Page 15 of My Grumpy Billionaire Protector

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“That didn’t take longat all,” Dinah mutters, eyeing me over the rim of her glass. “You barely made it to dinner without being at each other’s throats.”

I take a long swallow of my wine, the bitter taste trickling down my throat before it settles in the pit of my stomach. “At least it didn’t start when I walked in through the door.”

Dinah takes a sip and grimaces. “I wouldn’t know. I wasn’t there.”

I roll my eyes. “Does this have to happen every Friday?”

Dinah looks over my shoulder and takes a few more sips of her drink. “You know how he feels about keeping up appearances.”

Slowly, I spin around and come to stand next to Dinah. From our spot across the room, we watch our grandfather as he stands in the middle of the living room with his hands shoved into the pockets of his trousers and a thoughtful expression on his face. There are two people on either side of him, four in total, and all of them are wearing the same identical, dumbstruck expression. Upon closer inspection, I realize they are well dressed without a single wayward hair or lint to be seen. I repress the urge to scream.

Everything in this room, including us, is just a prop — from the leather sofas and armchairs to the Victorian-style fireplace to a picture of the family framed above the mantel.

The entire room is done in shades of muted brown and beige, giving the entire area a distinctly masculine feel. Next to the windows, my mom stands with one leg crossed over the other, already on her third glass of wine. There is a rehearsed smile fixed in place and a glassy look in her eyes.

Fuck.

It is going to be a long night.

From somewhere in the house, the smell of spices waft in, making my stomach growl. Outside, a few dogs bark in the distance, punctuated by the occasional car horn. I tug on the collar, peeling it away from my neck, and sigh. Then, I down the rest of my drink and gesture to Missus Bloomsbury for another. The quiet and austere housekeeper, with streaks of silver in her dark hair, rarely says anything at all, and her dark eyes are ever wide and watchful.

It is like something out of a horror movie.

“How long do you think it’s going to be before he brings us up?”

I bring the glass up to my lips and pause. “I don’t know. He usually waits until one of his ever-adoring constituents notices us before he does.”

I already know how this particular song and dance goes.

Like a well-choreographed bit, his driver picks us up at my mom’s house at exactly seven in the evening every Friday night. Inside the sleek black car, we always settle into silence until we pull up outside the gated community on the other side of the city. At the wrought-iron gate, we are only stopped for a few brief seconds, while, on occasion, a few paparazzi snap pictures and shout questions at us before we disappear into the manicured and paved community.

Mitchel Coombes is not a man who likes to live modestly.

Time and again, he likes to bring up the fact that he’s worked hard to get to where he is. Growing up, he often regaled us with stories of the young boy with ragged clothes and only two pairs of shoes who was forced to walk to school every morning. At night, he used to dream of a better life for himself, and so he began to take odd jobs here and there until a chance encounter right out of school made him cross paths with an older widowed man who took an immediate liking to my grandfather.

And the rest is, as they say, history.

It is a story all of us knew by heart, yet many of his constituents still love to hear it. They eat up every word that comes out of his mouth like it is the gospel. While I do admire my grandfather for his tenacity, hard work, and ambition, I know firsthand what it is like to watch it eat away at him and transform him into a shell of a man, an empty void who always demands more.

Whatever warmth and compassion he once possessed was long since gone.

I barely have any memories of the man who used to carry me in his arms and swing me around. Unfortunately, my mother doesn’t appear to recognize him either, and I often see the pain lingering in the depth of her eyes before she stamps it out and puts on her dutiful smile. She’s long since given up on trying to unearth the father she once knew and instead settled into her role as his campaign manager.

He’s ensnared her just like everyone else.

My mother no longer has any interest in fighting him off. It is quite the opposite. She expects the rest of us to fall in line too and take up our mantle next to him quietly and obediently. By the time my grandfather’s constituents are ushered out, I am done with my second glass of wine and feeling more than a little impatient. Still, I take a seat on my grandfather’s left while my mother sits across from me on his right. Dinah quickly ends her phone call and pulls up a chair next to me. The quiet screech fills the tense silence that settles around us like a familiar, stifling blanket.

Here we go again…

“You could get a Master’s done,” Mitchel suggests before reaching for his fork and knife. “Given that you get off of work in the afternoon, there’s plenty of time for you to pursue your degree.”

I stab my steak and begin to cut into it with a little more force than necessary. “I already told you that I don’t want to get a Master's, Grandpa. I’m saving up to get a specialized degree in education.”

“There is money set aside for you if that’s your issue.”

I force my gaze up to his and notice that the top of his head glistens underneath the fluorescent lighting, making his blond hair look ashen. “I appreciate the offer, Grandpa, but I can manage on my own.”

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