Serious Moonlight(99)

“But you are now,” Daniel said. “Sorry I was such an inconvenience.”

“Daniel,” I pleaded in a low voice.

He tossed me a look, but I wasn’t even sure that he saw me through the haze of anger and pain that tightened his jaw and made his eyes swim with emotion.

“Look, kid,” Darke said. “I don’t know what you want me to say. If I could go back and change things, I would have never seen your mother. I was young and foolish—”

“You were almost forty! Twice her age!”

“It takes two to tango. I never forced her to see me. And what difference does it make now? I have my life and you have yours. If you want money—”

“I don’t want your goddamn money!” Daniel shouted, startling me with the level of explosive animosity in his voice.

Darke lifted his hands in surrender. “Fine. But if you change your mind, I can have my lawyer draft up an agreement. After a paternity test, of course. But you get nothing if you go public. And if you’re going to threaten me with that, I’ll beat you to the punch and do it myself. You’ve got nothing on me.”

“We have Ivanov’s spreadsheet.”

Darke shrugged. “What does that prove? I never checked in at the hotel. I was just meeting a friend for a drink.” He stuck his finger in Daniel’s face. “You’ve got nothing. You’re just a lawless kid who’s making up stories.”

Down the hall, Darke’s wife was tottering toward us in stilettos. “William?” she called out. “Is anything wrong?”

Yes, I thought. Everything’s wrong. All of this was a terrible, terrible mistake.

Daniel leaned toward Darke. “You know what? I got what I wanted. The knowledge that my father is the asshole I’ve always imagined. I don’t want anything to do with you, so you can keep your agreement and your money. Have a good life with your new, more convenient son,” he said, giving Darke’s wife a look of contempt before turning toward the exit. “By the way, if you fantasized about my mom pining away for you like Madama Butterfly, sorry to disappoint. She’s doing great. Best decision of her life was to walk away from a monster like you.”

And with that, Daniel stormed away.

He didn’t even look at me. Maybe he’d forgotten I was there. I chased after him as the lights above us blinked to warn the theatergoers that the production was about to start. With every step, I went from bewildered to enraged. And as we entered the mezzanine lounge, I lost both my patience and ability to reason.

“You lied to me!” I shouted at Daniel’s back.

His striding legs slowed. Then he stopped abruptly and swung around. I’d never seen him look like that, so angry and hurt all at the same time.

I repeated, “You lied to me,” in a lower voice. “You knew he was your father all along. You roped me into helping you just to figure out what he was doing in the hotel? You used me? Was this all just one big misdirection?”

“No!” His eyes squeezed shut. “I didn’t use you. I . . .”

“But you knew who Raymond Darke was when you first told me he was coming into the hotel. You knew he was your father?”

“Yes!” he shouted. “I knew. But I wasn’t using you. It’s just that you were treating me like I had the plague, saying you didn’t want to have anything to do with me, and I thought—” He tugged his ear and made a pained face. “When you were talking about detectives and mysteries, I thought it was a way for us to spend time together—to get to know you. And yeah, okay, maybe I wanted to see what my father was like. I was curious, okay? And finding out about him with you made it seem less like something personal, not some big emotional risk. I meant to tell you eventually, but one thing led to another, and when we came here, I just wanted to confront him, and then it was too late to tell you.”

“How could it be too late? You had a million chances to say, ‘Hey, Birdie. This guy is my father.’ In fact, you could have even said that after we walked into this building and I would have forgiven you.”

“And you won’t now?”

I didn’t know, honestly. I was vaguely aware that stragglers heading into the theater were staring, but I was too upset to care that we were making a scene. “You got what you wanted out of me, didn’t you? You got my help, and you got me to start sleeping with you again.”

His face darkened. “Did I show up on your doorstep with a box of condoms?”

“Don’t you dare shame me for that! I did that after you were all charming and sweet to me. Did you mean any of it?”

“Of course I meant it! How could you even say that?”

Tears stung my eyes. “Because I don’t know what’s a lie and what’s not anymore.”

He put his hands on the back of his neck, elbows bent, and paced away from me in distress before turning back around. “I told you the secrets that mattered. This doesn’t. He doesn’t.”

“He’s your father!”

“He’s nothing. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you. I’m so sorry. I’m a fuckup. I warned you. And I’m sorry I lied, but I was afraid if I told you, you’d run away like you did that first day. You’re accusing me of using you, but didn’t you use me?”

“I didn’t use you—I freaked out. I’ve already told you this.”