Page 9 of Played
I’m immediately suspicious. Graham has been my parents’ lawyer for as long as I can remember. He has the charm of a snake-oil salesman and the morals of a shark—like a lot of lawyers in my experience. But what the hell is he doing here?
I squeeze his hand in a firm grip and let him pump mine twice before I pull it away. “Well, my grandfather is dying, so…”
He closes his eyes for a beat and then plasters on a sympathetic look. “I was so sorry to hear about Arthur. My condolences.”
I scowl. “Aren’t condolences for the dead?”
If he’s bothered by my reaction, he shows no sign of it. He keeps that fake look of pity on his face and says, “I understand it’s only a matter of time.”
“We’re all dying, Graham.” I allow a little of the anger swirling inside of me to bleed into my tone. “Some of us sooner than others.”
He blanches, his facade slipping. Hastily, he bids my mother and me goodnight and leaves.
I focus my attention on her again. “Why would you think I’d consider coming home?”
“For your grandfather,” she says absently, her attention back on her magazine.
Without another word, I leave the parlor and go to find my father. Can’t imagine any encounter with him will be more pleasant than the one with my mother, but at least he’ll give me something. And that means there’s a much higher chance of getting information from him. I can’t shake the feeling that Graham was here for a nefarious purpose—and that his purpose had something to do with Grampa.
My father is drinking a glass of cognac when I walk into his study. The half-empty bottle of Rémy sits open on his desk, with an empty glass I assume to be Graham’s sitting beside it. Cognac is my father’s drink of choice when he’s celebrating something. So what the hell were those two celebrating?
“Kyngston,” he says, sneering. “The prodigal son has returned.”
I resist the urge to walk out. “You wanted to see me?”
Immediately, his body language and facial expression change. He’s less hostile. Businessman Kyngston rather than myfather. He indicates the chair opposite his desk, and I drop into it. “You’ve seen your grandfather, I assume?”
“Of course I have. He’s the only reason I came back here.”
“He’ll be moving in as soon as we can have the equipment he requires set up.”
That doesn’t make sense. They called me two days ago. Someone with my father’s pull could have had that stuff set up in a matter of hours. “Why?”
He blinks at me. “Excuse me?”
“Why is he moving in here?”
“Because he’s your mother’s father, and he’s sick.” His tone is incredulous, like I’m a monster for asking such a question.
The rage that simmers beneath my skin when I’m around this man bubbles out of me. “But you fucking hate him.”
“How dare you!” His right eye twitches. He wants to argue, maybe even fight me, but he knows better than to try the latter with me these days. Not now that I’m bigger and stronger than he ever was. It grinds his gears that he can’t push me around the way he used to. Little does he know that every single weight I lift, every punching bag I hit, every pound of muscle I add to my body—all of it is because of him.
“But it’s true, isn’t it? You can’t stand the man. You never cared about his health before, so why now,Father? What’s your angle?”
He pulls at the collar of his shirt, visibly working to control his temper. Visible to me at least, the kid who spent years studying him until I learned every tell in his otherwise carefully curated cool persona. It’s the mask he wears for his adoring public, but one he can’t sustain indefinitely. “There is no angle, Kyngston.”
I don’t believe that for a second.
He glances at the newspaper on his desk. The headline grabbed my attention too when I saw it earlier today. “I see thatactor’s kid was finally found. He wasn’t kidnapped after all, just went on vacation with some buddies. Ungrateful little upstart. I would have cut him off and left him to rot if it had been me.”
Why is he trying to establish rapport in the form of verbal sparring? “Well thank fuck it wasn’t you then, eh?”
He scoffs. “Who in their right mind names their kid Indigo anyway? That’s looking for trouble if you ask me.”
Well, nobody did ask you, you despicable asshole. They can’t be worse than the kind of people who name their kids Kyngston. I don’t say that to him though. He has something to tell me or something to ask me, and I’m not going to make it easy for him. The less I converse with him, the quicker he’ll get to the point of why I’m here, and the quicker I can leave.
I stare out the window behind him, watching droplets of rain run down the glass and wishing I were anywhere but here. Maybe that same feeling is what drove Indigo Bernard out of his house and into the arms of an opiate addiction.
