Stephanie’s shoulders sagged, and the corners of her mouth turned down. “I guess we should go in there.”
“Don’t listen to a word he says, okay? Just let me do the talking.” After our blowout the day before, I had a pretty good feeling what this was about.
As soon as I walked into my office, I realized it was about more than that. He was furious, practically foaming at the damn mouth as he waved a picture around in the air. “You immature fucking child!”
I was taken aback by the animosity and hostility in the voice. Beyond furious, I was afraid he might burst a blood vessel if he didn’t get himself together. “Calm down, Dad. You and I can talk about this. Let Steph get to work.”
Ignoring me completely, he pulled out his phone and started paging through pictures on it as he held it up to me. His hands were shaking too badly from his rage for me to see clearly, but it looked like he had the same pictures Jannie sent to Stephanie.
“How dare you?” He seethed, eyes black and unforgiving as they locked on mine. “You’re still pulling all the same shit you always have.”
“I’m not, I’m—”
“You’re fucking your secretary, that’s what you are. I mean really, Jeremiah. We’ve all had our little trysts with the help when we were young, but you’re not a fucking child anymore. Even if your actions beg to differ. I’ve told you before, and I’ll tell you again, it’s time for you to grow up.”
I felt rather than saw Steph tense beside me. Both of us knew the reason he wanted her to witness this showdown was still coming. Every part of me begged and itched to reach out to her, to protect her from his callous words and harsh untruths. I held back only because I knew it would only make it worse.
If I paid any attention to her right now, he would lay into both of us twice as hard. As it was, I knew he saw me looking at her from the corner of my eye to check on her. The disgusted sneer on his face when he noticed sickened me.
A vein in his temple pulsed as his eyes cut from mine to hers and back again. The lines and ridges on his skin looked sharp suddenly, matching his cold gaze. It made him look like he could rip someone to shreds.
“You’re in the eye of the public at all times, son,” he said, jerking his head in Steph’s direction. For the first time since we walked into the room, he looked at her. His gaze traveled down the length of her delectable body, and his top lip curled up as if he smelled something vile.
“You would do well to remember your choices reflect on this family, this company. You can do better than the likes of her. Do you really want the public to think we’ve lost our goddamn minds? That’s what they’re going to think if they see you with her, that pressure and grief turned you certifiable.”
A sharp stinging pain hit me in the heart. I had another fleeting thought back to scheduling a visit with Dr. Adams, but now was hardly the time. Stephanie was shaking next to me, doing everything she could not to cry.
Fat tears balanced on her eyelids, and her hands were fisted behind her back. She kept swallowing and pressing the corners of her mouth together. She was hurt by what my father had said.
And she had every right to be. He carried on with his rant, telling me again how embarrassed he was when someone called him after the fundraiser to ask who my new girlfriend was. Reiterating that I had responsibilities that extended beyond what my dick wanted. Then he started yelling about how stupid I was to have allowed photos to be taken of me with someone who looked like Steph.
The strangest sense of calm took hold of me as he ranted. A cool serenity that allowed me to listen but feel totally detached from what he was saying. It was like a shield went up in front of me, I only wished I could extend it to Stephanie.
Fighting my father’s fire with fire wasn’t going to work as a first option, as tempted as I was to start slinging mud back at him. It was like the calm before the storm settled over me. I could still feel the storm brewing deep inside though, waves crashing and angry currents churning right below the surface.
“It’s time to grow a pair, Jeremiah. I won’t stand for this. What if these photos appear on a front page tomorrow? Do you have any idea what kind of damage that would do?”
“It won’t do any damage,” I said, grabbing hold of the serenity like a damn life raft. I was going to need it if I had any hope of getting through to him. “The pictures were taken by Jannie, my former secretary. The one you fired.”
“How do you know? They could’ve been sent from anywhere.” He thrust his hands out to his sides. “It doesn’t really matter where they’re from anyway. Their very existence confirms that you haven’t grown up or out of your selfish ways at all.”
“Stephanie and I are being stalked by an ex-employee of this company,” I said, breathing through the anger threatening to break the surface. “She has invaded our privacy, and I expect the company will take the appropriate steps in assuring Stephanie’s safety as well as our privacy going forward.”
“Your privacy?” He spat. “Fuck your privacy. If you’d done what I told you to do in the first place, none of this would be—”
I interrupted him, speaking through gritted teeth as I desperately fought to maintain the fast- diminishing calm I felt before. “Our privacy was invaded by her taking those photographs and again when she sent them to you. Would you please delete whatever is on your phone and give me the hard copies?”
His gray, uncharacteristically unruly eyebrows jumped to his receding hairline. “Hand them over? Absolutely not.”
I sighed internally, readying myself for the battle I knew was coming. The calmness that allowed me to give him a chance to have his say all but evaporated, leaving me with an almost overwhelming urge to clock my father and the most intense need to protect Steph from him—no matter what it took.