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I’m stumped.
I’ve had a traumatic day. I can’t think.
“But when you know, you know,” Derek speaks up, wrapping his arm around me. “I knew early on. She took a bit of convincing. I just didn’t want to wait.”
Mom asks, “Forgive me Derek, but Chloe, when did things end with Adam? You and I just spoke yesterday, and you didn’t say anything. You’ve only lived in that new house a short while.”
“You were busy, on your way to dinner, so…” I fib. As if I might have told her all my secrets if she’d given me the time.
“Oh,” she says softly.
Before I’m able to say anything further to explain when things with Adam ended, Derek speaks.
“It’s only been just over a week since Chloe technically moved out. But that relationship was on the verge of ending long before that. He was dishonest with your daughter about a lot of things even before his accident.”
I grimace and shoot him a kill look.
He sighs. “She won’t speak poorly of him, feeling bad about his accident and all that, but she really hung in there much longer than she should have given all that he put her through.”
“Derek, stop,” I say through gritted teeth.
Mom and Dad are both rigid, staring at Derek with wide eyes.
“I don’t think you guys need all the gory details. Derek convinced me to make it official with him, but we weren’t planning on going public with it for a while. I’m afraid that gossip column changed everything. I didn’t mean to do anything behind your backs. We kind of… it was a bit of a whim.”
“A whim?” Mom checks. “That doesn’t sound like you.”
Dad frowns. “Well, it would have been wonderful to have a big party and celebrate, walk you down the aisle, sweetheart. But-”
“You can still have all that,” Derek cuts in. “That was always our plan. I didn’t want to wait. Chloe didn’t want to do it without our families present, but I did a grand gesture and swept her off her feet.” He smiles. “We got to put rings on today, but we’re planning for a destination wedding in a couple of months. My family has a great place in the Swiss Alps. We’ve got a dozen bedrooms there so plenty of room to make it a big party.”
“Your family?” Dad asks. “What business are you all in?”
“My grandfather had a shipping company. My father got into real estate investment when he got out of university so worked for my grandfather along with developing his own business, getting into an array of investments. The shipping company was sold a couple of years back after my grandfather passed away, but my father –”
“Michael Steele,” Mom says to Dad.
“The one and only,” Derek confirms.
Dad’s eyes widen. And I’m not sure if it’s because of how wealthy Derek’s family is or if this is down to how murky their reputation is. I’d never heard of them before, but clearly my dad has.
I hear a phone alert. Mom takes her phone out of her sweater pocket and looks at the screen. She frowns.
“And you work for your father?” Dad asks, then he looks at my mom’s phone and does a double-take.
“Yes and no, not entirely. I do have interests in the business, sit on his board of directors and help out where I’m needed, but I own several nightclubs. I invested a chunk of my trust fund, and it went well. That’s something my father preached to all seven of us, not to squander our trust fund money on frivolity. He worked hard for it so he wanted to see us use it to build our own wealth, build something we could be proud of. Like he did. He’s one of five children and only one of two of his siblings who built new wealth instead of simply joining the family business. We’ve all got stakes in the family legacy but most of us have our own businesses as well.”
“Seven children; that’s a very large family,” Mom says as three beeps chime from the kitchen. She puts her phone away.
“I’ll go grab that pot of coffee,” Dad says, hurrying back into the kitchen with a look of stress on his face.
“Six remaining. My brother was shot a few months ago.”
“Oh my goodness. I’m so sorry,” she says.
There’s an awkward moment as Derek doesn’t respond to that.
“And how did you two meet?” Mom changes the subject. “Oh, maybe I should wait for your dad.”
