red and had a look her eye I recognized instantly. Often times in the past, I’d had that look directed at me. This did not mean good things for my mother. And I was suddenly very curious as to what my parents would do when confronted with Kat’s full wrath.
“Why is everything so difficult? You’re getting to be as bad as your brother,” Father growled. And with a forceful thrust, he plopped his own flute down on the table. It tipped over and the orange spread across the pristine white tablecloth and soaked part of his toast. Good. Karma was a bitch, old man.
“For once I’d just like to see my progeny succeed at something instead of being whiney spoiled brats wallowing in their sorrows. Especially when they’ve been handed everything they could ever want.”
Wow. The asshole was pulling no punches today. I bit my tongue. No point in losing my cool now. I had nothing to prove and I sure as hell wasn’t going to sit at this table and keep eating after that outburst. As far as I was concerned, breakfast was over. I pulled my napkin out of my lap and dumped it on the table then reached out for Kat’s hand. But she wasn’t looking and I doubt she was even aware of my presence.
If looks could kill, I’d be an orphan right this moment. Kat’s eyes were practically shooting blue-hot flame. “I think you’d have to be completely ignorant not to see that your children are succeeding right before your eyes. In spite of you.” Her gaze flicked to my dumbstruck mother whose mouth was hanging wide open. “And you.”
Father stiffened, unaccustomed to being challenged. My first instinct was to warn Kat that he wasn’t worth the effort or the breath she’d waste.
“Lucas is on the shortlist for a very prestigious job heading up a brand new division of our company. He’s one of the best employees we’ve got. And one of the smartest, too.”
“Now is not the time for this!” Mother hissed. The journalist group had backed off, but the reporter was taking notes in her tablet and Man-Bun was subtly snapping photos of the confrontation.
I was inclined to agree with my mother but more for Kat’s sake than for theirs.
Apparently Father didn’t give a crap about the audience and only cared about verbally slapping down my wife. “I’m glad to know you think so highly of him for the short time that you’ve known him. But before you did, he failed at just about everything, including a marriage to a very nice young lady. I just hope for your sake, Katharina, that he doesn’t sabotage what he has now. He’s already thrown out all the advantages he’s had in life to go incognito in some useless cubicle job. We won’t talk about the times when just getting out of bed was too difficult for him to accomplish.”
Kat blinked at him, astonished, her blue eyes blazed azure death. I wrapped my fingers around her wrist and tugged. I was not engaging in this bullshit and if I could help it, neither would she. “It’s not worth it,” I muttered. Julia nodded her agreement with my statement but Kat yanked her hand free.
“You are worth it.” Kat looked at Julia. “And so is your sister.”
Then she squared off with my father. Mother was frozen in horror, glancing over at the journalists. I could tell she was trying to figure out a way to herd them out of here.
Kat looked like a bull who’d just been taunted with a gigantic scarlet banner.
“Why are you saying such terrible things? You’re being abusive.”
“Of course I’m not,” the old man shot back.
“Then pull your head out of your ass and stop acting like this to your own kids.”
Mother dropped her flute on the ground and it shattered everywhere. That didn’t stop the confrontation, though. All it did was bring more people running, staff to clean it up. The journalists weren’t budging.
“And I’ve only known Julia a few weeks, but I know what you said about her, too, is wrong. Maybe if you bothered to even know your children as people, you’d know how fucking clueless you are. But you’d probably never admit that because you don’t even care about them.”
Father was losing his cool now, face flushing. He made a jerky gesture in my sister’s and my direction. “I care enough to be disappointed that one is a drunk and the other a mopey sad-sack. He couldn’t find the