Page 120 of Bribed by the Billionaire Bad Boy

“Maybe. Maybe not.” Lex vibrates, angry, but he doesn’t raise his voice. “I understand that part of parenting is letting children make their own choices and mistakes once they’re old enough to assess things on their own. It might hurt or look bad on you, but nothing is going to be worse than raising someone who is too—” I swear. “—scared to stand on their own two feet.”

My mother stammers, “Calypso isn’t like normal children. She’sbrilliant. I can’t just watch her throw herself away.”

“Stop thinking you have any right to demand how the sunshould shine, lest you entirely snuff out the flame.” Without waiting for my mother to say anything else, Lex turns his attention. “Mr. D’plume, I’m going to take Calypso home.”

“Home? Homewhere?” Mom demands, but Lex is already guiding me outside, and I don’t carehome whereso long as I’m safe with Lex.

Lex

~~~~~~~~~~~~

“Okay.”

I blink, my mouth opening out of reflex to defend my point, but my father doesn’t even look up from his work as he agrees. He lifts a page and writes something down. My brow furrows. “Did you hear me?”

“You want Calypso to stay here for the foreseeable future, since her home is no longer safe.” He scribbles another note, then turns toward his computer. “Okay.”

Taken aback, I swallow. “I mean foreseeable future in a sense of indefinitely.”

“Yes, I understand.”

My jaw tightens, and I clench my fists at my sides. “Like I could buy her an apartment tomorrow, but I don’t want her anywhere else.”

The clacking of my father’s keyboard ticks along beneath his voice. “Mhm.”

I wince. “I also want her to stay in my bedroom.”

My father pauses, looking at me then. His brows furrow, but all he asks is, “Is that wise?”

Heck if I know. I’m honestly just weirded out by the casualness of his response.

“She should have her own space here if she’s going to stay for any length of time.” A logical statement. “That’s given.” Thoughts stream through his eyes, and he picks up a pen to tap it against a notepad. “I take it she’s unable to retrieve anything from her home. Will she need clothes and basic necessities?”

Tilting my chin up, I say, “She has a toothbrush in my bathroom.”

My father’s brows rise. “Oh?”

Just that. Justoh?

I’m testing waters I’ve never before dared to antagonize, and I know it, but I can’t shake the vibe I felt in the air when I walked out of the auditorium to where Calypso was with her mom. I’ve compared us. I’ve compared our relationships with our parents, but now that just feels wrong.

A rumble of something unpleasant tightens my father’s tone, but it doesn’t slice into me. “Is there something you’d like to tell me, Alexander?”

I release a breath, and my chest aches. I know I can tell him directly that I haven’t done anything frivolous and he’ll believe me. I know that he’s asking because he’ll trust the answer; whatever I say, he’ll accept it. Even though I’m the way I am. Even though I’ve been spoiled to immaturity and opposition. I guess I’ve never thought to realize such a thing before. Not until I felt how little some parents can trust their children. Swallowing bitterness, I ignore answering the question entirely. “Father, why are you pushing me toward business school when you know it’s not something I want to do?”

He sighs. The sound grates, pricking at old wounds, but I force it from my head and put effort into listening. He pinches the bridge of his nose. “It’s stable and reliable. The company your mother and I built is more than enough to keep you effortlessly comfortable. I know if you take over, you’ll be taken care of well after I’m gone.”

I don’t want to think about that. Flexing my fingers, I ask, “It has nothing to do with you wanting me to be like you?”

His eyes roll up to me, and his fingers flare. “Alexander, if I’ve given off that impression, it was never my intention. I knew from the first moment I held you that you had more of your mother in you than me. You got my looks. Your spirit is all hers.”

My throat tightens, and I hold back tears. “Oh.”

“If there’s nothing else, I have to finish this.” He motionsvaguely toward his computer, and I don’t know what to say or do, so I just nod.

“Right. I’ll go check on Calypso.”

I leave his office to the serenade of his keyboard, a telltale sign that he’s already back to focusing on something other than me. My father is distant and brash, but he’s never…he’s just never made me feel the way Calypso is feeling right now. I can’t get a handle on my emotions, on what is real and what is imagined. A hundred different hurtful things come to attack me in my father’s voice, all of it tainted with logic and truth. But never malice.