His face fell as I scurried toward the front entrance, but I skidded to a halt as that elusive scent slapped me in the face.
Chapter 8
What is that smell?
Devyn
“Stop!” It was my father. Of course it freaking was. I couldn’t have this one thing.
“What, Father?” I refused to let him get the best of me.
“I am waiting on your answer… about the job,” he said right out in front of everyone before steering me back into his private dining room.
Did he think I’d take his abuse, so as not be the talk of the club later? If so, I had news for him; I’d been the fodder of gossip around this place since I was a tiny child. As was he. Although I doubted he understood just how much people sheltered him from it because of his wealth.
Everyone at the club gossiped; it was like their lifeline. Being rich, many of life’s problems passed them by. They spent money, went on extravagant vacations, bought expensive artwork—shame they didn’t take an interest in mine—and gossiped about who was sleeping with whom. But their money didn’t stop them from being hurt. When their significant other left them forsomeone else or had affairs, their bank balance didn’t comfort them.
Back in the day, they were all aware that my father was having an affair with Bea, the woman who would eventually become my step-mother and who produced my step-brothers. And even though she and father had been married for years, he continued to have affairs.
Considering I didn’t see Father much, I had little interaction with Bea. And that suited me just fine. She was a bit player in my life.
“I asked you a question.” I shook my head, trying to clear it enough to focus on him. I didn’t want to take a wrong step and be stuck. But this scent… it did things to me. Things I wasn’t so sure I liked. “Are you taking the job?”
“It’s a lot of money?” I clarified.
“Yes, and the way you are running through money, you’re going to need it soon. You can’t live like a man of means without the means to back it up. That’s how people go from hanging out at this place to trying to sneak in to use the bathroom, their car now their home.” He was harsh. Harsh and sadly accurate.
I’d seen it happen twice here. Both times it wasn’t wasting money as much as fucking up big time and losing it all, but the end result was the same; they used this place until the last day of membership.
The same asshats who tried to find a way to get my membership revoked were the ones who attempted to do the same to them, only in that case, it wasn’t nearly as difficult. There was nothing the rich hated more than to associate with the poor. At least the ones around here.
“Is it illegal?” I wouldn’t put it past my father to try and do something shady and then throw me under the bus for him.
“Absolutely not.” He lowered his voice. “You think I would trust you with something that could come back and bite me in the ass?”
He had a point, one that had me looking at this situation differently. Whatever this was benefited him, without a doubt. So why did he trust me with it? By all accounts, he saw me as a fuck-up. I was and always had been too much like my mother, and if my goal was to settle down and let a man take care of me, that was fine, I supposed. But that wasn’t the direction I was taking my life. I learned from my mom’s mistakes and didn’t plan to copy them.
When I found love, it wasn’t going to be superficial. There was no way I was going to be wooed by a handsome face with a large bank account. And that was unfair of me to categorize my parents’ relationship that way.
Maybe at one point in time my father hadn’t been a freaking jackass, womanizer, piece-of-shit abuser. Maybe my mother met him before all of that. I didn’t think so, but Mom saw something in him at some point, and I couldn’t imagine she’d be able to do so with the version standing before me, that was for sure.
“I don’t think you trust me, full stop.” And there was no point in him pretending otherwise.
“Son,” my father spoke low and through his teeth. Gods, how I couldn’t wait until I had the power to challenge his sorry ass. I was so going to love destroying him. “Do not move. We are still talking.”
At least that was what I thought I heard. I was too distracted by a voice outside the door talking about termites. Gross… but also not gross because the most amazing scent tackled me, making me weak at the knees. But when I opened the door, only the scent remained.
How I’d love to have been able to offer to help the guy find those termites, real or not, just to spend a few minutes with him.
And it slammed into me again, stronger than ever before. Termite man was the owner of the scent, an omega, and I needed to find him—to talk to him. Why? I had no idea other than I did. And my father was in the way.
“I need to go, Dad.” He couldn’t find out why I wanted to get out of here. If he did, he’d figure out a way to use it to his advantage.
And shit, I didn’t even really understand it myself.
“Are you taking the job or not?”
“Fine.” I pinched the bridge of my nose. “I’ll take the job. You’re right. I do need to figure my fiscal ass out.”
