Falling Into Love with You (The Hate-Love Duet #2) - Lauren Rowe Page 0,26

fault. Mimi once told me she felt like my father was born without a complete soul. Like, he just didn’t feel things the way other people did. She said it only got worse when his dad, Mimi’s husband, died.”

Laila looks down at her bowl of soup, looking distraught. “I’m sorry you’ve had it so rough, Savage.”

“Nobody has it easy in life, really. Speaking of which, tell me about your asshole father.”

Laila drags her spoon through her bowl of soup, gathering her thoughts. “My parents got married when my mom got accidentally pregnant with my sister. When things became rocky in their marriage, they decided in their infinite wisdom to have a second baby to ‘fix’ things.”

“Brilliant plan.”

Laila rolls her eyes. “Yeah. Obviously, my existence didn’t fix a damned thing. I remember my dad often being loud and angry when Angel and I were little. He’d punch holes in walls. Smash plates and lamps onto the ground. And then, one day, my father did the unthinkable: he punched my mom in the face during an argument and broke a bone under her eye.”

“Jesus.”

“My mom took Angel and me to live with my aunt in Whittier. We lived there until my mom could afford an apartment of our own.”

“Did you keep in touch with your father through all that?”

“Sort of. My sister was done with him the day we moved out. But I kept in touch for a while, by phone, and listened to him tell me how sorry he was. How much he’d changed. But one day, I heard my mom crying while talking to him on the phone, so I listened in. And the way he was cussing her out . . . That’s when I knew he was still the same asshole who’d broken her face. And that’s when I was done with him for good, too. I grabbed the phone and told him to fuck off and never speak to any of us again. Angel got on the phone and said the same. We told our mom we’d always take care of her and not to bother trying to squeeze any child support out of him, again. It wasn’t worth it. And we’ve been a threesome ever since.”

“Until he called to ask you for money,” I say.

She looks up, surprised. “How’d you know about that?”

“It’s always the same story, Laila. The same thing happened to me and to so many of my friends, once they started getting any kind of success and fame. You have no idea how common it is.”

“Oh.”

“So, did you give him money when he asked?”

She looks sheepish. “Did you?”

I nod. “I paid my father ten grand, in exchange for a comprehensive agreement. He’s prohibited from talking about me to the press and can’t sue me for the time I decked him. So, it was money well spent.”

“Shoot. I didn’t think to get an agreement like that. He’s given several interviews about me. It’s so embarrassing. He acts like he’s been an amazing father to me—like my success is all his doing, simply because he got me a Fisher Price keyboard as a toddler. But he’s not the one who sacrificed, constantly, to keep me going to piano lessons. He’s not the one who listened to every new song I wrote, even the terrible ones, and cried tears of joy and told me I had a gift.”

“Don’t pay him another dime, Laila. Ever.”

She sniffles. “I send him money a few times a year.”

“Why?”

She shrugs. “I don’t know. He was a heavy smoker and now he’s sick. Helping with his medical bills makes me feel less guilty, I guess.”

“Guilty for what?”

She twists her sultry lips. “I can’t abandon him. He’s blood. And I’ve been so lucky in my career.”

Anger surges inside me. “No, Laila. Fuck him. You didn’t ask him to have sex with your mom without a condom. And, yes, you’ve been lucky in your career. But luck is only one of the factors of your success.” I motion to the half-empty bowl in front of me at the dining room table. “It’s like this soup. There’ve been a whole lot of ingredients, besides luck, to get you where you are today. Hard work. Piano lessons. And most of all, like your mom said, your gift. Whatever luck you’ve had, it wouldn’t have gotten you anywhere, without the rest of the ingredients along with it.”

“Thank you,” she whispers, looking moved. She swallows hard. “That means a lot, coming from you. I think so highly of