Total pages in book: 156
Estimated words: 151044 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 755(@200wpm)___ 604(@250wpm)___ 503(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 151044 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 755(@200wpm)___ 604(@250wpm)___ 503(@300wpm)
I flipped open the cover and paged through until I got to the photos of me and Hale. Words jumped from the text. Opulence. Lavish. Limitless. Luxury. Net Worth. Davenport. Davenport. Davenport. Then I saw it. New York.
The glossy pages fell from my hands as I stared blankly through the memories playing in my mind. He knew. He fucking knew I was marrying into wealth and that was why he answered me.
Did he steal my credit card information? Was he using me? No. I couldn’t fathom anyone doing something so selfish and heinous, especially to their child!
He hugged me. That was real.
But then I heard my mother’s voice.
I needed to get to the bottom of this. I needed him to look me in the eye and tell me this wasn’t him, that he didn’t fucking steal from his own kid after robbing her of having a father for thirty fucking years.
I called Andrew and told him to come to the house right away. Then I called the number for the jet and requested they have it ready in one hour.
Hale had opened the statement, but maybe he didn’t go through the charges yet. No. He would have done that right away. Right? Hale didn’t believe in putting things off. He probably already had an investigation underway. But wouldn’t he have asked me about it first? I didn’t know what to think or what Hale might be thinking.
“Oh, my God,” I muttered to myself as I frantically threw toiletries into my carryon. “My husband’s going to have my father arrested.”
I needed to fix this. Or at least prove him innocent before police got involved. If it was my dad, I was sure there was a good explanation. Maybe he was sick and desperate. Maybe he was confused.
Gah, no excuse justified this. I had to be wrong.
I threw a few extra items in my bag for New York and zipped it shut, all the while envisioning swat teams storming my wedding ceremony and knocking down topiaries as doves swarmed overhead like props in an Alfred Hitchcock film.
When Andrew arrived I apologized for bothering him on his day off and gave him quick instructions. “Hale should be back soon. Tell him I had to leave early and I’ll call him later. Elara had some cereal, but she’s probably hungry again. There’s yogurt in the fridge.”
As soon as I was seated on the jet, I opened my text messages to my dad and stilled. He hadn’t answered my last three. Something was definitely going on.
I opened my text thread with Hale.
Had to fly out early to deal with bride drama. Nothing major, but had to go. See you there. Love you.
He immediately started texting back, but I set my phone to airplane mode. I wasn’t letting him talk me out of this, and I was too mortified to explain what was going on until I had some real answers. If my father had actually done this—actually stolen from me and Hale—I wasn’t sure what I would do. But I knew, before anyone else, Elara and Hale would always come first.
Avoidance is in my DNA
My leg bounced the entire drive from New York to Pennsylvania. Martel had been surprised to hear from me, but he arrived right away when I asked him to drive me to my father’s.
Hale had texted me several times asking what was going on, but I couldn’t find the words to tell him. Not until I knew for sure what the reality of the situation actually was, so I just kept responding that I’d explain later, which was not a satisfactory response in his opinion.
I could only handle so much. I felt like the earth was crumbling beneath my feet. I was also dealing with severe stomach issues because all of my drama always landed there.
I’d texted my dad several times but received no reply.
It didn’t take me long to find his address now that I knew what town he lived in, and once I spotted the old Chevy truck I knew we arrived.
“That’s it. Just pull over here.”
“I’ll find a place to park—”
“Don’t bother. I won’t be long.”
“This neighborhood isn’t—”
“This neighborhood’s fine.” This wasn’t up for debate. I was getting out of this car and I was handling this on my own. “I’ll only be a few minutes.” I opened the car door as soon as we stopped moving.
The houses were wedged together and covered with mildew, faux brick, or weathered metal siding. Several were in disrepair and the yards were mostly dirt and grass that wouldn’t grow.
I looked for the house number that matched the address I found online, then spotted where the worn off numbers once hung, enough of a shadow for me to make out the twenty-five.
I lifted the metal latch of the chain link gate and followed the cracked path to the door. Boxes were piled on the chipped porch and an ashtray overflowed with cigarette butts, several of the sun-bleached filters piled on cement around the leg of a broken chair.