Page 16 of Always Knew It Was You

The space smells of fresh flowers and citrus, which means it was just cleaned a few seconds ago. I hear voices coming from the next room, the dining room, which also means the old man is already up and kicking this morning.

Good.

His mood is always best after he just woke up, which is why I took an early morning flight from Laketown to New York to catch him in these rare early hours of serenity before the rest of the world pisses him off.

I stride into the dining room and catch my grandfather as he’s murmuring to his maid to bring him a cup of cappuccino.

I pause as his head slowly swivels to me and I do a double take.

“Oh, I’m sorry,” I say. “I think I must be in the wrong house. I was looking for my grandfather, but I seem to have stumbled into the home of a young, handsome Clint Eastwood. Let me try again.”

I make a point of walking back to the front door and then returning. “Huh, it says this is the address. Odd. Did you kill my grandfather and take his place, young handsome Clint Eastwood?’

My grandfather doesn’t crack a smile. “Your jokes get less amusing with age.”

“No, they don’t. And what is it with you and Dad age-shaming me all of a sudden? Thirty-five is not old.” I walk around the table and grin at the maid, who’s trying to hide her smile. “Hi, Elvira. How is it going?”

“Good morning, Master Micah,” she greets.

“No need to be so formal, Elvira. You changed my diapers at one point. Just ‘Master’ should be fine.”

She giggles and rolls her eyes before retreating. I face my grandfather who takes a sip of his orange juice. He always likes to have freshly squeezed fruit juice in the morning before he feeds his caffeine addiction.

“I assume you’re out of money,” he says.

I lay a hand on my chest. “You wound me, Grandfather. Are you trying to imply that the only reason I would visit you is to pad up my finances?”

“Don’t be too offended,” my grandfather responds drolly. “It’s not special. That’s the only reason most people visit me.”

The thought has some stray guilt propping up.

Well, I probably haven’t been coming over like I should, but that’s because I’ve been so busy trying to undo my father’s machinations that I haven’t had time to consider much else. Heck, I haven’t even partied in weeks. “It’s not like that, Grandfather.”

“Right.” He snorts. “Let me guess. You and your father had a fight and he cut you off again.”

“No,” I say although his guess is eerily close. “We simply had a small disagreement about this new business I’m starting.”

“Another one?”

I wince. “Yes, but this one is different. You remember how much I used to love architecture back in college?”

“I remember you dropped it in your third year to pursue a life of debauchery.”

Ouch. “Well, it didn’t quite happen like that.” There was more to it than that, but it would take too long and expose too many scars to explain.

My grandfather fixes me with a look. “You’re about to tell me that you dropped out because your father disapproved. That’s more of a childish reason than what I said.”

“Dad’s disapproval isn’t the reason I dropped out.” Yes, my dad didn’t approve of me studying architecture, just like he didn’t approve of it when I said I wanted to be a pilot at age twelve. He saw both as childish dreams I would eventually get over, when I was old and mature enough to see things his way. Plus, he’s always felt that my true place was in his company as my brother’s right-hand man.

Everything else was a distraction he only let me indulge in because he thought it was a hobby.

But when he saw me start to take architecture seriously in college, with an actual plan to start a company and everything, he got threatened.

He wanted me to drop it. I refused. So he approached it in a roundabout way. We had many arguments about it, arguments that my mother stayed out of, and my brother often mediated and took my side on.

“Leave him alone, Dad,” Tristan would say. “Can’t you see how badly he wants this?”

But my father didn’t relent. Ultimately, it came to a head when I started my company while I was still in college, using my savings and some of my inheritance from my mother’s side for it. Dad pretended to give up then. He pretended to even be supportive.

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