Page 67 of Interning For A Billionaire

Then she smiled, “The lengths I had to go through to get you to come home for a visit,” she winked at me. I felt like crying. “You should’ve said, I would’ve been down here in a flash. No need for hospital food and needles!”

All of us laughed.

“We’ll be back first thing tomorrow,” my father said.

“Oh, please, no need to rush,” my aunt said. “Just silly old me, giving all of us such a scare.”

It was a two-hour drive home, during which I told my father about Michael and the job at Pyramide.

“But I don’t know about Michael now. Sven told him so many lies about us.”

“If he loves you, it won’t matter,” my father said.

“I don’t know, Dad,” I gave a deep sigh, looked out over the flat landscape outside the car window.

“Maybe that kind of romance isn’t for everyone.”

“I don’t want to hear you say that,” he said in a stern tone. “That kind of romance, as you call it, is for everyone. I had it and your aunt had it.”

“She did? But she divorced Uncle Cam?” I said.

“Only after so many miscarriages. It ruined their marriage. It wasn’t either of their fault. But ten years of losing babies is very hard on a relationship.”

I hadn’t known that. She had been such a good mother to me.

“I must say, I’m a little pissed at Sven, though.”

I was surprised to hear my dad using such strong language.

My father said, “When he offered to come to Wichita with me to help drive you from the airport, I had no idea you didn’t know or that you had broken up. He made it sound like you two were back together again.”

“He’s been calling me at work too,” I said. “I stopped taking his calls, telling him to accept it was over, but he didn’t seem to listen.”

“Boy is stubborn,” said my father.

“I think there is more to it than that,” I told him. “I spoke to his father earlier today and I asked him if everything was okay. He said Sven told him we were getting married in June.”

“That’s two months away!”

“I know. When I told him that wasn’t happening, he told me all the things Sven had said to him, about talking to me and visiting me. He basically made it sound like he was visiting me every month!”

My father was quiet for a long time. “Doesn’t sound good.”

“I know.” I had tried talking to Sven’s father, but he had shrugged it off, saying his son was just an old-fashioned romantic who refused to give up. More like an obsessed psycho unwilling to let go, was what I thought.

“We’ll be careful,” my dad said, and I was relieved that he took the situation seriously.

We arrived in Nolan after dark.

I wasn’t unhappy to see the house. My dad switched on the lights and carried my bag inside, taking it upstairs to my room.

I went to switch the kettle on and looked through the cupboards. There was hardly any food in the house and almost no fruit or fresh vegetables.

“I’m going to have a beer,” my father said.

“I’ll join you.”

I thought of the beers I shared with Ty and realized that not everything in my life had changed that much.

---