Revenge: A Bad Boy Romance (49 page)

The door opened.

This was it. After nine slow months without her, I would now go back to the sweet ecstasy that lie between her legs.

“No,” she mumbled quietly. “I’m sorry. This can’t happen.”

She backed away from me, my fingers torn from her soft skin, as she walked into her apartment and closed the door behind her, taking my hopes of a beautiful night with her.  

I rested my head against her door trying to think of anything that would direct blood away from my penis.  

Zach. That did the trick nicely.  

I left and headed home. I’d fucked it up. April wanted me—or at least, she wanted my body—but that wasn’t enough for someone like her. All women wanted me to fuck them, and usually that was it. But not April. She needed more than that in a man.  

She needed something I couldn’t give her. I just wished I knew what it was.

Working at Foster’s law firm did have some advantages. Summer associates were paid the same amount as first-year associates which meant I had gone from being a student having to live off loans to cover my living expenses, to suddenly earning $3,000 a week. 

Even after tax, I earned more in a week than I ever had in a month before now. I’d always been embarrassed by my bank account, and I still was, but for a very different reason. 

The amount of money Arrington & Hedges paid me was absurd, but it’s not like I was going to give it back. Besides, it meant I could fly home to New York without having to worry about paying for the ticket or asking Dad for money, and right now what I really needed more than anything else in the world was to spend the weekend with Dad.

I texted him to let him know I was heading home and he replied telling me to go straight to Kathleen’s New York place. I guess that meant he was living there full-time now. I couldn’t really blame him. Given a choice between living in a mansion, or a small three-bedroom house that was falling apart, I would take the mansion as well. 

Dad suspected something was wrong the second I’d told him about my visit. He usually had to beg me to come home, and I wasn’t one for surprise visits. I put a brave face on—easy enough to do via text message—and told him I just wanted to get away from the stress of work for the weekend.

There was some truth to that. I wanted to get away from the office, because the office reminded me of Foster. So did my apartment. I couldn’t spend any time in my bedroom without having flashbacks to that night nine months ago, and even the hallway now reminded me of a kiss I would rather forget.

Foster’s touch made me weak at the knees. It didn’t matter where on my body he touched me. This time he’d gone to my thigh and ass, but he could just as easily have held my hand or touched my back, he would have gotten the same reaction from me; a racing heart and a dripping wet sex. 

The second I saw Dad, I couldn’t keep up the pretense any longer. I looked up at him as he opened the door, smiled, and then burst into tears. 

Dad laughed and brought me in for a hug.

“What’s so funny?” I sobbed.

“You used to do that when you were a kid and you’d done something naughty,” Dad replied. “You’d look up at me just as I was about to tell you off, and then you’d burst into tears.”

“I remember.” 

“I’m sure you did it just so that I wouldn’t punish you.”

“It usually worked,” I said, smiling. Dad and I went into the living room, and sat down on one of the soft leather sofa. “Is Kathleen around?”

“No, she’s gone out to run some errands. We have time to talk. Are you going to tell me what’s wrong?”

“I’m not sure I can talk to you about it.”

“Boy trouble?” 

I shook my head. I didn’t want to talk about Foster right now, and I didn’t think that was what had me so upset anyway. I wanted Foster and he wanted me. I’d felt that much digging into my stomach when we kissed. Why couldn’t I let him in? 

“Girl problems?” Dad guessed.

“You really want to talk about girl problems?” I joked.

“Well, it depends what they are. I have a small selection of speeches I can offer you based on what I’ve read in women’s magazines. Let’s see, are you having your first period?”

I laughed. “No, Dad, we’re a little way past that one.”

“Ah, okay. Is your period late?”

“Nope.”

“Thank God for that. I think that’s all I have memorized. Tell you what, why don’t you describe the problem and I’ll try to improvise?”

Where did I start? I wasn’t happy at work. I was earning a small fortune. Dad would be giddy if he ever earned half of what they were paying me right now. But the work felt shallow and dry. 

The only piece of work that seemed vaguely interesting and might have helped people was fighting the PorTupe fraud, but Foster had stopped me going anywhere near that. All because we had to keep the client happy, even when the client was a company run by awful people.

“Did Mom enjoy her job?” I asked.

Dad hesitated before answering, which I hadn’t been expecting. “I’m not sure she enjoyed the work so much as she thrived off the pressure. She wouldn’t have given it up for the world, but saying she enjoyed it is probably going a bit too far. We didn’t talk about work much to be honest.”

“Why not?” 

“I didn’t understand what she did, and she would often get stressed out just talking about it.”

“She always seemed so happy when she spoke to me. Mom made it sound like the best job in the world, but now that I’m doing it I’m not so sure.”

Dad smiled and wrapped his arm around my shoulders. “Have you ever asked a kid what they want to be when they grow up?”

“Yes, I guess so. Why?”

“They always give crazy answers, don’t they? Like astronaut, or fireman, or actor. Do you know what you used to say when you were a kid?” I shook my head. “You said you wanted to be a lawyer like Mommy.”

I smiled. I couldn’t remember having said that, but it sounded like the kind of thing I would say. “Maybe the dream is better than the reality. I don’t want to just be a lawyer. I want to be a great lawyer, like Mom.”

“I know. And your mother always wanted to support you in that dream. But if you remember, she also always told you to find your own path. She told you to consider other areas of law. You don’t have to do corporate law to make your mom proud, April. Hell, you don’t have to do law at all if you don’t want to.”

“Mom made it look so easy.”

“Yeah, she did didn’t she. Your mother was quite the actress at times. She certainly had me fooled.”

“What do you mean?” 

I looked up into Dad’s eyes and could see he was struggling to hold back tears as well. He always got emotional whenever we talked about Mom, but I’d never seen him cry before. He’d always been strong in front of me.

“April,” Dad said softly, as he removed his arm from my shoulders, and turned around to look at me. “I need to tell you the truth about the accident that killed your mom.”

The truth?

“I already know what happened, Dad. Mom died in a car crash.”  

“Yes, she did. But I kept some of the facts from you.”  

“Why?” What other facts could be important? My mom had been killed. Surely everything else paled into insignificance in comparison to that?

“Do you remember what life was like in the months before your mother died?”  

I’d been sixteen when Mom died. Old enough to have reached the terrible teens with full force and effect. I’d spent more time arguing with my parents than talking to them, but all kids did that.  

Dad had long ago convinced me that I didn’t need to feel guilty for the way I’d acted towards Mom in the months before her death. From my point of view, I’d been a completely ungrateful bitch, but to Mom and Dad I’d just been a sulky teenager. Apparently they even used to laugh about it, because I was living up to such a cliché stereotype.

“I’d been a bit moody,” I replied. “I don’t remember why.”

“A
bit
moody?” Dad said with a laugh. “That’s the understatement of the century. Yes, you were a bit difficult to live with, however you weren’t the only one with issues.”

“You and Mom fought a few times,” I said, as I remembered hearing them argue through the thin walls.  

I usually had headphones on in my room because Dad got annoyed at the loud music, but sometimes I just lay on the bed and thought about boys from school. That’s when I’d hear the arguments. I couldn’t tell what they were arguing about, but it was impossible to ignore the angry, raised voices.

“Yes,” Dad admitted. “There were arguments.”

“Were you going to break up?”

“God no, nothing like that. We both loved each other very much. The rows were just because of the stress your mother was under. She started working later and later, often not coming home until midnight or the early hours of the morning.”

“That’s the job,” I said. “I’ve experienced that already. When there’s a big deal going down in the office, people start working all the hours available to get it finished.”

“I know. I’m not completely insensitive to what she had to go through at work. However, when one big deal finished, another would start, and before you knew it she was working like that non-stop.”

“I didn’t realize,” I said softly. Of course I didn’t; I was too consumed with myself to pay attention to what my mother was going through. No doubt I’d been obsessed with some boy whose name I couldn’t even remember anymore.

“Good,” Dad said. “We didn’t want you to worry about it. I tried to convince your mother to take a step back, and maybe even move jobs if necessary. We didn’t need all that money, but your mom was an incredibly ambitious woman.”

“I remember. She wanted to become managing partner one day.”

“And she would have as well, of that I have no doubt. When your mother wanted something she got it.”  

“Like you?” I joked.

“Yes, like me,” Dad said. “I was quite the catch back in the day. Your mother wasn’t the only lady lining up for a bit of—”

“Okay Dad, I believe you. But what does all this have to do with Mom’s death?”

The smile quickly disappeared from Dad’s face. He’d let himself get sidetracked to delay having to break the news as long as possible.  

“In the week leading up to the crash, things at work were absolutely crazy. I always liked to wait up for her, but she was getting in at one or two in the morning every day, including weekends. She often came home looking like a zombie.”