Revel (Second Chance Romance #1)(58)

“Dad,” I said. “He’s Mozart. One of the great geniuses of our time. I don’t think he minded. Like you said, if something is your destiny, it’s going to happen either way. There’s no other choice.”

“Maybe so,” Dad replied. “You know, his rival, Salieri, used to say Mozart was in direct contact with God. Because he could compose so quickly and beautifully, like God Himself was dictating the notes to Mozart. He was definitely touched by something. Every time I come here, I think of that. Of destiny, of whether everything is predetermined.”

It was an odd conversation to be having with him. There were layers to it that I couldn’t see. What we were talking about wasn’t really what we were talking about.

“I don’t think so,” I said. “Nothing is predetermined. We get to choose. I plan on choosing what I want to do with my life. I haven’t figured it out yet, but I know when I do, it won’t be because of anything but my own volition.”

My father looked at me, surprised. As if he was seeing me for the first time.

“Camilla, that makes me proud to hear you say that,” he said. “Yes. Choose your life. Make it what you want it to be. It’s a lesson I wish I had learned earlier. That I had choices. That I didn’t have to do what was asked of me or expected.”

“What do you mean?” I asked. We were on the edge of a breakthrough. I could feel it.

My father paused for a long moment. I could tell he was mulling over something.

“Another time,” he finally said. “We will talk about that further down the road. Just know I am proud of you, Camilla. And I always will be.”





Four


I was thinking about that trip to Austria as I flew on a private plane for the second time in my life, across the country to Tahoe. Everything Nolan Weston told me had worked out smoothly. I’d packed, been picked up in a black SUV, and been taken to the small private airport in Charlottesville where a Gulfstream jet awaited me.

And now I was trying not to cry thinking about talking to my father about Mozart when I was sixteen years old. And how we’d never gone back to the topic of destiny or how my father had been talked into his own, long before I even existed. And we never would. It broke my heart.

It was just me and the pilot on the plane. It had been almost dark when I boarded and now as we flew it felt like we were chasing the sun, going back into the past. I hadn’t travelled much to the western part of the States. My father had taken me to Disneyland when I was nine and my mother and I had gone to Palm Springs once for a spa weekend. Otherwise, it was a strange land to me. I looked out my window at the darkness, seeing great swaths of black only occasionally dotted by lights down below, the world closing down as I sped across it.

What was I to expect? Would I have to identify my father? Where would the funeral be? Where would he be buried? So many questions, the kind that made me nervous. My father’s firm was large, I assumed there would be a ton of things for me to sign, to consider, to learn. I didn’t want to do any of it.

I just wanted my father back.

********

It was a five-hour flight. By the time we reached South Lake Tahoe, California, I was exhausted in every way a person could be exhausted. I ached in my bones from the stress of what was happening. All I wanted was a bed and about 14 hours of uninterrupted slumber.

The plane taxied in, and before long we were disembarking. The pilot carried my bags down the stairs onto the tarmac. I took one last look at the interior of the plane, not sure what awaited me outside it. But somehow I knew nothing was ever going to be the same.

Outside the jet was yet another black SUV and a driver in a crisp suit, large and imposing. He nodded to me and took the bags from the pilot, placing them in the back of the car. The pilot opened the back passenger side door for me.

“Miss Hunt, I am truly sorry for your loss,” he said. “I hope your stay here in Tahoe is as pleasant as possible under these circumstances.”

“Thank you,” I said. “I appreciate that.”

The large Secret Service looking dude climbed into the driver’s side and slowly drove us off the tarmac and toward wherever our final destination would be.

“Where are you taking me?” I asked. “I thought I was supposed to meet Nolan Weston.”

“Mr. Weston is waiting for you at your father’s home,” the driver said. “Which is where I am taking you. Do you need to stop for anything on our way?”

I shook my head, “No. Thank you for asking.”

The driver looked at me through the rearview mirror, “I’m sorry too, Miss Hunt. My name is Michael by the way. I will be your driver while you’re here in Tahoe. Mr. Weston can provide you with my contact information should you need me for anything. A pretty big storm is coming through in the next couple of days so it may be hard to get in and out. They’re expecting a couple feet of snow out where Mr. Hunt’s home is.”

Great, I thought. Just what I needed.

I nodded and quietly stared out the window into the night. It was dark out here in South Lake Tahoe, but I could see the shadows of the Sierra Nevada looming over us as we glided toward my destiny, something that I wanted no part of.

********

I knew my father was wealthy. It was part of my life, his money, and I’d never been in the dark about that. Even though I barely saw him, I’d wanted for nothing. My mother and I had lived in a large house in Virginia before her death, paid for by him. Obviously he’d taken me on the very expensive trip to Austria for my 16th birthday. He’d also sent me to expensive camps every summer in places like upstate New York where I sweated in cabins with other rich kid types. I went to Choate Rosemary Hall, one of the most expensive boarding schools in the country. I’d taken equestrian classes and piano lessons. Before Choate I’d had tutors come to my mother’s home to teach me Latin, the Classics, French, and Trigonometry. I was well educated, well bred, and definitely the daughter of a rich man. I was no stranger to large homes, expensive cars, and rich people’s kids. I’d been surrounded by wealth and opulence my entire life.