Page 35 of Ruined by My Ex’s Dad (Silver Fox Obsession #2)

"You don't understand anything about this."

"I understand more than you think."

My father's voice took on a different quality—reflective, almost regretful.

"I watched your father make the same mistake I made—building a life around control instead of connection. Pushing away anyone who threatened that control."

The unexpected direction of his words silenced all of us. My father had never been one for introspection, certainly not for public admission of mistakes.

He turned to me, something softening in his expression. "You're more like me than you care to admit, Lucas. The same drive. The same fear of vulnerability. The same willingness to sacrifice personal happiness for the illusion of control."

I stared at him, momentarily speechless. In twenty-five years, this was perhaps the most direct, most revealing conversation we'd ever had.

"This isn't about ancient family psychology," Miles interjected, clearly uncomfortable with the turn in conversation.

"This is about my father sleeping with my ex-girlfriend."

"And why does that bother you so much?" Savannah asked quietly.

"Really, Miles. We ended over a year ago. By your choice. You made it very clear I wasn't what you wanted."

Miles turned to her, something vulnerable flashing across his features before he masked it with anger.

"Because it's humiliating. Because it proves what I've always known—that he'll take anything I show interest in just to prove he can."

"That's not what this is," I started, but Miles cut me off.

"Isn't it? You've been doing it since you came into my life. The sailing I enjoyed? Suddenly, you're winning regattas. The business degree I pursued? You made sure everyone knew you did it better, faster. The career path I chose? You restructured the entire company to keep me under your thumb."

The accusations hit with unexpected force, revealing a pattern I'd never consciously acknowledged.

Had I been competing with my own son all these years? Had my attempts to connect, to share interests, been perceived as territory-marking instead?

"I thought I was supporting you," I said, the words inadequate even as they left my mouth.

"Following your interests. Sharing experiences."

"Supporting me?" Miles laughed, the sound edged with years of resentment.

"You've never supported me. You've overshadowed me and corrected me. Improved upon me. You've spent the years I’ve gotten to know you making sure I know I'll never measure up to the great Lucas Turner."

The raw pain in his voice stripped away my carefully constructed defenses.

This wasn't the professional rivalry I'd assumed existed between us. This was something deeper, more primal—a son desperate for approval he believed would never come.

"Miles." I moved toward him, ignoring his instinctive step backward.

"I have never found you wanting. Everything I've done—every expectation, every standard, every push for excellence—came from wanting you to be strong enough to face a world that gives nothing freely."

"Bullshit," he spat, but there was uncertainty beneath the venom now.

"You've made it clear just how disappointed you are in me in who I am and the man I’ve grown to be without your help."

"No," I said simply.

"I've spent the time I have gotten to know you, terrified for you."

The admission hung in the air between us, raw and unexpected. I was vaguely aware of Savannah and my father watching in silence, witnesses to a confession years in the making.

"Terrified?" Miles repeated, confusion replacing anger.

"That you'd be hurt the way I was when my mother left. That you'd build your life around people who could abandon you without a backward glance. That you'd mistake achievement for worth the way I did."

The words poured out, unstoppable now that the dam had broken.

"I pushed you because I thought strength would protect you. I held you to impossible standards because I thought excellence would shield you from rejection."

Miles stared at me, naked shock in his expression. In the years I’ve gotten to know my son, this was perhaps the most honest conversation we'd ever had.

"Well, it didn't work," he said finally, his voice hoarse with emotion he was clearly fighting to control.

"All it did was make me feel like I was never enough."

"I know." The acknowledgment cost me everything.

"I failed you. Not because you disappointed me, but because I couldn't find a way to show you how much you mattered without trying to make you invulnerable to pain."

Silence settled over the library, heavy with years of misunderstanding.

My father watched us with an expression I couldn't decipher—sorrow, perhaps, or recognition. Savannah stood slightly apart, giving us space for this moment while remaining present, supportive.

Miles moved to the window again, staring out at the garden. When he finally spoke, his voice had lost its edge, revealing the hurt beneath.

"You know what the sick part is? Part of me always knew she'd be better with you."

I froze, the statement hitting like a physical blow.

"What?"

He turned back to face us, something like resignation in his expression.

"Savannah. I knew from the beginning she was too much for me. Too smart. Too ambitious. Too... real." His gaze shifted to her.

"You needed someone who could match you. Who wouldn't feel threatened by your success or try to dim your light to make their own seem brighter."

Savannah's breath caught audibly.

"Miles—"

"I ended things because, deep down, I knew I couldn't be what you needed," he continued, addressing her directly now.

"I didn't expect my father to fill that role, but... it makes a twisted kind of sense."

The honesty in his assessment caught me completely off guard. This wasn't the entitled, resentful son I'd expected to face today.

This was a man capable of painful self-awareness, of recognizing his own limitations.

"Your weakness, Dad," Miles said, turning back to me, "has always been your inability to admit you need anyone. Your conviction that connection is vulnerability, and vulnerability is weakness." He laughed softly, the sound lacking its earlier bitterness.

"And she's the first person I've ever seen crack that armor."

The observation struck with uncomfortable precision. Had my own son seen through me so clearly while I'd been busy underestimating him?

"I saw it at the hospital," Miles continued.

"When you thought I wasn't watching. The way you looked at her. Like you'd finally found something more important than control."

My father made a small sound—not quite a laugh, not quite a sigh. "The boy's more perceptive than either of us gave him credit for, Lucas."

Miles smiled thinly at his grandfather. "High praise from the least emotionally available men in San Francisco."

"We Turner men have our limitations," my father acknowledged with surprising candor. "Your grandmother used to say we were born with extra ambition where our emotional intelligence should be."

A moment of unexpected lightness in the midst of this tense confrontation—the ghost of my mother's wry humor echoing through my father's words.

For a brief moment, I glimpsed the man she must have loved—the father who had seen my capabilities before I did and refused to let me settle for less, before that loving determination became the relentless standard-bearer who had pushed me to achieve everything I thought impossible.

"I know I have no right to ask this,"Savannah said, breaking her silence, addressing Miles directly.

"" But can you forgive us? Not for falling in love—that wasn't a choice either of us made consciously. But for not telling you sooner. For keeping it from you."

Miles studied her, something softening in his expression.

"You really love him, don't you? It's not just... I don't know. Some daddy issue thing. Some power trip."

"I really love him," she confirmed simply.

"As surprising to me as it is to everyone else."

He nodded slowly, absorbing this. Then his gaze shifted to me, challenge returning to his eyes. "And you? Is this just another acquisition? Another victory? Another thing you wanted because it was briefly mine?"

The question deserved honesty—complete, unvarnished truth without strategic calculation or careful phrasing.

"I love her," I said, the words coming easier than I'd expected.

"Not because she was yours. Not because of what she represents.

But because she sees me, not Lucas Turner, CEO, but the man beneath.

Because she challenges me to be more than my ambition, my control, my carefully constructed image.

" I took a breath, offering the most vulnerable admission of all.

"Because for the first time in decades, I've found something I value more than power. "

Miles held my gaze, searching for deception, for manipulation, for the strategic maneuvering he'd grown up expecting from me. Whatever he saw must have satisfied him, because he nodded once, decisively.

"I can't pretend this isn't weird as hell," he said finally. "Or that I'm happy about it. But..." He exhaled heavily. "But I believe you. Both of you. And I'm not going to stand in the way of something that might actually make the great Lucas Turner human for once."

The concession—offered without rancor, without the bitterness that had characterized so many of our interactions over the years—felt like a gift I hadn't earned.

"Thank you," Savannah said softly. "That means more than you know."

My father cleared his throat, reminding us of his presence. "Well, this has been more productive than years of Turner family dinners combined."

He rose from his chair with careful dignity.

"Now, shall we have lunch? I believe Rodriguez has prepared something that won't interfere with my new dietary restrictions."

The mundane suggestion broke the intense atmosphere, offering a path back to normalcy—or whatever new version of normal might emerge from this confrontation.

As we followed my father toward the dining room, Miles fell into step beside me, leaving Savannah to walk ahead with my father. The privacy of this moment felt intentional on his part.

"This doesn't fix everything between us," he said quietly. "There's too much history, too many misunderstandings."

"I know," I acknowledged.

"But maybe it's a start." He glanced at me sidelong.

"If you're really capable of loving someone more than control, more than power... maybe there's hope for you yet."

The assessment was both a challenge and an olive branch. Not forgiveness, exactly, but willingness to consider a different future than our fraught past would suggest.

"I'd like that," I said simply.

Miles nodded, maintaining the careful distance between us but no longer bristling with hostility. "Just don't hurt her," he said as we reached the dining room. "She deserves better than either of us, honestly."

"On that," I said, watching as Savannah smiled at something my father said, her natural warmth drawing out a humanity in him I rarely witnessed, "we are in complete agreement."

As we took our places at the table—three generations of Turner family complications distilled into a single meal—I realized something profound had shifted. Not just between Miles and me, though that change was significant enough. But within me.

For decades, I'd equated control with safety, Power with security. Achievement with worth. Had built an empire on the conviction that vulnerability was weakness, and connection was risk.

Yet here I sat, having surrendered control in ways I'd never imagined possible, feeling not diminished but expanded. Not weakened but strengthened. Not exposed but, finally, authentically seen.

Savannah's eyes met mine across the table, a small smile playing at her lips. We did it , that smile seemed to say. We survived. We're still standing.

I returned the smile, allowing the weight of decades of carefully maintained distance to slip from my shoulders. Whatever came next—whatever challenges awaited, whatever adjustments our relationship would require—we would face together.

Not because I demanded it or controlled it or calculated the optimal approach.

But because, for the first time in my carefully ordered existence, I had found something worth the terrifying surrender of control.

I had found love.

And Lucas Turner, master of the universe, would move heaven and earth to keep it.