Adelaide
Running late for my dad was not acceptable.Saul Goodman was far too important to be kept waiting—he’d told me that himself. The elevator took an excruciatingly long time to arrive on the ninth floor of the Good Music building, then a million people got on behind me. By the time I made it to the lobby, I was a full five minutes behind schedule.
My dad was at the reception desk, one elbow leaning on the upper counter. As I approached, he didn’t appear to be angry or impatient. He was listening intently to the woman behind the desk—a woman who wasn’t supposed to be sitting there. That was my friend Wren's job. She must have been on her lunch break.
Natalie was in her seat, and from my angle, she was being awfully friendly with my dad—who was old enough to be her grandfather. Hell, he was old enough to bemygrandfather.
“Hi, Dad.” I rushed around the desk and gave him a peck on his cheek. His normal scowl flicked upward for a moment, the closest he came to smiling these days.
“Adelaide. What time is it, sweetheart?” My dad was gruff. Even when he was being sweet, his words came out abrasive and hard. Like his throat was angry at being used. I knew his moods and understood when he was truly angry, so it didn’t bother me. But most people found him either intimidating or entirely unlikable.
“It’s 12:36. The elevator was having issues.”
His thick, salt-and-pepper eyebrows drew together. “Maintenance issues?”
I started to answer, but Natalie spoke up. “No one has reported anything to me, Mr. Goodman.” She picked up her phone, as if she was actually going to make a damn phone call. “I’ll call the elevator service and—”
I reached over the desk to press on her hand holding the phone. “Don’t worry about it. There’s nothing wrong with the elevator other than everyone deciding to take it at the exact same time as me.”
Dad harrumphed. “It’s the lunch hour, Adelaide. You should have expected that.” Pushing his sleeve back, he glanced at his gold Patek Philippe. “I now have fifty minutes to spend with you.”
“I’m sorry, Dad.” I leaned in and kissed his cheek again. He patted my back, which was big for him, since he wasn’t overly demonstrative when it came to affection. “Let’s go then.”
He nodded to Natalie, who’d been observing our interaction with bated breath. “It was nice to speak to you, Natalie. Very nice.”
Her painted red lips tipped into a grin that could only be described as sultry. “Likewise, Mr. Goodman. I hope to see you here again soon.”
I hooked my arm around his, tugging him out of the building. I’d vomit if I had to see twenty-five-year-old Natalie flirt with my seventy-year-old father for another second. It wouldn’t be the first time I’d witnessed such an atrocity, but Natalie was a whole other story.
She commonly referred to me as Nepotism Barbie.
Her slate of boyfriends were all referred to as “Daddy” because she was, indeed, their sugar baby. Which was fine, except she blasted that info to anyone who would listen.
She was rude to Wren, who was an angel on earth.
She was rude to delivery drivers who were just trying to do their damn jobs.
Actually, she was rude to anyone who couldn’t do something for her.
The very worst, the thing that tipped me over the edge to actively hating her, was when I overheard her calling my mother “overrated” and “not even that pretty.” Mymother, who’d died after an excruciating battle with cancer a decade ago.
I couldn’t hold myself back once we were outside. “You know she’s terrible, don’t you?”
Dad raised his chin. He was a full head shorter than me when I wore my heels, but he carried himself like a giant.
“Does she do her job well?” he barked lowly.
“As far as I can tell, yes.”
His hazel eyes took on a glint of cold. “That’s the only opinion I’m interested in from you, Adelaide. Don’t spoil our afternoon with your pettiness.”
Properly chastised, I clamped my mouth shut. Sometimes, I didn’t like my father at all. Other times, I desperately loved him. He wasn’t an easy man, he was a taskmaster of a father, but there was never a time I doubted he loved me. True, he showed it differently than many fathers, but that didn’t make his love any less valuable.
Lunch was at a café near my office. A hostess took us to a table for four. Dad began to take the chair to my right, but he grunted and marched around the table to sit down on my left.
I smiled at him. “Did you not like that view?”
“No. At least from this side I can pretend you didn’t mutilate your perfect nose.”