Falling for the Beast (A Modern Fairy Tale Duet 2)
Page 49
“It must be serious,” his father remarked idly. “If it’s taking you this long to come out with it.”
Blake huffed a laugh without humor. “Serious, yes. I have a question to ask you, but I’m afraid I won’t like the answer.”
His father was silent, staring into a fire grate with no fire. Long minutes passed. “I know you thought I hated that you enlisted. And you’re right. I did.”
“Glad we cleared that up,” Blake said dryly.
“I was scared. Scared you’d never come home. And I was right, in a way. You never did come back to us.”
His throat was dry. “It wasn’t me you wanted. It was some other kid. One just like you.”
“Not just like me. I never had your courage.”
There was a finality to his words that made Blake’s gut clench. “I didn’t cut you out completely. I’m here now. And you’ll be invited to the wedding.”
“Even if you don’t like my answer to this question you’re going to ask?”
It was Blake’s turn to be silent, because he couldn’t make any promises. His loyalty was to Erin, and beyond that, it was to do the right thing. Any gratitude he had for his parents was like this house—old and creaking under the weight of the present.
“Dad, what happened with the intern in Washington?”
Silence. Stillness. His father had heard him, and understood him, every nuance of the question. He didn’t bother pretending not to know or asking which intern? There must have been a hundred interns over the course of his congressional career.
Blake gave him time to answer, because he’d rather have the truth. And he knew that for all that his father could spin a lie, in this room with just the two of them, he’d hear it.
His father spoke slowly. “How do you know about that?”
“Does it matter how I found out?”
“I suppose it doesn’t.” A slow shake of his head. “You were at university then, and coming home as rarely as possible. I thought you’d follow in my footsteps, but even then, you would hardly come to my office. You never met her.”
Suspicion turned dark. “Why would you remember that? Something so specific, about an intern meeting your son?”
“Because she wasn’t just an intern.”
Blake closed his eyes. “So it’s true.”
“It was wrong. I’m not defending myself. I’m just answering your question.”
“Did you hurt her?” he demanded. “Did you…” He couldn’t even say the word. “Did you force her?”
“What?” His father turned to him, a rare shocked expression on his lined face. “Christ, no. I would never force anyone, never hurt any woman. And definitely not her.”
“Jesus.” He supposed his father could lie to him, but Blake believed him. An affair with an intern was still bad, but not as terrible as forcing a woman. “Do you know what Erin’s thesis was about?”
A muscle ticked in his father’s jaw. “She’s the one who told you?”
“She didn’t tell me a damn thing. Probably because she knows it would hurt me.” Though there was a darker possibility—that she thought he wouldn’t believe her. “I had to request a copy of her thesis from a colleague. That’s how I found out.”
“I cared for that girl. A great deal.”
“That girl? How old was she?”
“Old enough. I think that’s a stone you can’t throw, considering who you brought home.”
“I wasn’t a senator. She wasn’t my intern.”
“You were her professor. And her employer. Give me some credit. You may not call and give me regular updates, but I care about what happens to my son.”