I am a man after all. She steps in my direction as Sydney continues to talk, “I know this, and you know this, but he was insistent that you come.”
“Hello, handsome…” The woman’s now standing in front of me, one hand on her hip as the other reaches up to touch my jacket. “You want to get out of here?”
“Who’s that?” Sydney asks. “Weren’t you having dinner with Thea?”
“Yes,” I answer, but the woman in front of me thinks I’m talking to her and takes that opportunity to press herself against me.
She has some balls, that’s for sure.
“That does not sound like Thea.” Sydney’s voice has become sharp, and I can tell there is malice by the tone.
“Your place or mine?” she asks.
“Oh, you are a one hundred percent dick.” Then I hear Sydney hang up and smile at her choice of words.
I grab hold of the redhead in front of me and pull her hand away from me. “Goodnight,” I say, turning and leaving her standing there. She’s not the one I want. Maybe if she were blonde and not so compliant then maybe.
But she’s not who I want.
No, she won’t do. What I want is a little blonde who has an ass I could bite for days, and tits I could fuck for weeks, and sass that drives me insanely crazy.
No, she isn’t my little blonde bombshell.
My father is the same man he was before he went into prison. He’s in charge as much in here as he was when he was free. His fellow inmates nod as he strides past them, walking into the visitation room to sit in front of me. When he’s settled, he puts his hands in front of us on the table and offers me a smile.
“I’m glad to see you, son.”
“What do you want?” I ask, not wanting to play any of his twisted games. He was always good at them, except with me. I always saw right through them. Guess it’s a perk of being raised by him.
“Oh, come on…” he lifts his hand and rubs his jaw, “… can’t a father just want to see his son more than twice a year?”
“Usually, yes… but you are no regular father, now are you, Cole,” I say, using his first name—a request he made when I was growing up. He didn’t want to be seen to have any weaknesses, and as far as he was concerned, I was one of them.
“I heard about you.”
“You are checking up on me?” I ask, shaking my head.
He rubs his jaw and glances around the room. “You should know better than to parade a woman around more than once,” he whispers. My back straightens, and he looks at me with some sort of sense of pride which gets my back up instantly. “Get rid of her before someone does it for you,” he snaps, then he sits back straight as if he didn’t just throw a threat right at my feet.
“She’s pregnant, and it isn’t mine. The woman was Benji’s,” I say, referring to Lucy.
Cole shakes his head. “I know all about her. No. She’s no issue, and don’t try to lie. Do you want to jeopardize everything you have built?” he asks through gritted teeth. “You have everything I wanted and more, don’t fuck this up over one woman. I made that mistake with your mother and look how that turned out.”
“My mother?” I ask.
He never talks about her.
To me, she’s a ghost.
“Yes, she was an issue that was resolved.”
Everything inside me goes still at his words.
“What did you do?” He smiles, says nothing, but I know straight away. “You told me she left.”
“Oh, she did leave, just not the way you thought.”
“You killed my mother?”
“Keep your voice down.”
“You killed her? My mother?” I ask in disbelief. I don’t remember her, but that’s not the point. He had no right to take her from me.
“She was becoming a distraction I couldn’t afford to have.”
“You’re an asshole. If you ever threaten those around me again, I will have you fucking killed.” I stand, and he reaches for my arm.
“Blonde, pretty little thing, isn’t she? Has she worked out what kind of man you are? How you used to kill at the drop of a hat? How you have a dark side… much darker than mine. I named you Atlas for a reason… I wanted you to have the world, to hold it up in your very own hands.”
“But, you’re a greedy fucker and would have killed