“Patrick, you should get off the balcony,” I said. “And you shouldn’t smoke.”
He shrugged. “I’m already getting sued for breaching the morality clause. I could do lines of coke off a stripper on this balcony and they still couldn’t get any more out of me.”
“I meant that more along the lines of smoking being bad for you,” I said quietly. “You’ve been doing so well the last couple of months.”
“I know, it just makes me feel a little better,” he said, sighing before stubbing it out on a crystal ashtray. “But you’re right. There.”
He came back inside and sat down on the end of the bed before rubbing his eyes and putting his head in his hands.
“Heard anything about Claire?” he asked.
“No, other than that she’s in a hospital in the psychiatric wing. Her Mom tried calling me, but I can’t face speaking to her yet.”
“Fair enough. Did you speak to your Mom or Dad yet?” he asked, looking up at me a moment later.
“Not yet.”
“You should. I called my Mom earlier while you were in the shower. She said she wants us to come home. She didn’t sound angry, only worried.”
I joined him on the bed. “I know I should call Dad, but I’m scared.”
He slung an arm around my shoulder. “I know, babe. Honestly, I wouldn’t be surprised if he tracks me down a rifle and blows my head off.”
I smiled a little at that. “I don’t think he’ll go that far.”
He sighed again. “Let’s hope not. Anyway, I got another call from the producers of that movie - the one they’ve booked DiCaprio for. They want to see me in an hour. I guess they’re withdrawing their offer too.”
“I’m sorry,” I said.
“It’s not your fault,” he said, rubbing my back. “I’d rather lose everything and be with you instead of having it the other way around. Maybe this was a good thing. If this doesn’t blow over anytime soon, we can move somewhere else and start over. We could even study those courses we’ve been looking at. We’ve been talking about it for so long, so why not?”
Tears filled my eyes as I considered his words. He was right. We could start over somewhere else, only I didn’t want to. Our lives were here. Our friends and family were here. We’d both known our relationship would cause problems, but we’d never intended for it to blow up in our faces as badly as this. Still, we should have seen it coming a mile away. We’d just been so wrapped up in each other to even care all that much.
Hindsight was a real bitch.
I guess this was the price you pay for being a celebrity, or at least being with a celebrity. Every move you make is documented and discussed in the tabloids, and you can’t do a damn thing about it. It reminded me of high school, only this time I wasn’t being called a slut in the school cafeteria or bathrooms…I was being called a skank and a whore in the news instead. Well, they were implying that, anyway. I don’t think they were legally allowed to print a headline calling me a dirty slut, as much as they clearly wanted to.
It was such bullshit. Even though Patrick was getting a lot of negative attention, most of it seemed to be focused on me. It was the age-old cliché – men who have sex are ‘studs’ and women who have sex are ‘sluts’. There were a select few gossip sites already hailing Patrick as some sort of manly hero for ‘nailing such forbidden pussy’, and meanwhile I was being painted as some sort of evil seductress intent on tearing our family apart.
“I don’t know what we should do,” I finally replied, looking down at my lap. “I just wish we’d come clean earlier, in private. At least then our parents could have found out from us rather than seeing it on the front of their morning newspaper.”
“Bit late for that now.”
He put both arms around me and held me for a while, and then he kissed the top of my head and ruffled my hair.
“I have to head off to the meeting with those producers,” he said softly. “I really think you should go and see your Dad, or at least call him back. Hiding out here isn’t gonna solve anything in the end.”
I nodded. “Okay,” I said in a small voice. “Can you come with me?”
“I think you should probably see him alone at first, but if things get too hectic with him, call or text me. I’ll try to make my meeting as short as possible, and I’ll come and rescue you. Okay?”
“Okay.”
He kissed me goodbye and slipped out the door. My heart hammered as I got dressed, and I looked in the mirror, trying to figure out a way to quickly change my appearance enough to stop myself from being recognized on my way to the CBC studio. I found an old crimson red lipstick which I’d never worn, and I swiped that on along with more eyeliner than I’d normally wear. Then I put my hair in a loose bun, which I usually wore down. I finished the look with a giant pair of sunglasses which almost took up half my face, and then I stepped out of the hotel and onto the street.
So much for my disguise. People still seemed to know who I was, because I got funny looks from almost everyone I passed as I headed for my car.
“Hey Lucy! Where’s your brother?”
I turned my head to see an unfamiliar man calling out to me from across the street, and when he realized I’d heard him, he grinned and made kissing sounds at me. Deeply ashamed, I abruptly turned away from him and ran the rest of the way to my car, my skin coated in a thin sheen of sweat.
Things were no different when I arrived at the studio. As I made my way from the parking lot into the main building, I was greeted by stares and whispers, and once again I had a mental flashback of the tortures of high school. What really sucked was that I’d finally started to let all of that go in the last few months, but here it was again, rushing back at me in a torrent of horrible memories.
I ran into my Dad’s secretary on my way down the hall.
“Lucy!” she said, rushing up to me. “Your Dad’s been trying to call you for a while now.”
“I know,” I said. “I’m sorry, I just needed to bury my head in the sand for a while. Is he in his office now?”
“Yes, he’s just on a call, but I’ll let him know you’re here right away,” she replied. “Oh, and Lucy?”
“Yeah?”
She leaned in closer and touched a hand to my shoulder. “Don’t worry about all those idiots on the gossip sites. They’ve got nothing better to do. This’ll all be over once they move onto the next scandal. And there’s probably a new one coming really soon – I hear Lexie Greyson is pregnant to a married man. So keep your chin up, girl!”
I gave her a weak smile. “Thanks. It means a lot to hear that right now.”
She smiled and nodded before returning to her desk. After speaking into her phone in a low voice, she looked up at me and waved me into Dad’s office. I tentatively opened his door to see him sitting at his desk, placing his phone in its receiver. As soon as he saw me, he sprang to his feet and dashed over to me, enveloping me in a hug.
“Oh, Princess, I’ve been so worried,” he said, ruffling up my hair as he hugged me.
Well, that wasn’t the reaction I’d been expecting…
“Dad,” I said, barely able to look him in the eyes as he broke away a second later. “I’m so sorry. About me and Patrick…we got together once in high school, and then it all started again a while ago. We should’ve told you. I know it’s caused all kinds of trouble for you.”
He looked down at me, his brown eyes sparking with unfamiliar emotion.
“Ah. So that explains why you two were always at each other’s throats when I first married Julia.”
I nodded, and he took off his glasses and rubbed his eyes.
“I didn’t actually want to speak to you about Patrick. Take a seat, Princess.”
He gestured to a chair across from his desk, and I sat down, my curiosity piqued. Why the hell wasn’t he angrier? I’d honestly been preparing for him to disown me and threaten to kill Patrick and leave his body in a landfill somewhere.
“In another time and another plac
e, I might be upset at this recent revelation of your relationship with Patrick, but now is not the time. There’s something I need to talk with you about, darling. Something very serious. You’re not the only one who’s been keeping secrets. I’ve been keeping one as well. A very big one, in fact, and I regret not telling you sooner. I just didn’t know how to say…”
His voice trailed off for a second, and my heart skipped a beat. Oh no. If he was completely glossing over the media shitstorm Patrick and I had given rise to, then that meant something awful was going on.
“Dad…what is it?” I asked, trying and failing to keep the anxiousness out of my voice.
He let out another deep sigh. “Princess…I’m sick. Very sick.”
My heart plummeted into my stomach.
“Sick? How?” I asked, my voice quavering even more.
“It’s been going on for a while now, and I’ve kept it to myself, because the prognosis was originally good. But my kidneys are failing, and they’re slowly getting worse. I’ve been going in for dialysis three times a week for the last few months.”
Something occurred to me all of a sudden. “Is that why you were in the hospital that day when Patrick and I got into the car accident? I wondered how you got there so fast.”
He nodded. “Yes. I was just leaving my treatment session when I got the call.”
I nodded slowly, trying to process everything. “But…you’ll be fine as long as you keep getting dialysis, right?”
He looked at me for a long time before replying. “It’s progressed to the stage where I really need a transplant. I’ve been on the waiting list for some time, but there are several people ahead of me. Without a new transplant kidney, I have maybe three months left.”
My eyes filled with hot tears as he spoke, and all the air seemed to go out of my lungs. No. This couldn’t be happening. Dad and I had only just started to get close, and now he was going to die?
No.
No, no, no.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” I choked out. “I could be a match for a transplant. You know I’d do it.”
He shook his head. “I remember your blood type from when you were born. You’re an O-positive, just like your mother. I’m an AB-negative. The only other person who knows about this is my Aunt Linda. She’s been quietly looking into other family members, but no one has the same blood type as me. So I have to stay on the donor list and hope something comes along before my time is up.”
“There has to be something else we can do. What about Julia? She knows about this, right?”
He looked ashamed. “No. I’m going to tell her later today. I didn’t want to put her under any undue stress before it was necessary, because she’s had such a difficult life already, and I know she isn’t a match. Before we got married, we both went and got a bunch of blood tests to make sure we were healthy. I remember the doctor told her she’s an O-negative and that she should donate blood, seeing as O-negative is the universal donor for blood.”
He sighed and continued. “I just wanted to spend some quality time with my family before it came to this. That’s why I was so pleased when you needed a job at the studio. It gave me the best excuse to have you come live with me.”
Tears were streaming down my face in earnest now. “So…so what happens now? We just wait and hope for a donor match?”
“Yes. That’s all we can do at this point. I’m so sorry, Princess. I wanted to keep this from you as long as possible so as to not hurt you, but I needed to tell you now. I was afraid that after this media debacle, you’d take off and move overseas to get away from all the drama. I couldn’t lose you, especially when I don’t have much time left.”
He sighed again and put his glasses back on. I’d never seen him look so tired before.
“I know I haven’t always been the best father. I was never around when you were young. It was mostly my fault my marriage with your Mom broke down. I just thought…I always thought that if I worked hard and made lots of money, I’d be able to give you a good life. It never occurred to me until it was too late that money, nice houses and good schools aren’t everything. You needed more than an absent father, Princess. I’m sorry.”
I shook my head. “No, don’t talk like that, Dad. You were just doing what you thought was right.”
“It was still wrong of me,” he said. “Now come here. Give your old man a hug.”
I stood up, my legs shaking as I made my way over to his desk. He cradled me against him for what felt like an eternity, and sobs racked my body as I laid my head on his shoulder. The tabloid problem seemed like it was a million miles away, in some far off galaxy.
My mind quickly entered the bargaining stage of grief. I kept trying to make mental deals with the universe. Trash me in the media forever, call me a slut, call me a whore, do it for the rest of my life…just make my Dad better. Please. But I knew it wouldn’t work. The only thing that would help now was a donor match being made available within the next couple of months.
The worst part of that was that I was basically praying for someone else to die so that my father would live. If that wasn’t fucked up, then I didn’t know what was.
Dad finally spoke up again, his voice gruff with tears. “I have to go to the hospital now,” he said. “I have another dialysis session at two.”
“Do you want me to come with you?” I asked.
He shook his head. “Maybe next time, Princess. I don’t know if I want you seeing me like that right now. So weak and helpless…it just feels…”
His voice trailed off again, and I nodded. “I understand. Go to your appointment. And when you’re done there, I’ll help you tell Julia what’s going on.”
“Thank you, darling. That would be very helpful. I’ll see you at home soon.”
He kissed me on the cheek before leaving, and I stood motionless, watching him walk out of the office and up the hallway. I kept trying to make myself move, and I had to remind myself to breathe. It felt as if my heart was being squeezed by a fist and all the air had left my lungs, and finally I crumpled onto the floor underneath Dad’s desk, my shoulders racked with sobs as the tears flooded back again.
I wasn’t sure if I’d ever stop crying ever again. Just when I’d thought my life had taken a downward turn and couldn’t get much worse, along came reality to smack me in the face with the fact that it could be so much worse than I imagined.
Nothing could be as bad as this, though. My Dad was dying. This was rock bottom, and things had never been this terrible.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
PATRICK
Things were finally looking up in my world.
I’d just finished the meeting with the producers over at Keller-Nolan Studios, and it hadn’t gone as I’d expected at all. I’d assumed they’d called me in so they could formally withdraw their movie offer after all the media shit that had gone down in the last couple of days, but it was the complete opposite of that. They’d called me in to make sure that I was definitely on board with the project, and they’d offered to double my salary for the movie. So now I’d be raking in a cool seven million from it.
It turned out that the character I was going to be playing had some sort of story arc where he enters a hot, forbidden relationship with a woman, and apparently the recent tabloid situation about me being in a taboo relationship of my own had convinced the producers beyond a shadow of a doubt that I was perfect for it. They’d told me that they could spin the recent drama into advertising for the movie, and all I had to do was confirm my interest and sign some papers.
I wasn’t signing straight away – I was going to have a lawyer look them over first to make sure I wasn’t getting screwed in any way, but overall it appeared that my career wasn’t going to be anywhere near as affected by the tabloid shit as I’d initially thought it would be. The scriptwriters were still ironing out some details for now, but shooting for the film would begin in four months up in Vancouver. I’d even scored my friend Alex a minor part in it, so he’d probably
be getting a call from them sometime soon.
The first person I wanted to share the good news with was Lucy. Unfortunately, she wasn’t answering any of my calls or texts, so I assumed she was still at CBC getting reamed out by her Dad.
Time for a rescue mission.
It was about time I faced him, anyway. He was a great guy, and in staying away from him and refusing to own up to the truth face-to-face, I was being a pathetic little coward. I headed over to CBC and strode into the offices, and Ron’s secretary glanced up at me.
“Hi, Patrick,” she said. “If you’re looking for Ron, he’s just popped out to an appointment.”
“Oh. Where did Lucy go?”
She shrugged. “I didn’t see her leave. I assume she’s still in his office.”
Weird.
I opened the office door to find it apparently empty, but muffled sounds from under the cherry-wood desk made it all too clear that Lucy was still in here.
“Lucy?” I called out, quietly closing the door behind me. “Babe, come out. It’s not that bad. I’m sure your Dad’s angry, but it’ll all be okay. I promise.”
I crouched down by the desk and looked under it to see her crumpled up in a ball, her body trembling as she sobbed. When she saw me looking down at her, she sniffed and wiped her face with the back of her hand.
“Everything is ruined,” she said.
“No, don’t say that. Your Dad will come around to us being together eventually.”
“It’s not that,” she replied, shaking her head. “He’s not even all that mad about us being together at all. He was just worried that we’d leave the country to get away from the tabloids, and he needs me close right now, because….because…”
She struggled to get the words out, and I sank down to the ground and sat as close to her as I could.
“Lucy? What’s going on?”
“He’s sick,” she said, her voice barely above a whisper. “He could die soon.”
A chill ran down my spine. Surely I’d misheard her. Ron had always seemed as healthy as an ox.
“What?”
Trick - A Stepbrother Romance Page 17
