I realise I’m hugging the doorframe as if I’m looking for an escape. With a reluctant heart, I release the door and step towards my father.
I sit as far away from him as I can while still on the same bed.
My heart beats so loud, I can only hear the buzzing in my ears. It’s like that time when both my parents sat me down to tell me that Dad won’t visit us as often anymore.
I’m bracing myself for the bad news. No matter how many of them I got lately, it doesn’t get easy.
Before he can speak, I blurt out what I’ve been a coward to say all these weeks. “I’m sorry, Dad.”
“For what?”
“For saying what I said that day. I was angry. I didn’t mean that, you know, wanted you dead. I don’t. You’re my… dad. I just miss my mum and I wish I had both of you beside me.”
He releases a long sigh. “Me, too.”
“Really?”
“Yes. Jasmine and I decided to reunite officially right before her accident.” A sheen of sadness covers his gaze. “It remained as a dream after all.”
“Wait. You planned to divorce Victoria? But wasn’t she your wife since I was seven?”
“On papers, yes. She’s the perfect wife chosen by my parents, but she was never my wife. Your mother is the only woman I wanted to marry.”
“Then why didn’t you?”
“I did.” He scratches his forehead and clears his throat. “In Vegas.”
“Vegas? As in Las Vegas.”
“Yes. That’s the one.”
Whoa. I somehow can’t imagine my dad, Lord Henry Clifford, heir to the Clifford household and a member in the House of Lords, visiting Vegas let alone having a Vegas wedding.
“Mum never mentioned that.”
“But she told you, you weren’t illegitimate, didn’t she?”
“Yeah, she did.” Her version was that they registered their marriage secretly and that’s it.
“What is it?”
I shake my head, laughing awkwardly. “Sorry, I’m still wrapping my head around the Vegas part.”
“I wasn’t always so put together, you know. I was quite wild in my youth. How do you think I met your mother?”
“She always left that part vague. She mentioned something about a party?”
“I guess she can call it a party.” He shakes his head with a nostalgic smile. “That was probably her PG-13 version. My friends and I partied and gambled all night. In our drunken minds, we decided it was an epic idea to have skull ta
ttoos. We went to this parlour down the road and Jasmine was there. She was… stunning. And I might have pushed my mates aside so she’d tattoo me. Only she made fun of my skull idea and how ‘unoriginal’ it was. So I gave her free reign to do anything as long as it can be hidden by clothes.” He pauses as if tasting his own words. “She looked out of her skin with joy. I’ve never seen someone look so happy before. Apparently, it was the first time someone gave her artistic freedom. She promised that I won’t be disappointed.”
I inch closer to him. “And what did she do?”
I didn’t realise Dad had a tattoo. Or maybe I did from when he lived with us and forgot about it.
He stands up and unbuttons his shirt. “I’ll show you instead.”
My jaw would’ve dropped to the floor if it weren’t attached to my mouth.