I look back at my father, noting how haggard he seems. Although he’s scrubbed up well, his bloodshot eyes and obvious weight loss give him away. His suit looks almost too big for him, and I felt smaller arms when we hugged as we met under the arch before the wedding march.
“Should we go and sit?” Dad motions to the stone garden bench next to the water fountain.
“Yes.”
Dad slips an arm around me and that feeling of safety he always provided covers me like an old familiar blanket you reach for when you need comfort. I curse myself for the feeling and becoming the daddy’s-little-girl Desmier accused me of being weeks ago.
Although things are so different now, and we’re different, it’s a relief to see Dad and see he’s okay. But all my angst and questions are still with me. I don’t know how I’m going to speak to him knowing that if he gives me answers, the truth will hurt me more than the ignorant bliss of not knowing.
We sit facing each other, and he reaches out to touch my face as if he’s memorizing me.
“Just making sure you’re real.”
“I’m real.” I can’t help but smile.
“You look so much like your mother.”
My heart knots. He never talks about Mom. Never. Even when people said how much I looked like my mother, he never commented. Not even before she died.
“Thank you.”
Tension slides into his expression and he straightens. “You looked taken with him. Desmier.”
He noticed the kiss was real, and from the tone of his voice, everything else.
“Yes.” I won’t deny it. There’s no reason when it’s true, and no point.
He leans forward, cutting a glance in Jayce’s direction. “What has he told you?”
“Just enough to scare the shit out of me when it comes to you. Crimes against the Knights, Dad? Crimes that could kill us both?” I keep my voice firm so he knows he can’t just brush me off like he usually does.
“Anastasia, I have done terrible things. All of them unforgivable.”
The knife already plunged deep in my heart twists. “And you did something to Desmier too, didn’t you?” I’m surprised when hope sparks in his eyes. My question shouldn’t have given him anything of the sort.
“Hasn’t he told you?”
“No.”
“Then that is either a kindness I don’t deserve, or the same type of punishment as giving you, my daughter, away to him.”
“What do you mean?”
“I didn’t want him to tell you.”
I understand the hope now, but that sickening feeling churns again, telling me what I don’t know is so much worse than what I do. I’m sick of being kept in the dark.
“Tell me what it is. Tell me somethingtrue,Papa.” That’s what I used to call him when I was younger. I stopped when kids made fun of me at school.
I’m hoping the endearment will reach the father I thought I knew.
“I love you. That is true.” He pulls in a deep breath.
“I love you, too. But I know you’ve lied to me many times before. Let it stop today.”
“Everything I told you was because I love you.”
“Lies destroy people.”