Chapter 18
Tasha
“I’ve been under a lot of pressure at work. The strain has been heavy, and I know you received some of the brunt of the overflow,” my dad told me.
We weren’t in his stodgy office. Instead, we sat at the kitchen table. He held a glass of fresh-squeezed orange juice and I blew on a hot cup of coffee. A plate of doughnuts sat untouched between us. I was still trying to figure out what had happened to prompt him showing up at my apartment and inviting me to come over for breakfast. Typically before work he was racing around like a lunatic.
I hadn’t seen Cade since he walked out of my bedroom a week ago. I hadn’t done much of anything except go to class and go to work—thanks to Uber, I had been able to get from place to place. I wasn’t sure what Rena and Devlin knew, if anything, so I avoided her all week too. Well, I texted her. We always texted. I kept it simple. Jokes about my stupid pathophysiology teacher, photos of my coffee, or an excerpt of the latest paper I was writing.
Amazing what you can hide in text messages. On a screen, anyone would assume I was bubbly, busy me, but in person I was gray. Like a black-and-white movie. All smooth lines and shadows with no real way to discern one color from another.
“I never should have taken your car from you.” Dad slid the Z4’s key across the table to me and polished off his juice. I stared at it, stunned. I hadn’t told him about Cade, either. As proven when he said next, “I have no right to try and control who you date. You’re a grown woman.”
He hesitated over the word “woman,” and I guessed it was hard to see his little girl as a grown-up for the first time.
He stood and walked to the sink. “It’s a gift and there are no strings. I never should have let Tony believe I was taking his side. I know that’s what it looked like, but—”
“He cheated on me,” I blurted.
My father shut off the faucet, his eyebrows slamming down.
“Tony,” I clarified, hugging my coffee cup. “With more than one person. With several people. A few of them were good friends of mine. Didn’t you wonder why I insisted on getting my own place?”
“I thought you didn’t want to live in a dorm room any longer.” His brow crinkled like he was perplexed.
“I didn’t want a dorm room any longer. But I also didn’t want to be that close to the friends who were no longer my friends. It was too much like starting over. It was scary.”
“You didn’t tell me.” His voice hardened.
“I didn’t want to incur your wrath.” I picked up a doughnut after all, taking a sugary, soft, heavenly bite. Around a mouthful, I admitted, “You’re hard to please sometimes.”
He came back to the kitchen table. He didn’t sit, but he did put his hands in his pockets as he studied the floor.
“That’s what your mom said. Without the ‘sometimes,’ ” he said, his smile sad.
I don’t know that I’d ever seen a sad smile on Morton Montgomery’s face. I finished my doughnut, wiping my fingertips on a napkin.
“I don’t want the car,” I told him.
He met my eyes. “It’s yours, Natasha.”
“I want your support. I want you to trust me. I want you to stop holding things over my head and guilting me into doing them because you’ve given me money.”
“This is about my telling you not to see Caden.”
“This is about college. If you’re willing to pay for my schooling, I’d like to graduate and finish on your dime, Dad, I would. But if you’re not, then tell me so I can make arrangements to pay for the rest myself. I’ll pay you back every penny if you like.”
“Absolutely not. I never should have held that over your head. It’s just that last quarter at work…” He took a deep breath and looked at me as if he was debating telling me. Then he did. “There was a scary moment where I thought I might lose the house if things went south on that last deal,” he said.
“Dad.”
“I know.” He held up a hand. “I shouldn’t share that with you. It’s fine now. A merger that almost went the wrong direction for the company.” I had no idea of the specifics of what he did or how he did it. But I knew one thing for sure.
“If you lose this house, you can buy a smaller house. Why are you holding on to this palace, anyway?” I asked with a playful smile, but his answer sobered me.
“Your mom designed this house.” He sat down, but not across from me. Right next to me. The air became dense, heavy from his unresolved feelings and mine. “She picked out every doorknob.” He swallowed thickly before continuing. “Every inch of baseboard. Those little turquoise and pearl and slate gray tiles in the shower in our room. My room,” he corrected a second later.
“Yeah, well. Mom left.” She was unhappy, and she left. Left Dad and me to pick up the pieces and figure out how to live without her.