Back With Baby, Ex Regrets Deeply novel · Chapter 19 of 32

Chapter 19: Grandfather

"Stay here," I said to Alistair.

"Faye."

"He's my father. Stay here. Please."

He stayed in the parlor doorway.

He didn't like it.

I went down the hall in my bare feet and stood on my side of the door, with my hand flat on the wood.

The pounding stopped.

I could hear him breathing on the other side, heavy.

"Dad."

"Faye." His voice cracked with relief. "Sweetheart. Open the door."

"No."

"I just want to talk. I want to see the boy. I've never even held him, Faye. My only grandson."

"You told Laurel she was giving you one at your birthday dinner. You looked pretty happy about it."

Silence.

Then his palm slid down the door.

"I was drunk then too," he said.

"You weren't."

"Please." It came out of him wet. "I've lost the company. You heard him. Nine o'clock Monday. Fifty years and I've lost it, and I've lost you, and I just want to hold my grandson one time before I lose him too."

Upstairs, in the little room, Teddy made a sleepy sound and went quiet again.

I leaned my forehead on the door.

For a second, just one, I was six years old and he was carrying me up these stairs after I fell off the piano bench, saying I was his brave girl.

Then I remembered the counter at City Hall.

The cup of pencils.

"Is it done?"

"No, Dad," I said.

The breathing on the other side changed.

When he spoke again the wet had gone out of it.

"You think you're better than me now," he said. "Because of him. Because of his money. You think people don't know how you got it?"

"Go home."

"I'll tell them. I'll tell every paper in this city. Kincaid bought my daughter for forty million dollars. Signed, sealed, delivered. Let's see how your Scottish prince likes that on the front page."

"I'd like it very much," said Alistair, right behind me.

I hadn't heard him come down the hall.

He put his hand over mine on the door, flat, warm.

"Tell them, Gordon," he said through the wood, perfectly calmly. "Bring them the contract. The first paragraph is the part about her own free will. I'd love the world to read that next to your bank records."

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