Page 37 of Almost Paradise

“My life is a shit show,” I tell him. “My son is the only good thing I have going for myself. Even though I have to share my time with his mother, who hates my guts, by the way. You should see the way she looks at me with so much disgust.”

The only thing that hurts more than the way Nia looks at me is missing out on the first three years of my son’s life. I prefer when she avoids looking at me because the alternative hurts too much to bear.

“She’s angry at you. She doesn’t hate you,” Wyatt says.

The door to my office opens and Esther sticks her head in. “Mr. Paradise, there’s a Nathanial Nash in the lobby who is insisting he sees you. Do you want me to have security escort him out?”

“My life gets better and better. No, Esther.” The absolute last thing I need is for Nia to find out I kicked her father out of this building. I don’t want to give her anything else to hate me for. “Please have someone bring him in.”

I stare at Wyatt and expect him to leave. All he does is take his suit jacket off and drape it across the chair. He stands on the other side of the room. I’m not sure if he’s here to watch the show or play mediator.

A few minutes later, one of the men from the front security desk walks in with Nia’s father. Unlike Nia, he’s a tall man, who despite his age, is in great physical shape.

“Mr. Nash,” I say, standing from my desk. I gesture to the round table and chairs I have in my office, but he shakes his head.

“I won’t be here long enough to sit.” I don’t reply. I wait for him to state why he’s here. He looks at Wyatt. “Is he here as your friend or lawyer?”

“How can I help you, Mr. Nash?” I ask, not taking the bait about Wyatt today.

“You have a lot of nerve, do you know that?”

“I don’t know what you mean, sir.” This is the last fucking thing I need right now. I’m already dealing with my basket case mother, selfish brother, tantrum-throwing fiancée, and Nia, who is angry at me for sins I didn’t commit. I don’t need her father barging into my office to recite his hateful rhetoric.

“You use my daughter, get her pregnant, and walk away because you didn’t want a black child. Then—”

“Wait a damn minute! Not only did I not do that, but I would never do something like that. I love my son, and I would have been there—"

He takes a step closer and says, “Don’t interrupt me, boy.” He says boy with so much disdain, I take a step back. “I don’t care what your last name is or how many zeroes you have in your bank account. I want you to leave my daughter and grandson alone. Go slither back into the hole you came from. They don’t need you.”

I rub the bridge of my nose and shake my head. “Well, that’s too bad, isn’t it, Mr. Nash?” Wyatt shakes his head, and I’m positive it’s in disbelief about what I just said. “Carter is my son, and I have rights. I know you’re his grandfather, and Ray is his uncle, but he needs a father, and that’s me. I’ve already missed out on three years, so I’m not going anywhere. You can either get used to having me around or not. I really don’t give a damn.”

He takes a step closer to me, and I meet him halfway. I’m done with tiptoeing around this family when I’ve done nothing wrong. Wyatt quickly crosses the room and steps between us.

“I will have no problems beating your entitled little rich ass,” he says.

“Do your best. I’m right here.” I try to shove Wyatt aside, but he won’t move.

“People like you are all the same.”

I shrug and walk away to try and calm down. “Whatever that means. Your grandson has half my DNA, so he’s someone like me. If you’re done with your threats, I’d like for you to leave my office now.” I reclaim my seat, but Mr. Nash is not done.

He slams both hands down on my desk and glowers down at me.

“You should be ashamed of yourself,” he says. He’s no longer shouting. His voice is low now. Almost deadly. To show him how unaffected I am, I start to type out an email. “You have no idea what kind of hurt and pain you caused my daughter. All she did was cry for months. I thought it was because she was upset about being pregnant, but now I realize it was over you. You hurt my baby, and you don’t deserve to be in her life or Carter’s. She’s happy now. She’s rebuilt everything you took from her. She’s dating again, so leave her alone. Let her become a family with someone else without you lurking around in the background. You owe her that much after everything you’ve done.” My hands freeze over the keyboard. I look into his eyes, and I can see the anger and sadness there. “Don’t you dare come back after all the drama you caused.”

I put my hands down and stand from my chair. Wyatt stands next to me. “I didn’t cause any drama,” I say to him. My voice is just as low and deadly as his. “Your daughter never bothered to tell me she was pregnant with my son.” I have so much more to say. I want to ask who she’s dating. I want to ask her how she can bring another man around my son, but all those words get stuck in my throat when I get a terrible thought.

An image of Nia with another man flashes through my mind. I see her in a white wedding dress walking down the aisle to another man, and it almost becomes too much. I force the thought away and say, “I’m so damn sick and tired of you people—”

“You people?” He takes a step closer, but thankfully the desk separates us. “What people?” he taunts.

“You people with the last name Nash. Stop trying to twist my words into something ugly. The truth is you don’t know me. You don’t know anything about me, so I’m getting tired of your accusations. Did you ever stop to think that your daughter is the liar?” Even as the words leave my mouth, I don’t believe them. Nia has never been a liar. If she says she tried to contact me, then that’s what she did. If that’s true, there only leaves one villain in this story, and I refuse to believe that either. At least not without proof.

“Either you’re lying or your father lied. Unlike you and your father, my daughter was raised with values. She wasn’t taught to deceive anyone.”

“You don’t know anything about me or how I was raised. And don’t talk about my father. You don’t know anything about him either. Besides, he’s dead and he’s not here to defend himself.”

“Don’t tell me what to talk about, boy. You stay the hell away from my family and we won’t have any problems. And I hope your father is saving a spot for you in hell.”

---