My father turns around from staring at the fireplace, watching the flames dance about. The iciest black eyes greet mine. “Good. You’re home. Now we can deal with this.”
Deal with what? I’m wondering, but instead of asking, I focus on the only woman in the room. Clara’s head is bowed as she sits on the couch, beside her father, who’s glaring at me. “What’s going on here?” I repeat, needing answers, and needing them now.
“What’s going on,” my father says, stepping away from the fireplace, turning to face me, “is you’re being blackmailed.”
My head is spinning to understand, but then Clara looks at me, and I know exactly why they’re here. The numb expression I see on her face, matched with the vindictiveness I see on her father’s tells me everything. “What have you done?” I ask her.
Her voice trembles. “Micah, I’m—”
“Not saying a word to him.” Her father shoots to his feet, holding my stare, as if I dare look at her again he’ll take me down with a single punch. “You”—he says the latter like I’m a disease about to poison him—“will only speak to me.”
I realize I should’ve expected this. Clara told me not long ago that she thought her father was having financial trouble, and my father once warned me to stay away from Clara. Her father had a reputation of being a shady businessman. But of course that warning didn’t keep me away from her. In fact, my father’s disapproval drew me more to her.
I keep the thought to myself, as my father puffs out his chest, being his intimidating self. “There’s nothing more to discuss.” He moves closer to me, pressing his hands against the back of the chair. I see his white knuckles, which tells me the amount of strength it’s taking him to control himself. “Learn this lesson well, son. Your secrets are for sale. I suggest you keep them to yourself.”
I glance at Clara, incredulous. Even if I believe her father would do this to me, I can’t believe she would. “You’re blackmailing me?”
“You ruined her life,” her father all but spits at me. “You took an innocent girl for your sadistic games and now you’re fucking going to pay for it.”
I see Clara flinch, and I’m forcing myself to keep my chin up, because everything inside me wants to cower away in disgrace, that my father is hearing this. That anyone is hearing this. These are my secrets. And it’s my shame.
Clara looks at me again, and then it’s almost as if the other two men in the room disappear, and it’s just her and me. In that split second, I see that no matter how detrimental this is to me, it’s more so for Clara. I don’t see the life in her eyes I once did. It’s been seven days since I’ve seen her, and in that time of telling her parents the truth about me, and clearly having her crook father go after me for money, she’s ruined herself far more than my secrets ever could.
Her soulful eyes are empty. She’s not even crying, but I can tell it’s not because she’s not hurting, it’s because she has no more tears to cry.
I did this to her.
Me.
No one else.
“Give him the money,” I order.
“Micah,” my father warns. “It’s a million dollars.”
“Then I will owe you that million dollars.” I turn to my father and state my own demands. “End this. Now.”
My father looks at me with such disgust, but his shame rolls right off me. My father has done enough dealings with the Devil that his judgment means shit to me. I see the tremble of his hands as he takes them off the back of the chair. Then again when he moves to the desk and signs a check and hands it to Clara’s father.
Clara stays silent as she passes me, her father pulling her by the arm, but I see the damage. She’s gone. She’s lost now. She loved me, and I destroyed her.
Clara’s an angel. She’s not meant to dabble in such darkness like blackmailing the person you love.
The second I hear the front door slam shut, I blink away my thoughts, hearing my father saying, “Do whatever you have to straighten yourself out, whether it be a therapist, going to rehab, or whatever. You cannot let a sca
ndal like this happen again. Do you understand me, Micah?”
“Perfectly,” I say, staring at the door Clara exited.
“You will not dishonor the Holt family name again.” I keep silent, my head spinning, and my soul feeling ice cold as walls begin to build up around the only warmth left inside me.
My father snaps, “Micah?”
I glance over my shoulder, seeing in his eyes this isn’t about me. It’s about him. His name. His reputation is all he cares about. “My secrets will stay secrets.”
“Ensure they do,” is all my father replies.
The warm breeze drags me from my thoughts, reminding me that I’m in my suite at the Phoenix, standing on the balcony, staring out at the city lights. I vividly remember the way Clara looked the night she left my house with a check for one million dollars. I have a lot of regrets when it comes to Clara, but my biggest is letting her leave that night with her father.