Page 103 of Bidding War

Now, he has color in his cheeks, and they've filled out. He looks like his old self again, save for a few extra years. It shows in the grey at his temples and the lines on his face. He's older. But I don't know if he's any wiser.

I haven't seen him much in the intervening years. In fact, I've actively avoided the man. But he has sought me out a few times. Each time, he wanted something. It was usually money. But sometimes, it was just a shoulder to cry on so that he could whine about the latest woman to dump him between going back and forth with my stepmother. I hate that he only ever sees me when he wants something. Standing in my office's lobby, I want to choke the man just to stop him from hitting me up for something. His mere presence exhausts me. But unless I want to throw a hissy fit right here and right now, I am going to lunch at Riccardo's.

If he wants to take me somewhere that expensive, I am happy to make him pay.

“Let’s go to lunch.”

He leads me to his new car. It's a shiny, expensive number that I recognize from the parking garage in Anderson's apartment building. “You like the car? I just got it.”

“It's nice.” I am going to need to bite my tongue so hard that I taste blood. It is that, or I will ask him if he stole it.

The ride to Riccardo’s is brief, and on the way there, I text Anderson to let him know I’m not coming home for lunch. Once we arrive, we are seated right away. The place is just as snazzy as I expected. Dark floors, white tablecloths, and big picture windows around the building. I nearly lose my breath when I see the lack of prices on the menu. It’s more expensive than I thought. If he ducks out of this lunch and leaves me with the bill, it’s going to be a problem.

“Order whatever you want, Junebug. It's on me.”

He wants to play that game? Fine. I settle on the grilled veal chops and a glass of red. Once we've ordered, I want to interrogate the man. No, not that. I want to scream at him for everything that he's done, and I wanna know what the fuck he's up to. But I don't.

This is the kind of place that Elliot’s friends would eat at. If I act out or show my ass here, I'm sure that he will hear about it. Anderson is trying to get along with his father for now. I cannot afford to fuck that up. So I will play nice with my father. To the best of my ability. For now.

“What prompted this visit?”

Mitch grins, knowing he has a million-dollar smile. “I wanted to catch up with my daughter. It's been a while, hasn’t it?”

“Indeed, it has been. How are you doing?”

“Life is good. It has its challenges, true. But things are going great.”

“How's that?”

He smiles and flirts with the server when she comes to deliver our cocktails. Then he turns his attention to me. “Well, I don't know if I mentioned it the last time that we visited, but I am working on getting reinstated.”

“Wow. I didn't know you wanted to go back to the law.”

“I miss the work. But for now, I am in marketing, and that pays pretty well.”

“Are you with a firm?”

“Not at all. I’m working for Metasoftware in New York.”

I choke on my wine and nearly make a mess of myself. “You mean the software company who's in every corporation in the country?”

“That's the one.”

My father, who knows almost nothing about tech, is working for the biggest tech company in the country. I can't even figure out how he got that job. But now that I think about it, it's not beneath him to completely lie on a resume, so I suppose I shouldn't be that surprised. The man stole over ten million dollars. Of course, he can lie on a resume.

Did mom and I ever see any of that money? No. Of course not. Not a dime of it went to us. It went to his mistresses until he met the one who became my stepmother. To romance her, he bought yachts, vacations he said were work conferences and expensive hotel rooms. I was on my own for college, which was why I had to work my fingers to the bone and study until my eyes bled just to get the scholarships to pay for school. But the less said about that, the better.

Not that I’m bitter.

Much.

I clear my head of the vitriol. The wine helps. “Congratulations. That's quite an achievement. Especially considering you used to have me program the clock on your VCR. Or, for that matter, the fact that you had a VCR when I was a kid.”

He laughs heartily. “That's the great thing about marketing, Junebug. You don't have to know anything about the product, you just have to sell it.”

That sounds about right. Just like him to know nothing about something before he dives into it. “How long have you been there?”

“A few years. Now tell me about yourself. You're working in that nice office. How did that happen?”

---