Hothouse Flower (35 page)

< 56 >

RYKE MEADOWS

I’m in a room alone with my fucking father, my
girlfriend’s dad and Connor. Right when I stepped onto the plane, Greg put his
hand on my shoulder and said, “We need to talk.”

I thought he was reserving that talk with Daisy, but I’m
sure he’ll have another one with her later, just to confirm that I didn’t sleep
with her when she was fifteen.

He steered me into the front cabin and pushed me onto a
cream leather recliner.

My sore muscles tense the longer I’m in a room with the
fucking devil and his sidekick. That devil, by the way, has already poured his
second glass of whiskey: straight, one ice cube. By the window, he takes big
sips, sitting on a chair next to Connor, watching Greg face me in his own seat.

“I don’t even know where to start,” Greg admits, his green
eyes zeroed in on me like a fucking target.

I rub the back of my neck and say, “You can ask me
anything.” I can’t look at my father, only ten feet away, right fucking there.
I haven’t been this close to him in years.

“I can think of a hundred places to start,” my dad pipes in,
swishing his glass of whiskey. Instead of meeting my father’s eyes, I look at
Connor beside him, his expression unreadable, drinking red wine. He easily fits
among these men who are twice his age, and Connor exudes far more fucking
confidence than either of them.

I’m no longer outdoors. I’m no longer in my element. I’ve
entered Connor’s fucking realm, and I wonder if he’s mentally snapshotting this
picture of me, here. Like I did to him back in Tennessee.

Greg’s eyes never leave mine. “I have this, Jonathan.” His
jaw clenches once, and he says, “I let you chaperone my daughter on her sweet
sixteen trip.” His voice shakes, seething. “I put my trust in you, and you spat
at me.”

I don’t interrupt him. I breathe through my nose, trying not
to get defensive.

“I want to know,” Greg says, clutching his knees, “if you’ve
been avoiding me for the past two and a half years because you knew what you
were doing was wrong.”

“No,” I say, my chest inflating with these raw emotions.

“Speak up,
Ryke
,” my father says
from the window. “And he deserves more than a half-hearted
no
from you.”

I run my hand through my hair. That movement stretches my
sore deltoids and biceps, and I stifle a fucking grimace. I wonder if it looks
like I’m pissed at Greg. I know I’m hard to read. I know the only thing people
see is this fucking black expression.

Truth is, I care what he thinks of me. Maybe a year ago I’d
say
believe what you want. I don’t give a
fuck.
But I don’t want Daisy to have to choose between me and her parents.
I don’t want this fucking headache for her. I’m trying to do what’s right.

“I never thought being her friend was fucking wrong,” I
start. “So no, I never intentionally avoided you because of Daisy.”
I avoided you because you were friends with
my father, who I never wanted to see.

I can tell Greg is fuming inside. He breathes heavily.
“Let’s cut the bullshit. You were more than just her friend.”

I’m too exhausted to lean forward and start shouting. Which
may be a fucking good thing. “No, I wasn’t. I never kissed her until Paris,” I
tell him the truth.

Greg is still on the offensive. “Help me to believe you,
Ryke
. I work eighty hours a week. I don’t have time to
hover over my daughter, but I have been very aware of how much time she’s spent
with you. And I’ve been very aware of how much she’s fallen for you.”

“Then why not tell her to get the fuck away from me?” I ask,
extending my arms. “If you thought I was such a bad influence, then why let her
hang around me for so fucking long?”

He lets out a tight breath. “Samantha didn’t care for you, but
I remembered you as a young boy. You were tough and strong, and you didn’t take
shit from anyone, not even Jonathan.”

My dad smiles at that and raises his drink. His eyes meet
mine, and I see a glimmer of fucking pride. That I’m strong like him.

My stomach roils.

“Out of my four daughters, Daisy is the most reckless. She
never sits still. Even as a child, she always found a way outside when her mother
or nannies weren’t looking. And you came into her life around the same time
that our family became a public spectacle.”

I read into the rest. “You liked that I could keep up with
her,” I realize. “You wanted me to be her fucking bodyguard, and you never
thought I would be stupid enough to cross that line.” No matter how hard Daisy
flirted, no matter how much she teased me, he believed I would never take her
shit. I’d shut her down every time.

I didn’t.

I couldn’t.

Because I fell in love with her.

He nods once. “All this time I’d been worried that you’d
lead her on and she’d be crushed from the rejection, but I never actually
thought you’d get with her.” He lets out a short breath. “It was naïve of me.”

 
I shake my head. How
do I change how he sees me?
I don’t know.
I don’t fucking know.
I comb my hand through my hair again, a weight on my
chest. “I’m not like her ex-boyfriends,” I say. “I’m not in it for…”
Fuck.
I can’t end that thought.

Greg looks just as uncomfortable.

“The sex,” my father finishes for me. “No need to beat
around the proverbial bush.”

Greg rolls his eyes. “You don’t have any daughters,
Jonathan.”

“Thank God for that.”

Connor looks amused by the whole conversation. He leans back
and sips his wine.

Greg has simmered down some, but his shoulders still stay
locked and rigid.

“Let me help you out, Greg,” my dad says. “It’ll be easier
for me to ask the harder questions.”
No.
Fuck no.
Still, I don’t shoot to my feet. I stayed glued to this fucking
chair, my eyes flickering to an ash tray on the glass end table. Avoiding my
dad’s gaze for another moment. The plane shakes as we fly through a cloud.

My dad rises and holds onto the back of Greg’s chair, the turbulence
rough. “Did you ever think about Daisy sexually when she was fifteen?” my
father starts.

My chest inflates with anger again. “Fuck off.”

“I’ll take that exceedingly rude and annoying answer as a
yes,” my dad says, sipping his whiskey.

I glare. “
No.
I
had no intention of…” I trail off and glance at Greg.

“Act like her father isn’t in the room,” my dad says.

That’s fucking impossible. He’s four feet away from me.
“Look,” I say, “Daisy is gorgeous, but I tried not to think of her like that.”

“Tried? Did you fail?” he asks.

“Why are you prosecuting me like a fucking lawyer, Dad?” I
retort.

His eyebrows rise in genuine shock. “So you still consider
me your father? That’s funny
considering
you’ve
returned only one of my calls in a year.” Before I tell him to fuck off again,
he asks, “Did you masturbate to her image or likeness?”

“No,” I growl.
A few
times. Once recently. She was eighteen already.
A part of me will always
feel guilty for it.

“That’s enough, Jonathan,” Greg says. His eyes actually
soften on me, noticing how worked up I’m getting. I’ve balled one of my hands
into a fist, and a bitter, nasty taste rises in my mouth.

Greg asks, “What’s your longest relationship,
Ryke
?”

“A few months, maybe four.”

Greg sighs. “Okay, here’s where I stand. I believe that you
weren’t with my daughter until Paris, but that doesn’t mean I approve of you
with her. You’re still twenty-five, and maybe in ten years the age difference
won’t seem as significant, but what you’ve just said makes me think you’ll last
three months. You say you’re not in it for the sex, but I’m not
that
naïve.” He pauses and adds, “She’s
given you her heart, and if you’re going to give her anything less than that,
then you need to end this right now. Understand?”

I nod a couple times. I can’t just leave it like this. I dig
inside my soul, trying to produce something more. “I hope,” I say, meeting
Greg’s gaze, “that one day you’ll be able to see how much I love your daughter.”

“If you stay with her long enough, I just might.”

It’s definitely better than where we started. He reaches out
to shake my hand.

It’s a kind offer, one that I won’t fucking reject.

I’m going to build a relationship with her father, even if
it means having to get closer to mine. It’s a sacrifice I am willing to make a
thousand times over.

I’d fucking call that love.

< 57 >

DAISY CALLOWAY

How I ended up in the back cabin with all the
couches, alone with Lo and his father, I have no idea. We have two hours left
of the flight, and my mom wanted to go talk to my dad, and everyone kind of
shuffled around. I think Rose is announcing her pregnancy to our parents.

Jonathan pours a glass of whiskey and sits back next to Lo
while I sprawl out on the other couch, a monogrammed burgundy blanket covering
my legs.
HALE
in black lettering. I
braid my hair for the twentieth time, bored and anxious.

I learned that my dad wants to “get to know”
Ryke
. Jonathan mentioned that, so my dad made him stay up
front with everyone else.

I’d join them, but my mom is in there.

So here I remain.

Jonathan looks to his son. “You need to send me your sales
report for
Halway
Comics by next weekend. I need to
know if you’re driving the fucking thing into the ground.”

“It’s been slow,” Lo says. “I took a month off for the road
trip.”

“That’s your goddamn fault,” he refutes. “You’re running a
business now. You can’t afford to take month-long vacations.”

“Connor took the same time off,” Lo defends.

“And he’s running a multi-billion dollar company with a
staff of thousands. You don’t even have an assistant. Christ, you don’t even
have an
annoying
assistant, the kind
that screws up coffee orders and likes to share personal life stories that you
don’t give a fuck about.”

This is why Lo doesn’t come to Sunday family luncheons with
Lily. He gets berated and my sister either gets ignored or scolded. I don’t
blame them for skipping.

“It’s called
initiative
,”
Jonathan says after he takes a pretty giant swig of whiskey, without grimacing.
And then his eyes fix on me, realizing that I’ve been watching. He stands.
“Daisy—I think you and I should have a talk.” He sits on the couch next to me.
“Loren, can you give us a minute?”

Lo frowns deeply. “Why do you need to talk to her?”

I’ve never had a conversation alone with Jonathan Hale. I
don’t think I ever needed to.

“She’s dating my son.”

Lo doesn’t move. He’s twenty-four and wears anger like a
weapon. It almost makes me shrink back, but he’s on my side of things. If
anything, I should be recoiling from Jonathan, right?

“I’d like to talk to her alone,” Jonathan repeats.

I’m confused. I don’t know what to do because my boyfriend
doesn’t talk to his father, so even entertaining the idea of listening to
Jonathan kind of feels like a betrayal. Should I cold-shoulder Jonathan too? In
solidarity? I don’t know how this works.

These are deep waters that I actually need help swimming in.

“I’m not leaving her alone with you,” Lo snaps.

“Stop being a little—”

“If
Ryke
found out that you talked
to her in private, he’d kill you. So think of it as me doing you a favor.” Lo
crosses his arms.

Jonathan rolls his eyes and then focuses his attention back
on me. I sit up and tuck my legs to my chest. His eyes fall to the saying on my
shirt, and his lips rise in amusement. “How long have you and
Ryke
been dating?”

“A little over a month.”

I have to remind myself that I’ve known Jonathan since I was
a little girl. He’s even Poppy’s godfather.

Jonathan tilts his head at me. “Your father is warming up to
that timeframe, but your mother seems to think you’ve had a relationship long
before that.”

I’m not surprised that she believes that. The tabloids have
been throwing out those rumors for a while. “She’s wrong.
Ryke
wouldn’t ever be with someone underage.” Even me.

“I know,” Jonathan says, surprising me. “
Ryke’s
a lot of things: stubborn, hardheaded, foul-mouthed.” He stares at his glass.
“But he’s made it clear that he’ll never follow in my footsteps.” He washes
back the liquor.

Lo tenses on the couch, and his eyes briefly flicker to me.
I know the truth, what Jonathan is talking about, like the rest of my family,
but it’s different airing it out like this.

Twenty-four years ago, Jonathan had an affair with an
underage girl.

Lo’s
mom.

The press doesn’t even know the identity of
Lo’s
mother. It’s what’s kept Jonathan out of jail.

“Is that all you wanted to ask?” I wonder. “Whether or not
Ryke
was with me before I turned eighteen?”

“That and I wanted to know if you could talk to
Ryke
for me. I’d like to have dinner with him next weekend,
catch up. You’re welcome to come too. The more the merrier.” He almost takes
another sip of his drink, but he realizes his glass is empty. But he doesn’t
stand to refill it again.

I glance at Lo. I don’t know what to say.

Lo suddenly rises from the other couch. “Dad, I’d like to
talk to you alone.”

“Well we all can’t have what we want, can we? I said I’d
like to talk to Daisy alone, and you mouthed off to me. So I will kindly do the
same to you. Cheers.” He raises his empty glass.

My heart thuds. I’ve never, in my life, been in a room alone
with the two of them. And from what I’ve heard, it can get nasty.

Lo turns his head, his eyes hitting mine. “Give us a minute,
Daisy.”

I stand to leave, but Jonathan destroys my chance to escape.
“Don’t be ridiculous, stay. My son doesn’t dictate when I speak to people.”

I freeze.

Lo glowers. “I know what you’re doing. And it’s not going to
work, so just stop.”

Jonathan raises his brows and leans back against the couch,
his arms outstretching over the top. He waves him on. “Please, Loren, tell me
what I’m doing.
Enlighten
me, since
you think I’m so dimwitted.”

Lo grinds his teeth.

Jonathan just smiles and says, “I’m waiting.”

“You can’t use her to get to him,” Lo retorts. “Just leave
her alone.”

“Is that it?” Jonathan asks.

Lo stays quiet.

His dad straightens up on the seat. “Let me educate you,
Loren,” he says, “when there are paths to be taken to achieve a goal, real men
don’t stare at them with their cock in their hands. They take the goddamn path
whether it fucking works or not.” He points at him with his finger. “And I will
do
everything
I possibly can to get
my son back, just as I would do for you.”

The first half of that speech makes me cringe, and the
second makes me reevaluate the first half. Now I can see why it’s confusing
having him as a father. I don’t know whether to run away or stay and hear him
out.

Lo looks at me again. “Go, Daisy.”

“
Stay
,” Jonathan
snaps, his voice harsher after all the booze. His gaze heats on Lo. “You’re a
goddamn terrible listener.”

“You know what, so are you,” Lo sneers. “Because if you’d
listen to anything I’ve been telling you or what
Ryke
has said, you’d know that he’ll hate you if you bring her into this shit. You can’t
be forgiven for that. So I’m helping
you.
Open your goddamn ears.” He turns around and grabs my wrist, tugging me
into one of the plane’s bedrooms.

“Loren!” Jonathan yells, but Lo just shuts the door and
locks it—truly closing his father out.

It makes me nervous that he’d switch the lock—that somewhere,
he’d fear his dad rushing in and doing what? Cold blows through me, and I
shiver.

Lo stares down at me and says, “This is about the hundredth
reason why I don’t want you dating my older brother.”

“I’ll be able to handle it,” I say. “It’s not like my
parents make
Ryke
feel warm and welcome.”

Lo shakes his head. “Greg’s third-degree and my
father’s
are not even comparable, so don’t try.”

I realize this is the first moment I’ve been alone with Lo
since he learned about my relationship with
Ryke
. “I
love him, you know? I’ve been with a lot of awful guys, and he’s the only one
that’s ever made me happy.”

Lo stares at me for a long moment and then a knock on the
door makes me flinch back. The knob jiggles. We both stiffen, and then a rough
voice calls through the wood, “Fucking let me in, Lo.”

I relax as Lo unlocks the door, and
Ryke
scans his brother’s features quickly before turning to me. I hear the door
shut, and
Ryke
hugs me to his chest immediately, his
hand on the top of my head.

“Was she left alone with him?”
Ryke
asks Lo.

“No, I was there.”

“Just you two?”

“Yeah, it was fine,” Lo says. “Nothing happened.”

“Then why the fuck did I hear Dad scream your name at the
top of his lungs?”

I look up and
Ryke’s
dark gaze
focuses on his brother, but he keeps holding me like if he lets go something
bad may happen.

“We had a disagreement,” Lo says, sitting on the edge of the
bed. He rubs his eyes like he’s just tired from everything.

“About Daisy?”
Ryke
frowns. “Or
about me?”

“Both.”

Ryke’s
eyes flash murderously. “He
needs to leave her out of our family shit.”

“You need to talk to him or else he’s going to bring her in
it.”

“
Fuck
,”
Ryke
curses. He lets out a deep breath and then he looks
down at me. “You okay?”

I nod. “Yeah.” I give him a smile. “I get all of you, right?
This is just another part.”

“This isn’t a fucking part I wanted to give you, ever.”

“Something we agree on,” Lo chimes in with a half-smile. And
then all of a sudden, a body stirs underneath a mass of pillows and blankets.
Lo turns his head and pats what I guess are feet.

Lily sits up like she rose from the dead, rubbing her eyes
and stretching. The way Lo is watching her—it’s like he’s witnessing daylight
for the first time. It makes me smile because their love is so transparent, and
it immediately slices through any awkward tension that clung to the air.

She sees us and smiles shyly. “Oh hey. What’d I miss?”

“I talked to
Ryke’s
dad,” I tell
her.

Her eyes bug out. “
Whaaa
…”

“It was interesting,” I say with a small shrug.

“What a weird day,” Lily says. I think that defines the
whole situation very nicely. She whispers in
Lo’s
ear, and he nods, whispering back, and then they both turn to look at me, their
expressions morphing into something serious and real. Lo nods and says,
“Welcome to the family.”

The words hit me straight in the heart. For so long I considered
Lo a part of
my
family; even though
he had his dad, even though he’s a Hale, he always felt like an extension of
Lily. A Calloway.

Now I’m starting to think that maybe all this time it’s been
the other way around, and I’ve just been too narrow-sighted to see it. Lily’s
always been a part of
his
family.

The Hales.

They’re kind of fucked up.