Page 67 of Shy Girl
“You look nothing like me.”
“I d-d-disagree,” I murmured.
One eyebrow tweaked up in a move I couldn't read at all. Was he startled? Or was the stutter simply a reminder that we did share something after all?
“There are so many questions that I have.” He leaned back, and I sensed a poker face at work. The man was one of the wealthiest in the country, which meant he was going to be better at this than me. Over all the years of hopes and dreams, I'd tied myself up into this outcome too much.
Meanwhile, I doubted he had thought of me at all during that time.
Wordless, I motioned for him to continue. He released a breathy laugh. “You've learned not to speak unless you have to, I presume?” He shook his head, as if he didn't really want an answer, but felt obligated to ask anyway. “I know that struggle well. All right then, ask I shall.”
His hands folded together in front of him. For a moment, the intensity of his gaze deepened, then abated.
“What is your favorite color?”
I blinked, entirely unprepared for so benign a question.Why are you here?orHow did you find out?made far more sense. Evenhow much money do you want in exchange for your silence? wouldn't shock me.
But this?
“G-green.”
“Really?” He grinned. “Intriguing. And how is your mother doing?”
My nostrils flared, but someone had appeared that drew his attention away and he missed the tell. I took the opportunity of his distraction to square my shoulders and draw in a deep breath. One of my speech therapists said that just drawing my shoulders back could give me the courage I needed to open my mouth again.
Still, a sense of astonishment filled me. He was asking about my Mom?
A familiar-looking person appeared. A young girl, presumably his assistant, handed him a large, sealed envelope. Once he accepted it, she disappeared again. He slid a finger under the top and glanced to me.
“Your mother?” he asked in a gentle reminder. “I hope she's well.”
“F-f-fine.”
“Good. And do you like the mountains of Pineville as a home? You've been there for so long.”
“Y-yes.”
He nodded, then reached into the envelope and extracted a sheaf of papers. “I'm glad to hear it. You seem healthy, bright, and intelligent, which is what I wished for you. Now, I assume you have many questions.”
The papers spread out in front of him, but the words were too small to skim or catch quickly. I had a feeling he knew that. Maybe this was just a distraction—a preface. He made polite small talk now, but in his hands he held a bomb.
“C-can we s-s-stop the s-small talk?”
Anthony paused, hesitated, and let out a sigh that lowered his shoulders. “Of course. It's not small talk to me, as I've genuinely wondered about you from time to time, but I can see that it is for you. Let's get to the bottom of this, shall we? You hold some information about yourself that you shouldn't, technically, know.”
Although I didn't know much about this kind of back-and-forth, I at least knew that I didn't have to verbally admit anything. What if he recorded this? No, that didn't make sense either. He wouldn't want his own voice on the recording as he admitted an affair and a secret love child, at any rate. I stared at him, my lips sealed.
He paused for just a second, as if to give me a chance to reply, then continued again.
“The information you learned about yourself has explosive potential. Not only would it dramatically affect my personal life, but the lives of those I love and have long been loyal to. Right down the employees that depend on my company to feed their children. It's a long tail of success, you see.”
A scoff slipped out of me, and I didn't try very hard to stop it.
He blinked. “I deserve that from you,” he said quietly, then put both hands down on the papers to stare at me again. This time, his expression was . . . softer. The kind of gaze a fathermightgive a daughter. “When you bumped into me the other day before I made it back to the rehearsal dinner, I almost thought I'd seen a ghost. You look just like your mother did twenty-some-odd years ago.”
The edge inside me started to soften. Although I wanted to act indifferent and as if I didn't care, I couldn't help but cling to the wistfulness in his voice. Hadn't I dreamed of this moment my whole life? I’d tried to imagine what he'd say about the decision to leave me behind and ignore me my whole life. He left a big, fat question mark in the place of a father.
Now he handed the answers to me in a gentle tone. One that even seemed to have a hint of regret in it.
