“No, I want to keep it.” My fingers tighten around the photograph. I’m not sure why it’s so hard for me to hand him the photograph, but I freeze. I don’t want him to take it. He’ll destroy the photo.
“Now, Darius,” my father demands, voice hard.
I look down again. Without this photograph, I’ll have nothing left of the woman who should have been a mother to me.
The photo is suddenly ripped from my hands. “No,” I scream, jumping off my bed. “Give it back.”
My father spins around and yells, “She didn’t want you. I don’t want to speak of her again. And stop crying. That’s what babies do. Do you want to be a baby, Darius?”
“I’m ten years old. I’m not a baby.” I wipe my tears, feeling so very cold.
“We are to never speak of her again. Get down to the car. Now,” is all my father says before he crumples the photo in his hand and leaves the room.
I blink and suck in a harsh breath, finding my way back from the memory pinning me to my seat. Beneath my desk, I grip my hands tight, begging the shaking to stop. I don’t know why that memory resurfaced now.
When I lift my head, I realize Frank is awaiting my next move. I summon the strength to ask, “When are you able to pull everyone together for a meeting here at Bennett?”
“Not long,” he says calmly. “A day, probably.”
“Good. Do it.” I rise from my seat, not wanting to spend any more time with this man than I have to. It’s an odd thing, I realize, as I’m walking toward him. For so long, I vowed to prove myself to him and to be more than he was. Yet now that I’ve done all of that, I no longer care about the glory. Because as I draw closer, I feel like I’m looking into a mirror, seeing an older version of myself.
And I hate the man in the reflection.
I tighten my jaw, ensuring my father can’t sense the emotion raging through me now. I stare at him dead in the eye. “You’ll be in touch?”
He shakes my hand. “I will.”
I drop his hand and return to my desk, not watching my father leave my office. I place my shaky hands against my desk, feeling something dark splinter inside me and something light fill its place.
It’s vulnerability.
It’s weakness, and it’s crawling inside me.
Chapter 16
Darius
“Please tell me that was not who I think it was.”
I’ve still not recovered from the memory that resurfaced only moments ago, when I glance away from my monitor, seeing Allie marching into my office, eyes blazing with fire. “You know exactly who that was,” I tell her. And had I known she was in the building I would’ve had the meeting with my father elsewhere.
She slams my door behind her, then charges toward my desk and folds her arms. “What in the hell are you doing?”
“Working,” I say, not fueling the clear anger boiling inside her. “And I have a meeting in ten minutes that has already been rescheduled once today.”
“No, smart-ass,” she quips, pointing at the closed door. “Why did I see him leaving your office?”
“It’s business, Allison,” I reply calmly, leaning back in my seat.
Her nostrils flare and she shifts from foot to foot, looking about a second away from ripping off my head. “It’s Allie, Darius,” she says, venom in her voice. “Not, Allison. Allie. That’s what everyone calls me. Friends. Family. It’s always been Allie. Why don’t you give that a try?”
I stare at her blankly.
She huffs and throws up her arms, her face beet-red now. “You shouldn’t even be talking to your fucktard of a father. What’s wrong with you?”
“Fucktard?” I laugh dryly.
When Allie doesn’t laugh with me, I sigh, not wanting to have this conversation with her. She is my baby sister, after all. And for some reason she has always been convinced that she can manage my personal life better than I can. “Is there a reason you’ve come to see me?”