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It’s enough to snap me out of my intense obsession. I take several deep breaths, releasing the tight grip I have on my cock before checking the caller ID.
And just like that, the name on the screen is as good as a bucket of cold water dumped over my head.
It’s my fucking father.
There are a million reasons to ignore the call, and a million more to pick it up. But my first thoughts drift toward my grandmother, and I don’t want to miss a possible emergency concerning her.
I steel myself for the worst and answer. “What do you want?”
There’s silence on the other end of the line, then a hoarse chuckle. “Is that how you answer all your phone calls, boy, or just mine?”
My hackles are already raised just because it’s my father, but I cannot fucking stand it when he calls me “boy.” It’s not a term of endearment. It’s meant to try to put me in my place. To make the years of me clawing my way up and away from him disappear.
“You have exactly ten seconds to convince me not to hang up on you,” I say, glancing down at my watch, ready to make good on my threat. “Nine. Eight.”
“Oh, for Christ’s sake, Declan, I’m your old man,” he says. “You don’t have ten goddamn seconds for me?”
“Five. Four.”
“Stop counting. We need to talk. Man to man. In person.”
My rage gets the better of me. There are a lot of different energies pent up inside me right now, at war with one another. But my father never fails to get under my skin. I hate the effect he has on me.
“There is nothing you can do or say that will get me in the same room as you,” I say. “Not all the money in the world. Nothing.”
“Your father is asking you to share a meal with him. That’s all. Lunch, Declan. Surely you can manage that.”
“Absolutely not,” I tell him. “I’m hanging up. You’ve had more than ten seconds.”
“It’s ridiculous that you’re still angry,” my father hisses, dropping the hurt and befuddled dad act. It’s almost a relief when he lets his fangs show. “You should’ve moved on by now. You’d be better for it instead of obsessing over an incident from the past.”
“Incident? Fuck you,” I bite out before ending the call abruptly.
Just like I promised. But still too late.
He doesn’t deserve this kind of power over me. But what happened … the fact that he’s talking about it like it’s nothing, calling it an “incident,” is enough to make bile rise in my throat.
Fuck this. All I can do to try to forget this shit show is bury myself in work. So I do, immersing myself in raw data.
Living with so much fury and regret that it feels like drowning.
Chapter 18
Sophie
“We’ve gone over this, but I want to make sure you understand why I’m emphasizing it,” Carol tells me.
I’m sitting at her desk as she passes over some printouts of raw data from the social media work that I did at the launch party. They’re the posts that she liked during our initial debrief from the event.
“You did a good job—and followed excellent instincts—to chase down the accessible moments of the party,” she says, scrolling on her tablet and showing me my own work. “And those are the moments that shine in your post. Mr. Wright wants us to swing harder in that direction. We’re backing away from the exclusivity of Dynasty in favor of this approach. We’re going to use what you were posting as a touchstone for our next marketing direction.”
I blink swiftly. I’m not sure how to take this news. I’m happy, of course. Flattered, even, that a company like Dynasty is going to take my efforts and run with them in an effort to grow the brand in a direction that should make it truly explode—and in a good way.
But this side of Dynasty is Declan. And the fact that Carol mentioned him by name means that they’ve discussed my feelings about the marketing push.
They’ve discussed me. Declan. And Carol. Probably in this very office.
On the one hand, it’s an ideal situation. It shows that Declan has heard me and taken what I had to say about his company to heart. And, with any luck, it shows him that I was serious when I told him, back in that men’s restroom in the coffee shop, that I am here to work.
