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He sat in the chair beside her, reserving comment. Sara covered her eyes, the eyes that proved she was his, as much as she wanted to deny it. “Why? Why would she have done that to my father?”
“It was an accident, I assure you.” At her grimace, he shook his head. “No, you weren’t an accident. You were the result of a sublime, impetuous affair, and it was my fault, all of it. Your mother loved your father, and he loved her. I’m not good at love, or fidelity, or any of those things, so I left her. I left you, because I thought it best.” He gazed at her, a look of such guilt and pain that she almost forgave him for his crime. Almost.
“You’re as bad as Baat,” she said, tasting nausea in her mouth. “You’re worse. You hid even more. You hid...this.”
“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you when we first met.” He stood and paced across the room. “It paralyzed me, the sight of you standing there. I didn’t feel worthy to be your father. I still don’t. But part of me hoped you’d figure it out yourself.”
“How is it my job to figure it out?” she cried. “People should be who they are. You lied to me. You kept this a secret—”
“You kept a secret too,” he said, turning on her. “People keep secrets when they’re afraid. When they don’t know what will happen.”
Sara felt numb. She seemed to know nothing about anything going on in her life. She didn’t know what to believe anymore, or what to do, or who to trust. “This is why you wouldn’t let me come to the Citadel,” she said. “This is the reason you threw me out.”
“It’s rather traumatic to discover one’s daughter has arrived in the midst of your BDSM scene. It was one more reason not to tell you.”
“Well, I wish you had explained. I had no idea why you sent me away that night. I thought you were angry at something I did. I thought you didn’t like me.”
“I care for you very much.” That confession seemed to leave him breathless. He leaned against the wall, his arms crossed over his chest. “I’ve been keeping an eye on you. Protecting you as best I can.”
“By avoiding me?”
“I didn’t know what to do. I’m not a father. I’ve never been a father.”
“You didn’t even come get me yourself. You sent Jason to bring me back for you, like some curiosity from afar.”
“No.”
“Your little Mongolian souvenir.”
“No, it wasn’t like that.”
“What was it like then?” Anger propelled her to her feet, and she stormed toward him. “You never had any intention of telling me. You probably couldn’t wait to pack me off to Las Vegas. Good riddance, right?”
“No.” He shook his head. “I dreaded losing you, but I wanted to see you settled. I don’t feel capable of being your father but I wanted to nurture this gift you have. I owe that, at least, to your mother.”
Her lips trembled. “How nice. Settling accounts.”
“Sara.” His voice rose on an anguished note. “Please understand, I’m not the fatherly type. I don’t know how to do this. Here you are, my grown-up daughter, and you’re feeling all these things, and imagining this incredible solo act, and falling in love when I’ve barely had a chance to know you. You’re too much for me, dear girl. You’re so much more than I expected you to be.”
She blinked at him and took a step back. “What does that mean?”
“I don’t know what it means.” He spread his arms in frustration. “I’m making a mess of this, just as I knew I would. I understand your anger. I deserve it.”
Anger? No. She wasn’t angry. She was devastated. She was confused and emotionally gutted. “I think I’d better go, Mr. Lemaitre.” Her voice faded on the formal address. He was her father, for God’s sake.
“Why don’t you call me Michel?” he offered. “Until we figure things out?”
“Figure things out?” she said, looking around his office, at all the mementos that defined this man. Her father. “I don’t even know you. Everything I thought about you is…”
“I’m sorry.”
She took another step back, and another. “I think... I think I’m... I’m going to go and...take some time to process this.”
“Of course,” he said. “If you need me I’ll be here, just as I have been. I’ll do anything to help you. None of that will change.”
You weren’t there last year, when I took a job at a sex club. When I didn’t have any family left in the world except for Baat. She needed Jason. Jason would hold her and comfort her, and help her make sense of this crazy revelation. She took one last look over her shoulder at the man who was her father, but not really her father.
The man who didn’t want to be her father. That’s what hurt her most of all.
Chapter Fifteen: Who We Are
Jason was in the middle of a multi-artist tumbling team when he noticed Sara at the door of the gymnastics facility. He saw all the hands coming up to hide whispers. Everyone knew by now that Baat had a problem with alcohol and that Sara had stayed quiet about it. He wanted to protect her, to explain her side of things, but the only real explanation was that she’d messed up.
He’d punished her because he had to, because he couldn’t move past the choice she’d made without venting his fear and frustration, his anger that she hadn’t confided in him. Since then, he’d tried to buoy up her spirits, but she had a long way to go to regain everyone’s trust. As she walked toward him, she received more than a few judgmental looks.
He asked the gymnast team to break for a moment and jogged over to meet her by the wall. “Sara, I’m busy. Things are crazy here.” She looked pale, wrung out. Her eyes were rimmed in red. “What happened?” he asked. “What did Lemaitre say?”
“He didn’t say anything bad.” She paused and rubbed her forehead. “He just said...”
“What?” he prompted when she hesitated.
She stared up at him. “He said he was my father. That I’m his daughter. That’s why...my eyes... That’s the reason they’re blue.”
Jason touched her face, wishing he could smooth away the pain etched on her features. So Lemaitre had finally fessed up. Why now, on top of everything else she was going through?
“Oh, baby.” He drew her into his arms, cradling her close. “So, how does that make you feel? What did you say when he told you?”
“What did I say?” Sara stiffened and pulled away from him, her sadness transforming to anger. Fuck. He’d remembered too late to add surprise to his expression.
“You knew.” It wasn’t a question. Her gaze eviscerated him. “You already knew. You knew and you never told me.”
“Sara—”
“When were you going to tell me? Didn’t you think it was important?”
“Sara—”
She looked around at the gawking performers lounging on the mats. “Who else knew? Everyone? Did everyone know but me?”
He held up a finger, cautioning her. “If you don’t lower your voice, everyone is going to know.”
“Well, I guess it’s not much of a big fucking secret, if you already knew.”
He let out a soft sigh. “I knew, and Theo. And Theo told Kelsey.”
“But not me, right? Because why would I need to know?”
His sweet little slave was livid. The worst part was, she had a right to be. “Honey, I would have told you but Lemaitre begged me not to. He thought it was best. He asked all of us not to tell you.”
“When did you know?”
Heads turned at her sharp, shrill question. He angled himself so he stood between Sara and the performers. “This might not be the ideal time to discuss this.”
“No, I want to discuss it. When did you know? Did you know from the start, when you came to Mongolia?”
“I didn’t, I swear. I didn’t figure it out until he kicked you out of the Citadel.”
“And you didn’t see the need to tell me?”
“Listen, you haven’t heard the whole story.” He grabbed her arm, meaning to find a more private place for the discussion,
but she pushed him away.
“Don’t ‘listen’ me. Don’t touch me.”
He backed away from her, at a loss. This wasn’t how their dynamic worked. You don’t have a “dynamic” anymore. You’ve lost her respect.
He knew he’d lost it before she gave voice to it. Her pretty English syllables stabbed him in the heart. “You’re a hypocrite, Jason. You lectured me. You punished me for keeping secrets.”
“For keeping secrets about something that endangered your life,” he shot back. “It’s not the same. I punished you because you could have died.”
“I don’t trust you now. What else aren’t you telling me? If you’ll stay silent about a big thing like that?”
He recognized the words as his own. She had him, she was right. He was a liar and a hypocrite. He’d expected truth from her while he kept deep, dark secrets she deserved to know.
