Page 22 of His Flash Mate
I grabbed the sandwiches I’d pre-ordered during lunch and headed home.
An unfamiliar car sat in the driveway.Had it been some middle-class sedan, I would have been fine.But it wasn’t.It was a top-end luxury sedan that filled me with dread, anger, and the need to keep driving.
Only one person in our lives drove one of those, and I wanted nothing to do with him.However, I couldn’t abandon Mom to face him alone.
“Asshole,” I said under my breath as I parked on the street.
I grabbed the takeout and headed inside.
Dad was sitting at the table, looking very out of place as Mom poured him a glass of water.
“Sophia,” he said with a smile as he stood, ignoring the water Mom set in front of him.“It’s good to see you.I brought you something.”He picked up a box from the table and held it out to me.It was an expensive-looking cake.Too bad it was in the box.I could have smashed it in his?—
“Congratulations on your first week at Steele Corporation.I’m so proud of you.”
I looked up from the cake to meet his gaze.
“Why are you here?”
His doting-father expression didn’t falter.
“To catch up with you.It’s been too long.We need to have a family dinner soon.I’d like you to meet your stepmother and brother.”
I was aniceperson.A people person.I cared when people were hurting.I had empathy.But right then, I couldn’t dredge up a hint of niceness.I could feel my neck heating with my temper.
How dare he come into my mother’s house and talk about the rich, old-money woman he’d fucked my mom over to marry?
Mom read my expression.
“Denis, now might not be?—”
“Why now?”I asked him.“What benefit do you think I can bring to you?I’m still the same nothing I was when you abandoned us.”
His confident air cracked.“I didn’t abandon you, Sophia.”
“No, you just traded me for company stock, which had more value to you than I did.”
He sighed and set the cake on the table.
“You’ve had a long day, and I’m sure seeing me again surprised you.Call me when you’re ready for a family dinner.”He started for the door, and Mom walked with him.
“It was good seeing you again, Abbye,” he said at the door.
I wanted to kick him, even as she nodded without returning the sentiment.
As soon as I heard his car start, I picked up the cake and threw it in the garbage.
“Sophia…”
“Don’t start, Mom.I’ll never forgive him for the way he treated us.”
“Honey, he had every right to pursue his happiness.”
I walked away, too angry to argue.
She saw what he did as pursuing his dreams, which, in a way, was what he’d done.But it washowhe’d done it—the way he’d used me as a bargaining chip to get more of the company from my mom—that earned my hate.
And why had he wanted the company?All because he wanted to look good to pursue some old-money woman for her connections.Because that’s who my dad was.A user.Through and through.He used Mom’s skills to build a successful business, then pulled the rug out from under her feet and used custody of me to manipulate her into giving him more of the company than she should have.
