Page 48 of Father Knows Best (A Family Affair #1)

twenty-eight

. . .

sutton

The Guilt

From my spot in the conference room, I have a perfect view of Avery at the copier in the main office.

She lifts the lid, the screen briefly illuminating her face, which I can’t see from this angle.

She slides a new paper on, closes it, and taps the button, her hip popped, resting against the machine.

Standing adjacent to her, watching the papers slide into the tray, is my dad, wearing a three piece suit, his hair styled in that suave way he does.

He collects each paper as it slides into the tray, and puts it into a folder.

The two of them are clearly having a conversation, and Avery laughs, pressing her hand to her stomach.

Dad dances his brows, and she laughs again, and I find myself tuning out Jon Whitmore’s presentation on buying an Embassy Suites, and smiling with them.

Whitmore knocks on the table, making my focus snap back to him. “Are you even listening, Mercer?”

I shrug. “Yeah, I am.” I’m not. And we’re not buying up a dilapidated old Embassy Suites. Restoration and renovation would be over fifty million alone. “We’re not in the business of flipping hotels, Jon.”

He sinks back into his chair. “Would you have said that if Roberta made this pitch?”

My face twists in disgust at what he’s insinuating. “I know a good idea when I see it, and it doesn’t matter to me if the idea comes from Roberta, or, I don’t know, an asshole.”

He chuckles humorlessly, tapping the eraser side of his pencil against his portfolio. “Cute. I suppose I’m the asshole, huh?”

Dad looks around the space, but the office is pretty empty today.

Roberta is out, and she took both Arnaud and Birdie with her.

A few clerical staffers are around, but currently out for lunch.

I can almost see his decision making process in real time.

He peers around, his eyes moving over the small conference room window in which I’m viewing him.

He leans in, and right as he presses his lips to her throat, his hand resting comfortably on her waist, Jon decides to track my gaze, and see exactly what I’m focusing on, since it’s clearly not him or his stupid presentation.

My focus snaps to watching him watch my dad kiss Avery twice, the first on the throat, the next on her cheek. They resume copying, and if Jon hadn’t looked at them in that precise second, he’d never have known anything was between them.

But I watched, because I’m slowly becoming obsessed with them, and he saw me watching.

Jon’s lips curve into a sinister grin as his mossy eyes slowly make their way back to mine. My stomach clenches in anticipation of the shit I’m going to have to eat right now.

“Ahh, okay. So it wasn’t nepotism that got you the listing.”

“Jon.” I say his name in warning, giving him the opportunity not to say something he’ll regret.

He bobs his head. “It was a trade.” His grin widens. “You get the listing, and he gets to fuck your wife. That’s it, right? Daddy owns the company, and gets to have your old lady, too.”

“Whitmore, that’s enough.” My tone is all backbone, and no playing.

In my periphery, there’s movement, and I glance up for a moment to see Avery enter her office alone and close the door. My dad lingers in the hall, and his gaze catches mine. But I refocus on Jon.

“Hell, Mercer. I always wondered how you snagged that prime piece of ass. Now I know, it’s because you’re having daddy come in with the big guns, isn’t that right?

” He leans forward, and if I leaned forward and swung, my fist would connect with his face, that’s how close he is.

“You woo her with your money and let your dad fuck her, becuase you’re a weak little bitch. ”

His words have me on my feet, circling the desk, but suddenly, my dad is in the conference room, closing and locking the door. There’s very little he could say right now that would stop me from hitting Jon.

I’m willing to go to jail. I can pay lawyer fees. I’ll go to court. My record is clean.

Except, my dad doesn’t stand between us, pressing a calm hand to each of our chests, offering words of clarity and calm. Instead, he rolls the blinds closed. He doesn’t talk me down but instead, outstretches his hand, palm up. “Cufflinks.”

I take them off, and Jon’s face pales for a second, before switching back to arrogant, uproarious laughter. “Is this some kind of threat?” he asks, nodding toward my dad’s palm where one of the two cufflinks rests. I place the other one with the first, and roll up the sleeves on my dress shirt.

“I want you to know, for whatever it’s worth, I’m going to knock you out because I told you the last time you spoke about Avery that way to never do it again. And you just called her–”

My dad interjects– “a prime piece of ass, I believe it was.”

I snap and nod, closing the few feet between me and Jon. “That’s what it was.”

Jon looks between us, nostrils flaring. “You’re not gonna hit me, Mercer,” he scoffs, but his eyes grow wide and he swallows. “I’ll sue you.”

I close my fist and rear back, connecting with his cheek and jaw. Pain radiates through my fist, but the sight of Jon stumbling back, bringing his hands to his face then checking them for blood—it’s worth the pain.

When he finally registers that I did hit him, and that my dad didn’t come in here as the CEO to stop workplace violence, he snatches his papers from the table and walks backward toward the door.

My dad reaches, getting the door for Jon.

When he makes a move to leave, dad closes the door for a moment. “Oh and, you’re fired.”

Jon laughs. “Becuase I’m gonna sue?”

Dad waves him off. “No, no, feel free to do that. Sutton has no priors and we’re basically friends with every judge and lawyer in the city so, carry on with wasting your time and money on that.

You’re fired because of what my son said.

” Dad steps forward, pressing his chest into Jon’s.

“You were speaking ill of Avery, and that violates Mercer Properties code of conduct.”

Jon just shakes his head, completely defeated. Dad opens the door, and he leaves, not bothering with his office. He walks straight out the doors, into the lobby, only peering back at us as he steps on the elevator. He lifts his hand and gives me the finger right as the doors close.

Dad faces me. “He saw me kiss her, didn’t he?”

I nod.

Dad looks at his feet. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t do that at work.”

I wait for him to lift his eyes, to look at me. I want to tell him that I think he should be able to do that at work, that I want him and Avery to feel free to explore and indulge in their feelings, because when I see it, it makes me feel happier and more fulfilled.

But I can’t, because he’s already outside the conference room. “I’m going to go make some calls. Call the lawyer and tell him what just happened and… get our head hunter on the phone. See what we can do to get Jon replaced.”

I nod, and let him go, because he clearly isn’t in the headspace to have the serious talk we need to have.

Avery blots at her cheeks with the tissue I hand her. She forces a hard exhale, trying to find calm. This is her fourth mini-breakdown in the last two weeks. I hate seeing her this way.

“I know it’s hard but I think he’s processing and working through stuff,” I tell her, and she nods her head, the same way she has every day for the last fourteen days each time my dad has come up in conversation. Which is every moment that we’re home.

Because he’s not there.

He’s been staying at his place for the last two weeks, telling us that until he gets Jon replaced, it’s easier for him to be right above the office.

He’s taken on Jon’s clients and listings and the truth is, he is a lot busier and being above Mercer is clearly easier than being across town when it comes to getting to the office and attending to work.

All of that is true.

But I know he’s staying there because of how he’s feeling.

Since that day when he came into the conference room after Jon saw him kiss Avery, he’s been battling this thing we’re doing. I can see it in the way he longingly looks at Avery from across the office but when she catches his eyes, he looks away and busies himself with something or someone else.

“Yeah? So you really don’t think it’s just him taking over for Jon and trying to get that settled?” she asks, hope bubbling up in each word. She wants so hard for this to be nothing, because it was all going too well. We were doing so good, all three of us.

I never lie to Avery. “I don’t know, but I’ll go to his place tonight and talk with him, okay?”

She nods, letting a relieved sigh slip past. “Thank you, Sutt. I’m sorry if I’ve been pushy about this but… I don’t know, giving him space has felt so strange. Especially with how distant he’s been at work.”

He has been distant at work, and he’s done a great job of chalking it all up to the sudden loss of a top grossing agent. But Roberta and Kat offered to take Jon’s load–they both told me–and my dad told them no.

He’s using Jon’s absence, shielding the real reason that he, out of nowhere, needed space.

“Order in, take a bath, put a movie on. Just relax, okay? I want you to focus on relaxing,” I tell her, finger-combing her blonde hair behind her back.

She nods. “Okay.” Another sniffle. “I love you.” She presses her mouth to mine, and the unspoken fear we both share disappears for a moment as her tongue sweeps mine.

“I love you, too. Go run your bath. I’ll order your favorite plate while I’m driving to Dad’s.”

She nods. “I never get tired of you calling him Dad instead of Father.”

I kiss her forehead, snatch my keys, and duck into the garage. I send my dad a text message.

I’m coming over, alone. We need to talk.

He reads it right away, but doesn’t reply. That’s okay. He can save all of his talking for twenty minutes from now, when we’re face to face. We’ve given him two weeks. Now Avery is really starting to come unraveled. I can’t make her wait any longer.

I can’t wait either.

He pulls open the door, and the scent of whiskey hits my nose first, then… perfume.

I push inside, past him, and look around, heart racing, pulse spiked.

He invited a woman over? While we’re clearly in the midst of figuring things out?

He promised he wouldn’t see anyone while he was sleeping with Avery and— my eyes fall to a small glass bottle, the shape of a heel. I recognize it right away.

Then the scent I’m smelling registers. I walk through the space, stepping over a box and pile of clothing, and pick up the bottle. “Avery’s perfume?”

He shoves a hand through his hair, letting out a sigh that could move mountains. “I saw it in a shop window the other day.”

I push newspapers off the couch cushion and sit down. His place looks like a bomb went off. “Your cleaning crew on vacation or what?”

He waves me off, sitting in a chair across from me, on top of a suit bag. “I gave them time off. I didn’t want anyone here.”

I lift a glass from his table, and sniff. There was whiskey in here at some point, I just don’t know when. I set the glass back down. “Find a replacement for Jon?”

I’m surprised when he nods his head, because he’s been holed up in his office at work the last two weeks, too. I thought for sure that while at work he was actually working with the headhunter to get a replacement. But now, I question if all of this was just a ruse to avoid us.

To avoid the truth.

“I found an agent at Damford that wanted to come here. He knows Kat, I guess,” he says, his voice devoid of life or energy. “I hired him. He’s starting next week.”

I nod my head, and say that I’m thinking, because I have no preamble in me knowing that Avery is at home upset. “What was going to be your excuse to avoid us on Monday when he starts?”

Dad smirks. “Training him.”

I volley my head. “Not sure that would’ve worked considering we aren’t IT analysts and there is quite literally nothing to train him on.”

Dad nods. “I know.”

We sit in silence for a few minutes. I don’t feel the pressure to say anything, and he must not either. But one flash of Avery in my mind and I lean back on the couch, and cross one leg over the other, gripping my ankle as I stare at my dad.

“When are you coming home?” I ask him, because he knows as well as I do that our house has become his home. Avery is his home, the way she is mine. I know he knows it, and I believe that’s why he’s here.

Hiding out.

He’s scared of how he feels, and probably what it means for me.

When he lifts his gaze from his socked feet, his eyes are glistening. “I can’t, Sutton.” He swallows against his raging emotions. “It’s over.”