Arrogant Playboy(69)
I press the phone hard against my ear. My father never speaks of life before my mom, and we all assumed that he didn’t exist until she came into his life.
“Just before the wedding,” he says. “She got cold feet. Said she couldn’t marry me because there were too many other options out there and what if she made the wrong choice? I was the only guy she’d ever loved.”
His tone is laced in melancholy, and my heart breaks for the younger version of my father.
“I’m so sorry.”
“I think my father took it harder than anyone,” he says. “Told me I’d never meet anyone as perfect for me as Marian Tisdale. And for years, I believed him.”
I know how that feels.
“And then one day, I’m working at my father’s deli and he announces that he hired some Bloom girl to pick up some hours on the second shift. A daughter of his buddy’s from the next town over.”
My heart warms.
“In walks your mother.” I can hear the smile in his hoarse words. “Never looked back after that.”
“Aw,” I sigh. “I knew you met at grandpa’s deli, but I’d never heard about Marian.”
“That’s because Marian is irrelevant,” he says. “Life didn’t matter until your mother. She’s my best friend. The girl who stuck by my side despite the fact that I didn’t deserve her. Still don’t deserve her. But thirty-five years later, she’s not going anywhere. You need someone who’ll stick with you when life gets hard. Really hard. Because it will. It always does.”
I nod, knowing he can’t see me. My words are lodged somewhere in my throat.
“Look. I liked Jeremiah. Emphasis on liked. If things got hard and Jeremiah bailed on you, he doesn’t deserve you,” Dad says. “And I wouldn’t be able to live with myself if I knew you were only staying with him because you wanted to make me happy.”
I clutch at my heart, desperately wishing we’d have had this talk weeks ago.
“Thanks, Dad.” A lungful of fresh air reinvigorates me. “I’ve got to get back to work. I’ll see you and Mom in a couple weeks, okay? I’m flying back for Mother’s Day.”
“All right, baby cakes. Love you.”
***
“You’re back.” I linger in Beckham’s office doorway. His cheeks are sunken, his eyes darker than before. He stormed off earlier without saying a word. “You talk to Sophie?”
“Yep.” He glares at the computer screen, punching his keyboard.
“Get everything sorted out?” I shouldn’t pry, but then again, the woman was stalking me, so I have a right to ask.
“She’ll leave you alone from now on.”
That’s all I get?
“What’d she say?” I step into his office. His eyes snap toward me, crawling up me from head to toe as if I’m not welcome in here.
“The details are none of your concern, Odessa.”
“No, it is. She was following me.”
“And I told you she wouldn’t be a problem any longer. What part of that did you not understand?” He slams his keyboard tray back into his desk, slowly rising.
“What the hell is your problem?” My arms lock against my chest, and my hip cocks sideways. “Is any of this about last night?”
It has to be. Nothing else makes sense. Maybe he still loves Sophie and he hates himself for screwing me last night? I’m grasping at straws here but I need to understand what changed.
“Why would any of this be about last night?” A single eyebrow lifts.
My jaw slacks, the words sputtering in my mind. “Maybe you still have feelings for her?”
“Absolutely fucking not.”
“Maybe you’re upset that I’m a bigger part of your life than you ever wanted me to be. Maybe you don’t know how to deal with that emotionally, so you shut down.”
He charges around the desk, coming closer until we’re face to face. He doesn’t intimidate me, and I refuse to back down.
“Thanks for the psychoanalysis, but it won’t be necessary.” His calm tone is delivered with controlled force.
“You don’t have to be so hard all the time,” I say. “You’re nothing but edges. If you’d soften up once in a while…”
“Not everyone lives in a little glass bubble where the sun always shines and life never gets real.” He huffs, his stormy eyes grazing my lips. “Must be fucking nice to always have shit figured out, Odessa. But I’m working on mine, so how about you worry about your own for once?”
“Why are you doing this?”
I search his eyes for a hint of anything that might tell me this friendship, whatever we have, is salvageable because I know what I saw back in Utah. He’s a good person. He has a good heart. This man seething in front of me is about to snap, and he needs someone there to pick up the pieces when he does.