Total pages in book: 88
Estimated words: 82255 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 411(@200wpm)___ 329(@250wpm)___ 274(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 82255 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 411(@200wpm)___ 329(@250wpm)___ 274(@300wpm)
“I’m leaving.” I reach for my briefcase, and he slams his hand down on top of it, holding it hostage.
“Goddammit, Sebastian. I need to speak with you. If you leave now, I’ll be here when you get back. Either way, you can’t avoid me any longer. Take a seat like a man and get it over with.”
Our eyes clash, and for the first time, his betray a weakness I hadn’t noticed until now. He’s still the same hard-ass man who raised me. The man who designed my entire life and accepted no alternatives. But beneath that, there is a frailty I’ve never seen in him before. As I study him, it occurs to me that it isn’t just in his eyes.
My father is tall, like me, but his usually muscular frame has diminished considerably since I last saw him. His previously well-tailored suit now hangs loose on his body, and the hands that were always hard as bricks seem weaker than before. Is it the natural evolution of time, or simply misery?
At sixty years old, it can’t be merely his age responsible for the rapid decline. The last I saw him, I’d resolved to hate him until he died, and I anticipated he would live forever just to spite me. But now, it seems the opposite is true. There is no room in my heart for sympathy, not when it comes to him. He might be blood, but I owe him nothing. Not even my time. However, knowing my father as I do, I take his words as a promise. If I leave now, he will still be here when I come back. If I don’t deal with it now, it will only prolong the headache.
With a sigh, I retrieve my phone and email the administration, alerting them to my absence today. It will be the only absence I’ve ever taken in my three years at Loyola Academy. I fetch the bottle of Japanese twelve-year whisky I keep in the cupboard, pouring us both two fingers.
“What do you want?” I take a seat across from my father and squeeze the life out of my glass.
Harrison Carter drains the whisky I poured him and then shoves it aside, his lip curling in obvious disapproval.
“It’s time for you to quit this nonsense.” He folds his hands together and examines me. “You’ve made your point. Come back to New York and take your place at the company. I have an office set up for you. An assistant, car service, a penthouse on hold ten minutes from the building. It’s all yours.”
“It’s all mine regardless.” I scoff. “Or did you forget that I’m the majority shareholder?”
The barb that was once effective at riling my father seems to fall short of even ruffling his feathers now. When my mother died, she left her family’s legacy to both of us with the majority to me, specifically. It was her way of trying to bring us closer, but all it ever managed to do was drive us further apart. My father still believes he’s in control while I’ve waited patiently for the day I can pull the rug out from under him. If or when I ever take my place at the Carter Holdings empire, it will be when my father no longer has a seat there.
“Sebastian.” Harrison sighs. “What’s it going to take? Do you want me to confess my sins? Is that it? Do you want to hear the words from my mouth? Will that make you feel better?”
“No.” I shoot up from the table and knock my chair over in the process. “I already know what you did. I don’t need to hear you say it. This was a mistake. You need to leave.”
“It isn’t logical,” he replies, ignoring my request. “I understand that now. But I was goddamned furious with you. I spent years investing in you for you to turn around and throw it all away. Telling me you’d rather kick a ball around on a field than work where you were needed. It was a slap in the face. It was disrespectful. I was blinded by my rage, and I couldn’t accept it.”
“You couldn’t accept that I was done being your puppet,” I bite out. “You couldn’t accept that I had a mind of my own, and a path that might not be yours.”
“I’ll give you that.” He bows his head. “I never meant for anyone to get seriously hurt.”
“But they did.” I turn my back to him and slam my glass down on the counter. “In your desperation to end my soccer career, you ended my sister’s life. Your own fucking flesh and blood. Don’t try to deny it.”
“I won’t deny it,” he echoes softly. “I hired those men to rob you and fuck up your knee. Katie wasn’t supposed to be there. That was never supposed to happen.”