Page 10 of Father Knows Best (A Family Affair #1)
We end up around my kitchen island—which seems to be a central hangout spot for the floor plan.
When I purchased this a few years ago, I knocked down a few non-load-bearing walls to make the main living space and kitchen run together, with private formal and semi-formal dining adjacent.
The open space brings a ton of natural light, and allows for informal meetings, like this.
“Can I get you a drink, Quincey?” I ask, knowing full well that the girl was here this morning, restocking the fridges with everything Avery likes.
Now that she’s officially moved in and unpacked, tonight is our first night together without boxes and a to-do list lingering.
I thought we’d celebrate with a nice meal in, maybe some time in the jacuzzi, all with her favorite things–the fridge stocked with her favorite sparkling waters, fresh sliced peaches (her favorite snack), her favorite Lush shower and bath products beneath every sink in the house, and a grossly oversized Voluspa candle in the center of the island, next to, of course, two dozen long stemmed red roses.
Quincey, his hands in his suit pockets, stares at the roses on the counter for a moment, seemingly dazed. My father clears his throat, which breaks the trance, and he shakes his head. “No, nothing to drink for me.”
I take my espresso demitasse cup and place it in the sink basin, and adjust the hat on my head.
“FiDi–Kat not around?” I ask my father, because my cousin holds the listings to all of our properties in the financial district, which he is fully and wholly aware of.
I don’t wear the face of confusion, not to cause concern for Quincey or the sale of the property, but instead ask, “Is she already working a deal today?”
I don’t get the answer to Kat, not right away, because Quincey narrows his gaze, nodding toward my notebook, pen and the classics strewn about.
“Your father tells me today is one of just a few days in the last few years that you took vacation.” He looks pointedly at my vow prep and asks, “what are you working on, if you don’t mind me asking? ”
Quincey Parker is here because he’s going to buy a property that is in the multi millions. As much as I’d like to tell him that talking about writing the most personal thing I’ve ever had to write makes me want to stick that pen through my eye, I don’t, because Mercer Properties wants his business.
I look down at the paper, blank except for an address—the location where Avery and her team are working today. I look back up at Quincey. “Wedding vows. I’m getting married in a month and we decided to write our own vows.”
“Congratulations on the engagement.” Quincey smiles, and not a typical millionaire smile either–it's genuine and warm, and he even reaches out, collecting the Best of Lord Byron from the counter. “I got married last year,” he says, flipping through the clerk’s noted passages in the book.
He peers up from the pages, eyeing me. “You gonna use any of this?”
I shake my head. “Doubtful. I’ve been advised to write from the heart,” I tell him, shoving my hands in my pockets.
My father, a man that cannot stand a conversation taking place without his two cents, says, “the most rewarding feeling in the entire world is giving the person you love everything they want.”
My father, the very same man who has spoken my late mother’s name less than a handful of times since I was a fucking child, who has fucked more women than a rockstar on a world tour, who at age fifty-eight still gets regular blood tests for STDs, decides to chime in with marriage advice.
Geo Mercer should be grateful that Quincey Parker has thoughts to add to that. Because I’m about to counter my father’s claim with a dose of reality, when Quincey speaks up. “Everything meaning, emotional fulfillment?”
“Of course,” he replies, smiling at Quincey.
“I plan on only giving my wife everything she wants, not every woman under the sun.” As soon as the snark hits, like all comments, I feel worse.
Not because the pathetic lilt on my father’s face at the comment makes me feel guilty.
I do not feel guilt over speaking truthfully or how that truth makes him feel, but I do feel regret appearing unprofessional in front of a client.
“Well,” Quincey buttons his coat, smiling a bit awkwardly. “Good luck on the vows and–” he turns to my father. “I’ve got about an hour left before I’m due back. Can we get those keys?”
My father pulls his phone out, taps around a bit then hands it to me.
“The keys are in your safe.” Years ago, we decided to put commercial keys in my safe, residential spare keys in my father’s, and the codes to the pad locks in the Mercer Properties safe.
This came as a direct result of an angry man who lost his home at auction after a painful divorce.
He stormed down to Mercer and demanded the keys, said he was taking the property back.
When we told him no, he took all the keys, and eventually found the key to his former property.
He used them to terrorize the new family who had just moved in.
It was a whole fucking thing, but it led us to moving the keys to safes outside of Mercer, for everyone’s safety.
We’ve never had to access these, because most properties have a key in a lockbox on the door. Sometimes, though, the boxes malfunction or are stolen and we’re forced to use the spare.
“Excuse me, I’m just going to get the keys,” I tell Quincey before dipping out to my office upstairs to retrieve the key.
On my heels, my father follows me, and closes the office door once we’re both inside.
The only reason I regret my comment is this–having to handle whatever he’s going to say next.
After opening the safe and finding just what we need, I close it and turn, letting out an exasperated sigh, holding the keys in a manila envelope, FINANCIAL DISTRICT #22 written in Sharpie on the outside.
“What?”
“After I’m done with Quincey, I’d like to come back and talk to you.” His voice is unwavering and calm.
“About what?” Sweat forms under the baseball hat, and I have the strongest urge to yank it off and waffle my fingers through my hair for a second, just to cool down, to breathe.
But I don’t. I stand there, the folder in my hand, and stare at the man who created me, whom I have nothing but real estate and DNA in common with.
“Will you be here? If I come back in an hour or so?” he asks, his eyes not wandering around the room.
I shrug. “Yeah, I guess. I’m working on my vows before Avery gets back.”
He reaches out and takes the manila folder without another word, and then I follow him back downstairs, where Quincey is waiting at the island, flipping through Emily Dickinson.
“It was nice meeting you,” I tell Quincey, shaking his hand.
“You too, Sutton. And congratulations again on your engagement.”
I nod. “Thanks.” I glance at my father, and find his eyes already on me, tired and heavy. “Thank you son.”
Quincey turns around. “Good luck with the vows. And you’re right—from the heart, that’s all she wants–to know what’s in your heart.” He glances at my father then me before adding, “But spoil her, too, because that never hurts.”