Page 5 of Lovestruck at Sundown
“Dad?” I held the phone in front of me and stared at the screen, but he’d ended the call. “Fuck, that was rough,” I muttered,dropping the phone on the bed, my hands flying to my face, seeking shelter from the warmth pooling in my aching eyes.
William grabbed the phone and returned it to Aaron, who stood right outside the trailer next to David. He shut the door and rushed back to me.
Being a rebel was very much unlike me. I’d always done the right thing, never dwelled too far from the invisible lines my dad drew around me. I was too scared to even imagine bending the rules, let alone breaking them. It was heartbreaking to realize I would lose his favor the moment I dared to challenge him. That he could be so cruel.
Tome.
“I’m sorry.” William knelt on the floor before me to level his gaze with mine. “We’re leaving tonight. I’ll let the captain and crew know.”
“Why? What did he want?” A hot tear rolled down my cheek.
William kissed it midway and said, “He wanted to know when we were flying back and if we needed flights to be arranged. He then asked for the flight plan and demanded we hop on that plane at once.”
“I see,” I breathed out, cupping William’s face with my hands, a few more tears slipping down my face. “He was so cold. He didn’t even say hi and straight up asked if you and I were together and said we’d talk once we get back.”
“Well, I’m not Nathan. Or a guy in a suit, for that matter.” He snorted. “Of course he’s not going to approve of us dating. It’s one thing for his daughter to be friends with celebrities, but it’s another for her to actually date one.”
You’re definitely not Nathan,I thought, but I would never say such a thing. I loved and respected Nathan too much to compare him with William, even if my feelings for him had changed. They’d been overshadowed and overpowered by myinescapable connection with William. I was reduced to a moth in his presence, doomed to be eternally drawn to him.
And that’s the reason why I had gotten myself into this mess with my dad. For William. And I’d do it a thousand times over again.
“Well, I hope the conversation back home leans more toward me escaping my security and flying here on my own rather than who I’m dating,” I added. “Besides, I need to have a serious conversation with him about the things Caleb wrote in his letter. Things need to change when I return.”
“Everything’s going to be okay.” William stood and pulled me up from the bed. “I promise.”
“I know, but I can’t help but feel like there’s this side to my father I’ve never seen before. And I’ve gotten a few glimpses of it in these past months, and I don’t like it.”
William placed his hands on my waist and pulled me closer to him. “I don’t know all the details of how things were dealt with in the past, but from the few things you and Joel have told me, Iknowthings will be different … especially with us.”
“You Sjöbergs really can’t keep things to yourselves, can you?” I shook my head and smiled. “What has Joel told you?”
“Enough,” he replied quickly, his smile softening and his brows pulling in. “Just know that I will always take your side, and you and I will always be a team. No matter what.”
I believed him.
William saying these things meant more to me than he would ever know. One of the biggest issues in my relationship with Nathan was precisely that. I always felt like he was too quick to take my father’s side and agree with him because he cared too much about his opinion of him. They were business partners, for God’s sake, and Nathan’s future depended on that power dynamic. My dad knew the leverage he had over him. And I wasnaïve enough to think he really cared about Nathan. And maybe he did warm up to him. But now, there was no way to avoid thinking he only did what he did to retain control over me.
Ultimately, what I wanted would always come second, and I hated it. Even if the engrained voice of reason inside my head told me it was for the best, deep down, I wasn’t happy about how things were handled. Like when I suggested going on a weekend trip with Nathan and he refused because he assumed my dad wouldn’t allow it and thought it was impossible to make it work with my security. He preferred to deny me rather than risk the possibility of falling out of my dad’s good graces.
It was suffocating. And now that I’d come up to the surface and had finally taken a long, deep breath of fresh air, I wasn’t ready to dive back in.
“Thank you,” I said, running my thumb along his lower lip. My chest swelled with feeling because I knew he meant it when he said we were a team. I knew I could trust him. And as we stood there in comfortable silence, he caught my finger and took a playful bite. “Ow!”
He laughed and ran his thumb along my lower lip too. “I love you, Guille.”
“I love you too.”So much. But my head was still reeling, afraid the spell would be broken if I got too excited about us. I knew I was ready to make some big changes in my life, especially knowing the things I knew now about my mother and how her death was nothing but a mistake. All I had to do was get on that plane, fly back to New York, and face the music.
It was 6:05 pm, and the sky was on fire, swirls of orange and pink fusing together against the blue, promising a perfect sight.William insisted on driving us to the airport in the red Mustang for our last ride, and at this point, there was nothing Aaron could do to stop the insurgent momentum of my initial escape from New York. Even if Aaron insisted I ride with them every time we moved around Cape Town.
One of the hotel managers hopped in the SUV with Aaron and David to bring the Mustang back to the hotel once we got to the airport.
“Buckle up, “William said, flashing only the edge of a suspicious smile at me. He put the car in drive and hit the gas before I could even tell him how beautiful I thought the sky was. But I laughed, my back plastered on the creamy leather seat from the speed. I laughed every single time he sped away like that because it made me feel free and happy and alive.
I could imagine Aaron shaking his head with disappointment, David biting his lip to avoid smiling, and my dad back in his office in New York, twirling a small tumbler of whisky as he did in Paris when he had too much on his mind. That last thought made me shiver, yet I smiled as I quickly tied my hair into a ponytail, feeling the promise of the South African spring blowing against my cheeks.
The Mustang glided with ease over the coastal road from the hotel to the airport, the sun blasting its last bright rays of light, painting the perfect sundown. And to our left, the moon—a reminder that time did not stand still, that Earth wouldn’t stop spinning, and I would confront my father very soon. And this time, these thoughts weren’t chaperoned by anxiety but by a newfound excitement that bubbled up in my chest instead.
It was fullydark outside once the plane took off, and the melancholy hit me in the gut by surprise. I was expecting to feel this way once a few days had passed and we were back home, but not the very second we left. It was anxiety-inducing, to say the least, and even almost paralyzing to think about the future. About what our lives would really look like once we got home.
