Page 88 of The Love You Fight For
“Fine.” I sigh. “Barbara, you may wait in the foyer. When I’m finished speaking to my father, then you can let him bend you over the counter.”
“Samantha,” my father roars, and the finance manager’s face turns bright red.
“Yes, Daddy?”
“That is completely uncalled for,” he says. “Extremely disrespectful.”
I roll my eyes.
“Daddy, I do not care which of the help you’re fucking now. Honestly, I can’t keep them all straight, but please stop insulting me by pretending like I don’t know what’s going on.” I glance at the finance manager. “Your tit is out, Barb.”
She gasps and moves to cover her chest, and I laugh a genuine laugh as she fixes the buttons on her blouse. My father releases a pained sigh, then turns his attention to the finance manager.
“Denise, would you mind waiting in the sitting room, please?”
“Oh, your name is Denise?” I say, acting shocked. “I’m so sorry. I just get all of Daddy’s mistresses’ names mixed up. Silly me.”
She turns as red as a beet, then scurries out of the room. When I look back at my father, my small spark of good mood extinguishes.
“How did you get in here?” He growls, and I put on my best innocent face.
“It was unlocked.”
He knows I’m lying. He’ll probably change the locks and alarm code now, but I don’t care. I just cut right to the chase.
“Did you have an affair with Rebecca Casper?”
There’s a flare of recognition in his eyes before he stifles it, and that makes my spine straighten.
“Keep your voice down,” he hisses.
“Did you?” I ask again. “Did you have an affair with her when I was in fifth grade?”
“Samantha, I do not have time for this. I am in the middle of a campaign. I do not need you digging up the past?—”
“So you did, then? You had an affair with her sixteen years ago? You’re the reason she left her family? Herchildren?”
The absolute apathy on my father’s face fills me with disgust. No wonder Tiffany hates me. No wonder she thinks I’m evil. I’m the fruit of it.
“I did not make that woman leave her family. She chose to do that on her own when she learned I would not leave mine.”
I shake my head, my jaw dropped. I shouldn’t be shocked. I’ve known that he’s a womanizing whore for years, but this is the first I’ve seen actual fallout. Not his, of course. Never his fallout. But that of his victims.
She’d have left either way, Chris said.
But is that true?
“Do you still talk to her?”
“No,” he answers too quickly, and I know he’s lying.
I know because I just saw her updated phone number in his contacts. I realize now that if I had flipped to the last name she’s using now, I probably would have found her updated address, too. Iknowhe’s lying.
Suddenly, I almost feel bad for Barbara.
Almost.
“We are in a very delicate position right now, Samantha.”
