A Clandestine Corporate Affair(59)

His father shrank back visibly. He nodded and stuck his hands in his pants pockets. “Okay, what did you come here for?”

He honestly had no clue. “This was a bad idea,” he said. “I’m sorry to have bothered you.”

He turned to leave, and got to the door before he realized that he couldn’t go, not until he had some answers. He turned back to his father. “I have a son.”

His father blinked with surprise. “I—I didn’t know. How old is he?”

“Nine months. His name is Max.”

“Congratulations.”

“He’s a great kid. He looks a lot like me, but he has his mother’s eyes. And he has the Everette birthmark.” A ball of emotion rolled up into his throat. “He’s beautiful and smart and I love him more than life itself, and I’m probably never going to see him again.”

“Why?”

“Because I’m so damned afraid that I’m going to do to him what you did to me.” He hadn’t expected to blurt that out, and clearly his father hadn’t, either. There was nothing like getting right to the point.

“Why don’t you come in and sit down?” his father said.

“I don’t want to sit down. I just want to know why. Why did you do it? Tell me why so I can figure out how to be different.”

“Not a day goes by that I don’t regret the way I treated you and your brother. I know I wasn’t a great father.”

“That does not help me.”

His father shrugged. “I guess…it was the way I was raised. It’s all I knew.”

Great. So, it was some twisted family tradition. That was just swell. “So in other words, I’m screwed.”

He sighed and shook his head. “No. You have a choice. Just like I did. I chose not to change. I spent twenty miserable years with a woman I loved more than life itself, and all she wanted from me was my name and as much of my money as she could get her greedy hands on. I was bitter and heartbroken, and instead of taking it out on the person who deserved it, I took it out on my kids.”

“You actually loved her?” Somehow he found that hard to believe. She was just so…unlovable. Stunningly beautiful, yes, but cold and selfish.

“Of course I loved her. Why did you think I married her?”

“Because she was pregnant.”

“She didn’t find out she was pregnant until after we were engaged. Almost two months, if memory serves.”

Nathan shook his head. “That can’t be right. I heard grandmother and Aunt Caroline talking when I was a kid. They said you had to get married.”

“Your grandmother never liked your mom. She thought she was beneath the Everette name. She was furious when she found out that I proposed. I think she had herself convinced that I would come to my senses and break the engagement, so when your mom got pregnant, I guess in her own twisted way, your grandmother probably thought we had to get married.”

Nathan was beginning to think that everything he knew about his life was wrong. Or at the very least grossly misinterpreted. There was only one thing that didn’t make sense…

“You said it’s the way you were raised, but didn’t your father die when you were four years old?”

“I don’t really remember him, but as far as I know, my father never laid a hand on me.”

It took a second for the meaning of his words to sink in. “Are you saying Grandmother…”

“She looked harmless, but that woman was mean as a snake.”

Damn. It was bad enough for a boy to be bullied by his father, but coming from his mother it had to be even more humiliating and degrading. Then to be married to a woman he loved who didn’t love him back. Picking on his sons, who were too young to defend themselves, must have made him feel empowered.

“Son, the bottom line is that your grandmother was a very unhappy person, and so was I. I was a miserable excuse for a father. And nowhere does it say that you’re destined to be just like me. You can be whatever kind of father you want to be. You make the choice.”

If it was his choice, then he chose to be different. And if he made mistakes, they would be his own, and hopefully he would learn from them along the way.

“I have to go,” he told his father.

He nodded, but he looked…sad. And for a second Nathan actually felt sorry for him. Which beat the hell out of hating him.

“Maybe you could stop by again sometime,” he said. “I don’t know if your brother told you, but I’m getting married. Again.”