He Cancelled Our Future for Her Anxiety novel · Chapter 20 of 24

Chapter 20: The Father

Corinne's POV

Owen's father was heavier than I had expected, and older, and he stood up when we came into the café.

It was a small place near the museum with steamed windows and a radiator under every table.

He held out a hand to me, and Owen said, "Dad, this is Corinne."

"I know who she is," his father said. "She's the reason I'm here."

I shook his hand and sat.

Owen sat beside me, close enough that our knees touched, and he kept them there.

A waitress brought three coffees.

Nobody drank any.

"I'll say what I came to say," said his father. "Then you can walk out, and I'll understand."

"Say it."

"I let Margaret run this house for twenty years because it was easier than arguing with her." He turned his cup a quarter turn, and I saw where Owen had learned it. "When Piper got ill, Margaret decided the answer was a person. I knew what that meant. I knew it was wrong. And I said, fine, ask the boy."

"I was seventeen."

"You were seventeen. We asked a child to be a nurse and a bodyguard and a brother, and we called it a scholarship." He looked up. "You said no. You were the only one of us who ever did."

Owen said nothing.

"I should have called you in Michigan," his father went on. "I wrote the letter four times and I tore it up four times. By the time I had the nerve, you'd already got used to not having me."

"You got used to me not being there," Owen said. His voice was very quiet.

"Yes. That too."

From his coat he drew an envelope and put it on the table.

"That's the mortgage on Dylan's family house, signed over to his mother. I did it yesterday at the Fund's lawyer's. It was a trust in my name, and Margaret couldn't stop it without a court order. The loan is paid in full, and there's a letter to say nobody asked for anything in return."

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