‘Whatever...’ he blurts, brushing off my point. ‘I pleaded with him to reinvest. To take his private money and pump it in so we could get back on our feet, keep going, keep working together. We were supposed to be a team.’
I laugh—I can’t help it. ‘Don’t you see the irony in that?’
His eyes flicker, pained, vulnerable, and I know he does.
‘But he was like my brother, Eva, and I begged him—fucking begged him.’ His voice shakes over the confession. ‘And do you know what he said?’
His eyes stare at me accusingly. As if he’s seeing Lucas, not me.
‘No. Fucking no. Can you believe it? After all our family had done for him...all the money Dad had ploughed into the business from the start... He’d be nothing without us—nothing.’
‘But you betrayed him, and then you lied about it to us all. How could he trust you after that?’
He shakes his head at me. ‘You don’t get it! I even offered to hand over enough shares to give him the majority, put him fully in the driving seat—that should have negated his trust issues. But did he care? Did he fuck.’
He forks his hands through his hair and starts to pace.
‘I didn’t know what to do. The look in Dad’s eye when I told him...the disappointm
ent... I couldn’t stomach it.’
‘So you threw Lucas under the bus instead?’
My tone is low, my eyes unforgiving as I watch him flounder. I can see the anger giving way to guilt, remorse, and it’s what I’m hoping for.
‘It was our company, our baby, and he gave up on it—we lost it all.’
‘You lost it all.’
He looks at me, almost desperate. ‘Will you drop the whole “you”, “we” shit? What does it matter when it was one and the same company?’
‘It makes a world of difference, Nate, and you know it.’
My jaw is throbbing like mad, and it hurts to speak, but I can’t let this slide. If Lucas and I are to see a way through this I have to make my family acknowledge that they wronged him. And it needs to start with Nate.
‘Just admit it.’
‘Why? Because you want to get your end away—?’
The door swings open—no knock, no nothing—and in strides my father.
Jesus, could this day get any better?
‘Eva, what the hell is—?’
He breaks off, his eyes landing on me—or more specifically on my flaming lip—and his skin pales as the door closes behind him.
‘What happened?’
He softens his stride as he walks towards me, his eyes narrowing over the damage.
‘Did Lucas—?’
My entire body flares as I back away from him. ‘Don’t you dare accuse Lucas of this.’
‘Then who?’
‘Why don’t you look to your son—the guy who’s to blame for this whole goddamn mess?’