Kristen Ashley - The Gamble

“You have a good night, darlin’?” he asked quietly into the hair at the top of my head.

Seeing as I was really mostly asleep, I didn’t guard my words, I just said straight out, “Best night I’ve had since Charlie got hurt.”

His arms got tighter. I nestled closer.

“What was he like?” Max asked, still talking quietly.

“Charlie?” I asked back, still talking in my sleep.

“Yeah.”

“Best brother ever,” I whispered and snuggled closer.

“I’m gettin’ that,” Max muttered but I heard a smile in his voice.

“You remind me of him,” I said sleepily, not noticing Max’s body tense. “He said it like it was. Didn’t mince words but that didn’t mean he wasn’t kind. He was smart. He took care of his Mom, me, his fiancée. He was thoughtful. Something meant something to him, he took care of it. Someone meant something to him, he let them know it. Never had a doubt about that, knowing how much Charlie loved me,” I sighed then concluded, “He was a good man.”

“It’s good you had that,” Max whispered.

“Yeah.”

“Means maybe you’ll recognize it, eventually.”

“Mm,” I murmured, not processing words because I was just barely awake.

“Duchess?”

“Yes, darling?”

I didn’t notice his body getting tense again then his hand slid up my back and into my hair and he said, “Go to sleep, baby.”

I did as I was told.

“Nina, honey, wake up.”

My body was being shaken gently at the hip and Max’s voice was coming at me.

I struggled up through the fog of sleep, turned my head on the pillow and blinked at him. He was wearing nothing but his pajama bottoms and, for some reason, he was sitting on the side of the bed and had a carefully blank expression on his face.

“What?” I asked, still sleepy but also vaguely alarmed at his blank look. I didn’t think I’d ever seen Max look blank.

“Baby,” he said quietly before he continued with three words that made my drowsiness instantly disappear and my head figuratively explode. “Your father’s here.”

I shot up to an elbow and repeated, a lot louder this time, “What?”

Then I didn’t give him the chance to answer. I threw back the covers and twisted my lower body around Max, got to my feet and stomped (and obviously I could forgive myself for stomping this time) toward the stairs.

“Nina,” Max called but I didn’t stop. I just tramped irately down the winding stairs.

Niles had phoned my father. He didn’t talk to me. He talked to my father.

Which was the very definition of Niles not listening to me. I told him my father had no place in my life but my father kept his place in it and he did this by keeping in touch with Niles. Niles had a great relationship with his family and therefore he never understood why I refused to talk to my father mainly because he never listened during any of the vast amounts of times I explained it to him.

And my father was here. Here. He’d dropped everything and flown halfway around the world to stick his nose into something that was none his business. And I knew why he did it. Therefore, not only the fact that he was here but why he was here was absolutely, one hundred percent infuriating.

I hit the bottom of the stairs and rounded the corner, seeing my father standing tall and erect wearing an expensive suit, shiny shoes and a camelhair overcoat. His fair hair was neatly trimmed with only a hint of gray, his cheeks were smooth and his face was the face of a man ten years younger than him. And even though I knew he’d recently made the journey I’d made not long ago, he looked fresh as a daisy.

When I approached him, he didn’t look at me. He was deep in the study of Cotton’s pictures.

“Dad,” I snapped.

“Are these Cottons?” he asked, still not looking at me.

“Dad!” I snapped louder.

“That one was at the V&A, I remember the frame. Unusual frame, perfect for that picture.”

“Dad!” I shouted and his head turned to me, his eyes did a sweep of my body in my nightie then they moved over my shoulder.

I looked over my shoulder too, to see Max there, now wearing jeans and still pulling down a t-shirt but his feet were bare.

Again my father didn’t greet me, didn’t address me at all.

Instead he said to Max, “May I have a word with my daughter in private?”

Max didn’t answer or I didn’t give him the chance to mainly because I stomped to the door.

“No, you may not,” I announced, opening the door and standing in the cool air that rushed in looking at my father. “But you can leave.”

“Nina,” Dad said.

“Go,” I said back.

Dad walked toward me and stopped. “We need to talk.”

“We have nothing to talk about.”

“Niles telephoned.”

“Yes, I guessed that.”

“Therefore, we need to talk.”

“No, we do not,” I reiterated.

Dad gave up on me and looked back to Max. “Really, would you mind?”

Max’s eyes were on me but when my father addressed him he looked at Dad, planted his feet, crossed his arms on his chest and said, “Yeah, I’d mind.”

If I wasn’t so incensed, I would have rushed across the floor and kissed Max hard. Unfortunately, I was incensed.

“Dad, go,” I demanded.

“Nina, listen to me,” Dad said instead of leaving. “You’re throwing your life away.”

I shook my head and said, “No, no I’m not. I was but evidence is suggesting that I’m not anymore.”

Dad looked to Max then glanced quickly around the living room then back to me, his eyes settling on my bruised cheekbone and his brows came up before he asked with only partially veiled derision, “Honestly?”

“Go,” I repeated.

“This isn’t you,” my father told me.

“You don’t know me,” I told him the truth.

“Niles is a good man, works hard. He’s from a good family.”

“He’s got money, that’s what you’re saying.”

“I’m saying he’s a good man and I’m reminding you about the fact that you haven’t chosen many of those in your past, in fact, none at all.”

My hand itched to slap him which was surprising seeing as, outside of shoving Damon, I’d never acted out my anger physically on another human being but I managed to hold myself in check.

“Go.”

“You’re repeating a pattern, Nina, as your father –”

But at his words and their implication, I was again seeing red and I shrieked, “How… bloody… dare you!”

Dad leaned slightly toward me and returned, “I’m being honest for your own good.”

“You’re talking about Max, a man you don’t even bloody know.”

“Yes, but I know you.”

“No you don’t!” I shouted.

“Think about this, Nina. Your life, what you’d be throwing away.”

“Go,” I snapped.

“This is,” his hand, palm up, gestured around, “unseemly. May I remind you, you’re engaged.”

“I’m not, I broke up with Niles.”

“You were engaged to him less than a week ago and you’re standing in your nightwear, a bruise on your cheek with a strange man in attendance.”

It was my turn to lean into him and I did, sneering and liberally lacing my words with grave emphasis. “Firstly, Max isn’t a ‘strange man in attendance’ considering this is his house. Secondly, are you serious? You are lecturing me about what’s seemly?”

“Nina –”

“Sorry, but wasn’t it you who was fucking around on Mom when she was pregnant with me?”

“Nina, for God’s sake, that’s hardly the point here.”

“Yes? So, it’s okay for you to sleep with another woman when your wife is pregnant then leave her and your child all alone weeks after I was born?”

“You grew up with your mother, hearing her side of things.”

I slammed the door and crossed my arms on my chest, putting out a foot and inviting, “Well, I expect this will be interesting. Do share, Dad, how is it okay that you cheat on Mom when she’s pregnant, leave us both when I’m a newborn and we never hear one word from you for seven years? Tell me, how is that okay?”

“Nina –”

“And, also,” I cut in, “enlighten me about how that’s okay and me breaking up with Niles and living my life, which is none of you bloody business I might add, something you can’t declare ignorance of since I told you to your face at Charlie’s funeral I never wanted to lay eyes on you again in my life, tell me, how this is not okay?”

“I’m glad you brought up Charlie,” Dad said.

“Yes, pray tell, Dad, why are you glad I brought up Charlie?”

“Think, Nina.” He did that sweeping gesture with his hand taking in specifically Max, and then his eyes locked on me, his voice filled with obvious derision now. “Think about what Charlie would say about this.”

I didn’t think, my mind was blank, my fury so immense, I took two, long strides to him and slapped him with all my might across his smoothly shaven cheek.

His head whipped to the side but suddenly I found my wrists imprisoned, pulled down and crossed in front of me, my back was pressed to Max and Max was pulling us both away.

“Out,” Max growled.

“You dare,” I whispered to my father over Max’s growl.

“Get out,” Max repeated.

“Nina –” my father began, his hand to his cheek, his face filled with shock.

“If Claire wasn’t such a good woman, I’d wonder if Charlie was switched at birth and Charlie would have wondered too,” I declared.

I watched my father’s eyes narrow. “He was my son.”

“You forgot that when his legs were blown off!” I shouted.

“Get out,” Max ordered. “Now, before I put you out.”

Dad ignored Max and glared at me. “Charlie would –”

But I interrupted him. “You have no idea what Charlie would or wouldn’t. Charlie was good to the core. You have no idea what it means to be that way. Don’t you dare tell me what Charlie would do.”

Dad opened his mouth to speak but Max got there before him. “I’m not gonna say it again.”

At this threat, Dad looked over my shoulder then back at me and he declared, “I’m staying at the hotel in town, Nina. This isn’t done. We need to talk, calmly, if you can manage that.”

Max let me go but pulled me back and stepped around me, moving toward Dad. Dad’s glance shot toward him briefly then he walked swiftly to the door.

He opened it, stopped in it and looked at me. “I’ll be at the hotel.”

“Enjoy your stay,” I snapped nastily.

Dad’s gaze rested on me a moment, then he walked out the door.

I didn’t watch him go, I stomped to the kitchen. When I made it there I snatched up my phone from the counter and hit the button to turn it on.

“Nina,” Max said from close and I knew he was close because I felt his hand sliding along the small of my back.

I didn’t look up, just lifted a hand, one finger pointed skyward and with the other hand went to my contacts, found Niles and hit the button to connect.

“Honey, don’t you think you should calm down first?” Max suggested and I could feel the reassuring heat of his body but I was focused on the fireplace across the room, staring at it like I could ignite a fire in its grate with my eyes.

I didn’t answer Max. I didn’t want to calm down. I wanted this to be done and to do it I wanted what I had to say to be said.

I heard the phone ring once then twice and on the third ring Niles answered.

“Hello.”

“Dad was just here.”

“Nina?”

Nina? Was he mad?

“Yes, Nina!” I shouted into the phone. “What other American would call, informing you with barely controlled, therefore unmistakable fury that her father just paid her a visit?”

“Listen, I can hear you’re perturbed but –”

“Yes, I’m perturbed, Niles, I’m very perturbed and if you tell me you have to go into a meeting, I swear –”

“Not a meeting but I have a client waiting –”

“Whatever!” I yelled. “A client is not more important than you listening to me, and Niles I want you, for once in your life, to listen to me. We’re over. Do you understand? Over!”

His astonishing reply: “We’ll talk when you get home.”