Page 29 of Accidental Dad’s Best Friend (Unintentionally Yours #7)

Izzy

T he phone goes dead and I collapse onto the couch.

The article will go public tomorrow. An article that I wrote to expose everything my dad is doing and has been doing for years.

All the people he’s hurt. All the shady discrediting he’s done to other magazines and publishers to see to it that Next Best Thing is on top and stays there.

The man’s success is perched on a mountain composed of the bodies of everyone he’s torn down in order to be there.

It’s sick. It’s twisted. And the article must be printed. At any cost.

But in the same breath, I must keep Jaxon safe.

Once this blows up, all hell is going to break loose.

Which means he is also going to find out about me and Ethan.

He’s going to find out he has a grandson and because my poker face is shit, and Ethan is pissed, my dad is also going to figure out that Jaxon is his best friend’s son.

And who knows what hidden bombs will explode then.

I get up and pace the floor. It’s too much. All of it is too much. If only there was a way to come clean. To soften the blow. If my dad only has to process one thing at a time, maybe, just maybe, his reaction won’t be so…catastrophic.

I peek in Jax’s room. He’s been asleep but he’s stirring now. My heart sinks. He probably heard me on the phone. With small hands, hands that clench around my whole heart, he rubs his eyes. His hair is a mess and his cheeks are pink.

“Mommy, what’s going on? Is it morning already?”

“No, baby. It’s still night time. But I need you to get up. We are going for a ride.” I am smiling but the words are choked. I hope he can’t hear it. He’s still small but I know a day is going to come that I won’t be able to hide things anymore. But for now, we are going for a ride.

That’s enough to jolt Jaxon with a charge of excitement and he jumps up from the bed. “A ride? Where are we going? Ice cream?”

That pulls a small laugh from somewhere inside of me. The place where I hold joy, joy that comes only from Jaxon and always seems to surface in hard times just when I need it most. “Sorry, buddy. No ice cream. We just need to go into my work to take care of some things.”

“Your work? But you work with Ethan. Are we going to Ethan’s work? The tall building in the city? Can we ride the elevator?!”

“We will see. Now grab your blanky and one of your stuffies. We need to hurry.”

After wrapping his blanket around himself and picking Bluey over his stuffed brontosaurus, Jax slips on his tennis shoes and we head out to the car.

I make him wait by me as I check and double check the alarm system.

I want to make sure whoever is harassing us will be caught on camera if they do it again.

I need to be careful. I need to trace my own steps and keep my eyes open.

Someone is out to get me. Someone is out to get us.

And from the looks of it, they aren’t going to stop until they get what they want. Whatever that is.

Once we're en route, I hand Jax his tablet. “You can watch anything you want, buddy. But you have to keep the volume down, okay? And no talking at all. I need you to be as quiet as a mouse while I am on the phone.”

“Are you calling Ethan?” He asks, pulling a cartoon up on the screen.

“No, baby. Not Ethan.”

The phone rings twice before he answers. And in those two rings, I feel a flood of memories and hurt and dread all washing over me. But luckily, he answers quickly enough that I don’t back down.

“Liam Sloane,” my dad answers professionally. I can tell by his voice that I didn’t wake him. He’s probably working. Or drinking. Or both. My voice catches in my throat and when I don’t answer he speaks again. “Hello?”

“Hi.” I breathe the single word just so he won’t hang up. It took all the bravery in me to make this phone call once, I don’t think I can do it again.

“Who is this?” He asks. And a small part of me hurts over the fact he doesn't know. He doesn’t recognise my voice.

I’m sure he doesn’t recognise the number either, I’ve changed it several times since moving.

But for him to not know my voice, well. It solidifies the presumptions I’ve always had about him.

“Listen. If this is a prank call, I’ll have you–”

“It’s me,” I cut him off. “It’s…Isabelle.”

There’s a beat. And then,

“Izzy?” I hear a sliver of something soft in his tone. But just as quickly as it came, it’s gone again. “What do you want? Money? A job? Forgiveness? All of those things are a long shot, by the way.”

“I want to talk,” I state with my chin held as high as I can manage. I keep my voice steady too. One, because I don’t want Jax to know I am upset. I want his little eyes to stay locked on that screen. And two, because I will not allow myself to show my dad that I am vulnerable.

“So talk.”

“No. I want to talk in person.”

He lets out an irritated sigh into the phone and I can literally see the annoyance on his face. “I’m a busy man, Izzy. I don’t have time for whatever–”

“I am headed to your office now.”

He stops. Another pause. Then he sucks the air through his teeth. It’s a thing he’s always done. When he has something to say. When he’s already said something and wants it to be the last word.

“You’re stubborn. Like your mother was.”

It’s a passive aggressive comment. There’s guilt behind it. Any time she comes up in conversation, which isn’t often, there is always guilt woven in. I know he blames me for her being gone. And it pains him to see resemblance in us.

“I want you to meet me there,” I tell him. There is no emotion in my voice.

“It’s been five years,” he states.

Six. Almost seven, honestly. But who’s counting? Not me. I stopped years ago.

“Dad. I wouldn’t be asking if it wasn’t important. Very…important.”

I say the word knowing it’s as hard for him to hear it as it is for me to say it. Knowing that despite feeling foreign, unnatural even, that is who he is to me. And neither of us can change that.

He sniffs and his jaw clicks. “I’ll be there in ten. But this needs to be quick. The next issue of NBT hits the racks tomorrow and I can’t be distracted.”

The line goes dead and for the first time, I take a breath and let it out. My whole body is shaking and a few salty, hot tears burn the back of my eyes. I blink them away and glance in the back seat. Jaxon is glued to his show, one small hand holding his tablet and the other stroking his stuffy.

He’s so small. So pure. So innocent in all of this.

And it’s all my fault. That’s why I need to protect him, whatever that looks like.

And right now, despite all of my worst fears being a possibility, I know that coming clean about him to my dad is step number one.

Maybe, just maybe, if he knows this truth first and has time to process it, the blow of what is coming won’t turn him into a complete monster. At least one can only hope.

I get out of the car and find the office lit. He must already be inside. Jax and I step in, his hand in mine. “Wow,” he whispers. “This is a big office.”

We are only in the foyer. The secretary's desk is in front of us and next to that is a giant fish tank. Jaxon’s hand pulls from mine and he walks over to it, his eyes trailing up to the ceiling. “Look at all the fish, mommy.”

I smile shakily. Down the hall I can see another light. My dad’s office. I walk over to Jax and kneel down, pulling him to face me. “Listen, buddy. I need to go talk to someone for a minute, okay? You look at the fishes and stay right here. Promise?”

He nods and I smile again, kissing him on the top of the head before making my way down the hall.

I pass several other doors, all closed, including conference rooms and the editor's office. Just before I get to the one that I know belongs to my dad, I stop. Ethan’s office is the last on the left.

The door is closed, lights off. He must have left already.

Home probably. I swallow hard, running my hand over the metal name tag on the door. Then I keep going.

My dad is sitting at his desk staring up at me with steepled hands. Jesus. I am his daughter and this is not a business meeting. But he likes to feel powerful, in any exchange, and sitting behind that desk makes him feel that way.

“Izzy,” he greets me formally, with a nod and a once over. “You look…tired.”

Jab number one. I already have an invisible force field around my feelings because this man has never made a point of tip-toeing around them. If anything this is like a game of darts for him. He’ll start with the edges and work his way inward until eventually hitting a bullseye.

“And you look like you.” My lips curve and so do his. I fucking hate that I got my smile from him. His smile, his eyes and his ‘don’t fuck with me’ attitude. The latter isn’t so bad, it’s the only reason I can stand my own with him. It’s how I’ve survived.

Now hopefully I keep surviving.

“It’s been a while, Izzy.” He leans back in his seat and pulls a bourbon bottle out of his desk. “Drink?”

“I’m good.”

“You don’t like whiskey?”

“Not during business.”

He laughs through his teeth. “Business, huh? So you are looking for a job. I’d have to see your resume.” He pours himself two fingers of whiskey and takes a sip, his hard eyes meeting mine.

“I’m not looking for a job, dad. I need to talk to you about something that happened…a few years ago.”

“You mean you leaving town after the stunt you pulled at Slay?”

“That’s part of it.”

My dad takes another sip and gestures towards the chair in front of his giant oak desk. “Sit. Please.”

“I’d rather stand,” I tell him. “I want to talk about why I left town. Why I stayed away for five years.”

“You mean it wasn’t because your reputation as a journalist was trashed? That’ll happen when you get too bold, you know. There are rules you have to play by in this industry. It’s all a chess game.”

“That’s not why I left. Or why I stayed away.”