She winced. “As in in the study. I invited him without consulting you, and you can be mad at me later.”
“Day! Why would you do that?” Maggie felt panic clawing its way up her throat. She wasn’t mentally prepared to see her father. She hadn’t seen the man in years. They’d barely spoken in a decade.
“You two need to talk,” Dayana insisted.
“I’m kind of busy here,” she said, gesturing at the party happening around them. “What if someone recognizes him?”
“That’s part of what you need to talk to him about,” Dayana said, pushing her down the hall.
Maggie’s heart thumped harder the closer they got to the study. She wished she had Silas to hold her hand or to drag her away and throw her in the river again.
But there was no Silas waiting for her in the study. Only her father. Billionaire investor and philanthropist Sebastian Spencer. He was tall and trim. His dark hair showed more salt than it had the last time she’d seen him. He was dressed casually in slacks and a shirt with the sleeves rolled up. But the clothes still screamed wealth.
He was holding Keaton in one arm and the photo Maggie had placed on the mantel only an hour before in his other hand. He looked up, the smile freezing and then dimming just a little as his gaze roamed her face.
Dayana took her son and gave him a loud kiss. “Come on, little man. Let’s get you a snack while Grandpa and Aunt Maggie talk. Talk nice, you two.” She gave them both a pointed look before she left the room.
Maggie didn’t know what to say, and frankly, she didn’t feel like the burden of hospitality was on her, since her sneaky sister had done the inviting.
Sebastian was the first to break the silence. He turned the photo to face her. “Your mother was a beautiful woman.”
She looked away. There was something so odd about her father, a man she barely knew, looking so tenderly at an image of the mother she’d loved so desperately. She focused on the framed needlepoint she’d returned to its place of honor above the fireplace.
WHERE IS THE ADVENTURE IN FINDING ONESELF IF ONE USES SOMEONE ELSE’S MAP?
Next to it was an old topographical map. Both had been here the day she purchased the house. On the mantel. Above the gold coin…
“Maggie?”
Sebastian was looking at her expectantly.
“Sorry. What?”
He put the photo back on the mantel. “I’m sorry to drop by unannounced like this.”
“It happens more often than not in these parts,” she said wryly.
“I know you’re busy, and I understand that tonight is important to you, so I’ll keep this short.” He sounded all-business now, and it annoyed her.
“You don’t have to worry. I haven’t told anyone you’re my father.”
He looked pained. “That’s actually why I’m here. Dayana told me about the NDA.”
“What do you mean she told you about it?” she asked.
“I’m embarrassed to say that I had no idea that Rebecca, my ex-wife, forced you to sign something like that.”
“You had no idea?” she repeated slowly.
“Did you wonder why I didn’t present it to you? Why it wasn’t my attorney in the room?”
“Of course not. I assumed you didn’t want to deal with it. With me,” she said, still clinging to what she believed to be true. That she was unwanted. Unloved. Unwelcome.
He grimaced, and she noticed the lines around his eyes were deeper now. “I can’t blame you for thinking that.
“After I turned your trust over to you, you essentially vanished from my life. You stopped returning calls, stopped accepting invitations.”
“Because I thought you made me sign the NDA swearing I would never tell anyone that you were my father!”
“I’m not here,” Dayana insisted, stepping into the room. She had a bottle of scotch in one hand and two glasses in the other. “And I’m not saying anything other than my mother is a cold, single-minded person who hurts people for sport.” She put them down on the desk that stood between father and daughter and left.
They both stared at the bottle.
“Rebecca told me you were finished with me because you got your money. That your trust was all you wanted from me.”
“I never wanted your money,” Maggie said, her voice shaking. She sat because she would start throwing things or making new holes in walls if she let herself think too hard.
“I understand that now,” Spencer said gently. “I started to believe it when you sent that check to me. It was a gift, Maggie. Not a loan.”