“Yet,” I drawl.
“Do you need me to amend any policies?” He holds my blank stare. Clever bastard.
“We’ll see.”
His smile provokes a pang of irritation to flare in my chest. Raising my brow, I collect my phone and stand, buttoning my suit jacket. “Always a pleasure, Danvers,” I droll out.
“Get that employee to loosen you up.” He stands too, and I throw money down on the table. “I can have the paperwork on your desk first thing,” he teases.
“I’ll be in touch.” I depart and head out of the restaurant. My car circles the small half-moon drive, and the valet slides out and drops my keys in my hands, bidding me farewell.
Something about the possibility of Royce’s fraud overflowing and tainting my father’s dying wish has me driving to the cemetery. Shoving my hand in my trouser pocket, I stalk down the maintained gravestones. When I hit my first million, relocating my father’s grave was my only priority. Visiting his dilapidated resting place had always enraged me. The stone had long discoloured and started to crack, and the grass was overgrown and forgotten. He’d been forgotten.
Nicholas Carson was a man of complete honour, a well-respected name in the business world, and a regular feature in society. He didn’t deserve to be buried amongst the bark of a rotting tree. He deserved a fucking landmark. Emotion pummels my throat, and I tug at the top button of my shirt and stare ahead at the mausoleum.
The whitewashed walls are as clean as the elements allow. I step instead and tap the stone wall. “Anyone home?” My lips twist painfully. It’s what he always said when he returned home, briefcase in hand, a tired strain in his eyes, but he always wore a genuine smile. He loved my mother and me with a ferocity that had made him complacent. He’d won it all. The picture-perfect family, a home other people envied, success, and respect, and it was all blown away with the squeeze of a trigger and the evil greed of another.
My eyes slam shut.
I feel like a twelve-year-old boy again, only this time I’m swamped in a man’s suit, but the feelings are the same: suffocating. My head drops, and my shoulders curve in on themselves as the vision of my father sitting broken on a chair torments me—his trousers dirty, shirt a crumpled mess. His face was hollow, his skin gaunt and covered in greying hair. Hair that had been as rich as my own. The heavy metal object perched in between his cracked lips. His hold had been resolute, tight. His finger pressed with a fatal intention on the trigger. He hadn’t shaken. His eyes were hard with determination to see his suicide through.
He had given up on himself. On me.
I drop to lean my head against the cold stone. Lost to a memory I can’t escape, even in my sleep. Lost to it even now in the cold light of day.
“Dad?” I’d trembled.
He turned, surprised, guilt rippling his features, and squeezed.
The bullet had ripped through his neck, blood spraying like a careening wave decorating the walls. It continued to spurt from the open wound. Shock, pain, and regret had screamed at me from his wide eyes as he gripped at the hole, spluttering and gurgling on his blood.
“No!” Remembering my broken choke has me shaking on the spot, even now. I stand tall and pull myself out of the past.
Dragging in an emotional breath, I stare at the neatly carved lettering. “I’ve nearly got him.” My words echo around the pristine chamber. “Nothing to say?” I continue, my forehead furrowing deeply. “Everything you worked for, all of it. It’s going to be ours again.”
Silence greets me.
Stone-cold and empty.
“You always were a man of very few words.” I frown, adjusting my stance and staring at the ceiling. “I visited a hospital for the first time since—”
The last time I’d entered a hospital, I’d been drenched in blood as paramedics had frantically tried to stem the bleeding. My father’s pale, lifeless body lay on the gurney. My mother and Royce were uncontactable. In fact, I’d been handed over to the care of social services for twenty-four hours before they had come to collect me. “I still fucking hate the places.” I rest against the cold interior wall. “This is the part where you ask her name,” I whisper, not wanting to admit it even to myself.
Lauren Lindel had me fucked up enough to face entering a place that I’ve hated as much as the man who requested I call him dad in lieu of my actual father.
“You’re right. It’s probably best if I leave her alone.” My gruff voice has me rubbing my forehead tiredly. “Why’d you do it?” I ask suddenly. My eyes bore angrily into his name carved in the grave. “You left me to him.” I open my mouth to sling an insult that clings to my vocal cords but choose to slam my mouth shut.
I know my father had left me long before he chose to take his life.
“Same time next week?” I ask the empty air. “Great, can’t wait.” I laugh shortly and stride back to my car, a black cloud hanging over my head.
I could really do with punching or fucking someone.
Lauren’s startled face flits across my vision, and I drop my head against my headrest, groaning.
I should leave her alone, but I know I’m not going to.
I’m in too deep. Hell, I wanted to kiss her whilst she was sleeping in my bed. Injured and vulnerable, but I wanted her all the same.