Page 26 of Boss Unavowed (Boss 2)

He swallowed, feeling like a child being interrogated by an angry parent, but he had respect for the woman. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d ever been made to feel that way, and couldn’t imagine there being anyone else on the planet who could.

“She doesn’t trust the woman I went on the trip with, and I don’t deny she had good reason to.” Rogan reached into the inner pocket of his blazer and pulled out a small, rectangular box. “But this is why I didn’t want her to go with me.”

Rogan opened the box, and a marquise diamond in an ornate, platinum setting sparkled within.

Mrs. Fields’s eyes went to the ring and widened. She looked back up at Rogan and smiled knowingly.

“Let me tell you a little something about my Farren. She can be stubborn, but she’s usually that way to protect herself in some way. She’s had a lot of things in her life happen to culminate the strong, intelligent, no-nonsense girl she is. She’s analytical, and she tends to overthink things a lot of the time.”

Rogan scoffed. “Tell me something I don’t know,” he mumbled.

“But when that girl lets you in, she’s in it for the long haul. She can never stay mad for long. She’s scared right now, and with all she’s been through, that’s understandable. She thinks that eventually, everyone will leave her.”

“I don’t want to leave her. Hell, right now, I just don’t want her to leave me,” he admitted.

“So talk to her. As stubborn as she can be, but eventually she’ll listen.”

“Do you know where I can find her?” he asked, scooting up to the edge of the sofa.

Mrs. Fields looked down and nodded. “She was meeting her father this evening around six o’clock for dinner. Some place called the Silver Spoon Grill.”

Rogan leaned forward to hug the old woman and kiss her cheek. “Thank you.”

He stood and rushed to the door to leave.

“Rogan?” Mrs. Fields said, halting his steps momentarily. He turned to her with his hand still on the doorknob. “I’ll tell you like I told Farren. Be careful. My son, her father… I don’t know him anymore. When he left, I don’t know what he was into, but I know it wasn’t good. Maybe he’s changed, but… just be careful.”

He nodded, acknowledging her words, and he was out the door.

EIGHTEEN

When Rogan arrived at the Silver Spoon Grill just before six that evening, he noticed Farren just walking in carrying Harley in his baby carrier. He got out and made his way inside.

He approached the hostess, but when she offered to seat him, he flashed his most charming smile and said he was meeting someone already there. He remained out of sight as he walked past a half-wall topped with greenery. He looked around and spotted Farren sitting in a booth, Harley’s carrier resting beside her, and the man across the table from her with his back to Rogan.

He eyed the room for a table that would let him sit unnoticed while he waited for the opportune moment to go to her. He didn’t want to barge in too soon. He could at least give her this time with her father while keeping an eye on them from a safe distance. Mrs. Fields’ words of caution hovered restlessly in his mind, though, and it took all of his self-control to sit idly by when he didn’t know what to expect.

Perhaps he also couldn’t relate to the feeling of still wanting a relationship with a man who had abandoned her as a child. He certainly didn’t want anything to do with the low-life that had donated DNA to him, though the selfish bastard had, of course, came calling the minute he’d found out his long, lost son was now loaded.

He hoped better for Farren, and maybe even for his son to know at least one of his grandparents.

He took a seat at a table in a quiet corner where he could keep an eye on Farren. He told the waitress to bring him a double vodka on the rocks, that he wasn’t interested in food, so she wouldn’t keep coming around as an unwanted distraction. Then he sat and watched.

He could see the anguish in how the whites of her eyes were red, the skin beneath them was puffy. He hated that he’d been the one to hurt her and make her cry. She was one of the few people whose feelings he actually gave a shit about, and he could count on less than one hand the number of people he extended that courtesy to.

She looked so unsure, he thought, as she tried to make conversation. Of course, she was in unknown territory with the man sitting before her, and he tried to bury the loathing hatred for the man that he found hard to contain, simply for the scars he’d inflicted on the woman he loved if nothing else.

The waitress brought his vodka over and set it on a coaster in front of him. “Are you sure I can’t get you anything else?” she offered.

“Positive.”

He didn’t even spare her a sideways glance, and thankfully, she left him to his devices after that.

*

“So, I hear you’ve got some fancy new tech job now, huh? How’s that working out?” her father said before taking a bite of the chicken he’d ordered.

She felt strange sitting there looking at the older man before her. He was thinner than she remembered, his eyes a little more sunken in, and a lot more gray in his dark hair. He had some deeper-set wrinkles in his forehead and around his mouth than she’d recalled, but she guessed it was only to be expected. It had been, what, ten, twelve years now? She’d pretty much lost count after a while.

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