Читать книгу Marriage: For Business or Pleasure? - Nicola Marsh - Страница 10

‘SO, THE prodigal daughter returns.’

From the moment Brittany knew she’d be returning home she’d been bracing for this confrontation.

However, no matter that she told herself it was ridiculous, no amount of deep breathing, or steeling her nerves, or trying to remember how far in the past it all was could calm her in any way as she faced her father for the first time in ten years. She could feel her hands shaking.

She paused at the entrance to his apartment, one of the few in the exclusive Jacaranda special accommodation home for the elderly.

Not that Darby Lloyd would ever admit to his seventy-two years. He’d had work done on his face several times, had hair plugs to arrest a threatening bald patch and continued to wear designer clothes better suited to a man half his age.

But pots of money or cosmetic work or fancy clothes couldn’t buy health and that was one thing he didn’t have these days.

Five years ago, he’d tried to guilt her into quitting her job and returning to look after him as he grew older and more bitter. He’d nearly succeeded. However, some deep part of her had resisted his pressure. He had been a cruel tyrant who’d controlled her life until she’d come into a small inheritance from her mum when she’d turned eighteen and fled as far from him as she could get. She simply couldn’t go back to the hell she’d left behind.

In her heart, she desperately wanted to be anywhere but in front of the man who would have ruined her life if she’d let him, but her pride wouldn’t let her pay a visit to her hometown and not see him. She was older and stronger—surely she could stand to face him now? She had come here today to prove to herself she’d finally set the past to rest. Working harder, longer, than everyone else might keep the memory demons at bay, but she knew if she stopped, slowed down her frenetic pace, the old fears could come crowding back to fling her right back to the dim, dark place ten years earlier.

And she’d be damned if she let that happen. In a way, she should thank dear old Dad for shaping her into the woman she was today: strong, capable and successful, everything he’d said she’d never be.

But there was more to this visit and she knew it, no matter all her self talk to the contrary.

She was here because of hope.

Hope that he might have changed. Hope that after all this time they might actually have a shot at some semblance of a normal father-daughter relationship.

And if not? Well, she was different now: a woman on top of her career, a woman who depended on no one, a woman a far cry from the victim she’d once been.

She’d vowed back then never to be helpless again, had instigated huge steps to eradicate the confusion and fear, yet as she stood on the threshold to this room trepidation tripped across her skin as the anxiety she’d fought to conquer over the last decade clawed at her belly.

‘How are you, Dad?’

‘Much the same.’

He limped towards her, waving his cane at a seat for her. ‘No thanks to you.’

Taking several deep breaths, she perched on the edge of the chair, willing the dread to subside, hating the vulnerability being this close to him elicited.

She needed to do this, needed to see if there was the slightest chance for them before she returned to London.

‘You look good.’

He grunted in response, wouldn’t meet her gaze, his surly expression putting a serious dent in her hopes for some kind of reconciliation.

‘This place is lovely.’

Another monosyllabic grunt as his frown deepened and her patience wore a little thinner.

‘Dad, I really think it’s time to—’

‘What the hell are you doing here?’

His snarl caught her off guard despite his churlishness, yet it wasn’t his response that saddened her as much as the contempt in his truculent glare.

She’d been a fool to hope for anything other than what she got: more of the same from a boorish man who didn’t give a hoot about her.

‘I’m here on business.’

He showed no interest, seemed bored more than anything else. Faced with his silence she could not help asking him:

‘Don’t you want to know how I am? What I’ve been doing? What I’ve achieved?’

His withering stare clued her into his response before he spoke.

‘I don’t give a damn any more.’

Pain sliced her heart in two, the old familiar questions reverberating through her head: What did I do wrong? Why did you stop loving me? Could I have done anything differently?

But she wasn’t the same scared teenager any more.

She had her career skyrocketing all the way to the top and she’d be damned if she sat here and took any of his crap.

Resisting the urge to jab her finger at him to ram home her point, she sat back, folded her arms and looked him straight in the eye.

‘Maybe you should give a damn. That way, you’d know I’m a senior executive at a top London ad firm, that I’m good at what I do and I’ve done it all on my own, no thanks to you.’

She’d come here with some semblance of the idealistic girl she’d once been, but that girl vanished beneath his lack of caring and she wanted to rub his nose in her independence, in her success, in the proof she’d survived despite what he’d put her through.

If she’d thought her outburst would gain a reaction, gain recognition for her achievements, she should’ve known better.

He glowered, drew himself up, resembling the towering giant of a man she remembered as he rammed his cane against the floor.

‘You’re a fool if you think I care about any of that.’

Her heart ached as she stared at the man who was her father biologically but didn’t know the meaning of the word.

She could rant and rave and fling past hurts or present triumphs in his face but what would be the point? Darby listened to no one but himself, which was why he now found himself in this place. No amount of money on offer had induced anyone locally to play nursemaid and she couldn’t blame them.

Slinging her bag higher on her shoulder, she kept her face devoid of pity for the father she’d never had.

‘Sorry you feel that way. I thought…’

What? That the old despot might’ve changed, might’ve mellowed with time and illness? Not likely. If anything, his belligerence had worsened and she’d been crazy to come here, setting the past to rest while hoping for a miracle.

‘Thought what? I’d welcome you with open arms after all this time?’

He snorted, waved his good hand towards the door. ‘Just leave the way you came in.’

She’d cried rivers of wasted tears when she was a teenager for all this man had put her through and there was no way she’d stand here now and allow him to reduce her to tears again.

With a shake of her head, she turned away, ready to walk out and never look back.

‘That’s it, run away again. Though this time, you won’t have a penny of mine to cushion you when you fall.’

Icy foreboding trickled down her spine as she slowly swung back to face him.

‘What did you just say?’

His malevolent grin raised goose bumps on her skin. ‘You heard. That money from your mother? It was a crock. She never left you a cent. That was my money you squandered on your little trip, my money that made sure you didn’t end up in the gutter.’

She staggered, leaned against the doorway for support, her gut twisting with the painful truth.

‘So, daughter dearest, looks like you owe me after all.’

With his words ringing in her ears, she stumbled from the apartment, from the accommodation and made it to her car before she collapsed, slumping over the steering wheel.

She’d thought she’d escaped his stranglehold ten years earlier, had fought hard for her independence, had found safety and confidence in her career.

She’d been wrong.

Right then, she vowed to do whatever it took to pay off her debt.

You owe me…

With the hateful truth ringing in her ears, her head snapped up as she straightened, knowing what she had to do.

There was only one thing that would clear a debt of that magnitude and, right now, gaining her promotion was a necessity.

In choosing between owing her dad a huge amount of money and agreeing to Nick’s outlandish proposal, marrying Nick would be the lesser of two evils.

She’d come.

Nick squinted at Brittany between the spokes of his Harley, trying to read her expression and coming up empty.