“Is your brother out with everyone?”

“No, he always goes back to his room and calls Candace.”

“That’s nice of him. Well, thanks for the update, I guess. Sleep well,” I said, my voice clearly reflecting my disappointment.

Lorelai got up and went to leave my room, when I stopped her.

“So, you seemed to get along with Knox well the other night.”

She shook her head. “Don’t even start. I knew him once, a long time ago, and let me tell you, I’d never go down that path.”

I couldn’t help but laugh as she continued shaking her head as she made her way to my bedroom door.

“You say that about everyone that you date or could be a potential date.” I giggled.

“Well, that’s because some truly deserve it, and I never dated him, nor would I, so that statement is no longer true.” She giggled. “Sleep well. Oh, Aurora, do me a favour and never mention that man’s name to me again.” She giggled.

Chapter 15

Dylan

Everyone was silent as we finished dinner. Penelope sat across from my father and Aurora sat across from me. I looked up to see her drag her fork around her plate, shoving at the remains of her dinner. She lifted her eyes and met mine, giving me a soft smile.

The silence in the room was unbearable, and the tension could be cut with a knife. My father cleared his throat and immediately Aurora looked back down at her plate.

“Aurora, why don’t you help your mother clean up? I want to talk with Dylan alone,” he said, placing his empty wineglass down on the table with a little more force than I expected.

“Joe, she doesn’t need to help, it’s fine,” Penelope said, grabbing my plate and placing it on top of hers.

“She does,” Joe barked before getting up from his chair and looking over at me. “She’ll do as she is told to do in this house.”

Aurora met my eyes and winced, then, with shaking hands, she reached over for my father’s plate, while the tension in the room continued to grow.

“Let’s go,” my father barked at me and headed down the hall toward his office.

I was expecting this mood from my father. What I wasn’t expecting was to find Aurora here for dinner. My father had called me just after I’d called Aurora last night. I’d just finished explaining everything to her about what she’d seen on the news and was relieved to find out that she was going to stand by my side. We’d said good night, and I’d just pulled out of the parking lot, when my phone rang again. My father wasn’t so understanding. He barked at me the entire drive home and then demanded I show up today. He’d put me in an unbelievably bad mood, not to mention confrontational, which had carried over into today.

“What?” I barked as I walked into his office and slammed the door shut.

“Sit the fuck down and don’t slam doors in this house.”

I leaned against the back of the chair on the opposite side of my father’s desk. I wasn’t putting up with this shit today. My father turned around and looked at me.

“I told you to sit down,” he barked again.

“No,” I said, crossing my arms over my chest and squaring off to him. “Oh, and as for the door slamming, I learned from the best.”

“Alright then, big man, what the fuck do you think you’re doing?”

“About?”

“The shit that is all over the news?”

“I’ve got my lawyers on it, as well as the team’s lawyers.”

“Is it true? Did you knock her up?” he questioned, crossing his arms in front of his chest as well.

“No.”