asserts.
My heart drums a steady rhythm as my father answers the door to my impromptu visit. My foot taps on the ground, my nerves refusing to be pushed down. When the door opens my heart almost stops.
“Dad.”
All the emotion of years apart pushes its way through my lips. That one word cracks on my tongue.
“Son.” He isn’t filled with malice or disdain. There’s a deep-seated pain I know I caused. I have a way of hurting the people I love most.
He steps forward, crushing me in a hug. We hold on for dear life, putting years of distance at rest. We don’t pull apart and we don’t speak, but the silence is welcome. It gives us both a moment to understand the meaning of what is happening. It gives us a chance to digest that after all these years, a truce may come to pass. We might actually move on.
He pulls away after what feels like five minutes, looking me over from head to toe. When his eyes meet mine, I see the unshed tears misting his sight.
“It’s been too long,” he finally says.
“It has and I’m sorry.”
He raises his hand to stop me.
“It’s me who should be sorry. I should have never turned my back on you.”
I shake my head. As much as it hurt, he was right to do what he did. So I tell him as much.
“You were right. She was everything you thought she was, but I was too blind to see until it was too late.”
He bites his lip and inclines his head. “I was afraid that was the case.”
“I was too stupid to listen.”
My pride has always been my downfall.
“You were young and in love.”
I huff. “It was never love. I know that now.” The way I feel for Bridget makes that truth painfully obvious. I never felt this for Chelsea. What we had was lust, plain and simple. My love for Bridget proves that.
“I’m sorry, Grant. This is one time I wish I’d been wrong. I never wanted this for you.”
I nod, having nothing to say.
“What can I do? How can I help you?”
I laugh, but not because what he’s saying is funny.
“There’s nothing you can do, Dad. I’m in an unfixable position, one I put myself into.”
He purses his lips. “Talk to me.”
I spend the next hour filling him in on everything, from the birth of my daughter to the realization she wasn’t my blood. I fill him in on the vendetta. The greed fueled by the rage that Chelsea ignited in me, and then I tell him about Bridget. When I’m done speaking, he sits silently for a minute.
“I don’t even know what to say.” He hangs his head. “I failed you.”
“You didn’t. I chose this path.”
“Didn’t I, though? I never reached out. I allowed you to leave and put this distance between us. What kind of a father does that?”
I shrug my shoulders. “You didn’t know.”
“Well, I do now and I intend to make up for everything.”
“We all know what hell you’ve lived and why you stayed away.” Spencer steps forward. “Enough with the prideful bullshit, Grant. We’re family and together we will fix it.”
I didn’t know how, but I knew together we would.
Ring.
Ring.
I reach across my desk and pull my phone to my ear. “Grant Lancaster,” I answer.
“Grant, it’s Spencer. Can you meet me at my place? We need to talk somewhere private.”
He’s got something. That’s the only reason he wouldn’t want to talk on this line. Whatever he has must be good.
“When should I come?”
“Tonight at eight. I have some friends joining us. I just wanted to give you the heads-up that I had to share a bit of your dilemma. Don’t get fucking pissed.”
I rack my brain for who and what he could be referring to, but I come up short. At this point, I don’t give a fuck who he’s commissioned if it helps the cause. I’m in.
“I’ll be there.”
The hours pass slowly, but eventually, I’m knocking on my brother’s door. My nerves are all over the place. What am I walking into? When I get inside, my father is there, but what surprises me most is the visitors Spencer was referring to. My eyes widen. The Price siblings, Jax, Gray, and Addison are all present, as well.
The Prices have been family friends our entire lives. Their net worth rivals my father’s on any given day and they’re precisely the types of friends you want in your corner. Addison is the last person I expected to be in Olivia and Spencer’s apartment. Spencer and Addison share a romantic past and let’s just say it came to a head between Spencer and Olivia at one point. It was worked out, but with women, those sorts of things never seem to be completely buried. The way her cheeks are sunken in as if she’s biting them says she’s uncomfortable.
Nonetheless, here she is.
I’m still trying to figure out where they all fit into this equation.
“Come in,” Spencer calls, seemingly annoyed at my standing about.
“What are you all doing here?”
“We think we found the solution to your problem,” Jax says, reaching out his hand to shake mine in greeting. “Spencer called me in to do some computer reconnaissance.” He smiles widely.
Now it’s making sense. Jax is a computer genius. He’s done work for the government helping to catch hackers. Rumor has it he’s one of the best.