Chapter 52

Connor

Fuck my father.

That was my second thought once my eyes flicked open, but my first? I’d rolled over and stared at Kendall’s back and wondered how the fuck I got this lucky.

She’d taken me in hand, literally, but it wasn’t just her giving me a hand job that mattered. Kendall had used such a simple act to just… empty me. Of thoughts, of worries, of anything else but her, and that was why I surged forward. My arms wrapped around her, catching the moment she let out a little moan, that perfect peach of an arse grinding back into me. My body was pretty damn sure we could empty every shitty thought out of my head if I just stayed here, returning Kendall’s favour many times, but instead, I pressed a single kiss to her shoulder.

Afterwards.

I’d worship every inch of her body once I dealt with the most pressing problem: my father. That had me getting out of bed and taking the only set of car keys I could find. Looked like Van and Gage had already headed out. I checked my messages, seeing that Gage had gone out for a run and Van had gone to his parent’s place to help clean up. Perfect. Kendall could have a sleep in, and by the time she woke up, I’d have this sorted.

My father had handed me the keys to his demise, I realised some time in the night. He wanted me to walk away from this relationship because of potential embarrassment? Well, that was something I could use to my advantage. Dad had a blind spot a block wide, assuming because I was his kid, I’d bought into the same bullshit he had. That I wanted to own a business rather than work for someone else because of the stigma of being a wage slave. That I wanted a nice house in a good suburb due to the optics of it all. We bought, renovated, and sold houses in a molten-hot property market. The people who bought from us had no idea who we were, what we did, or how we lived our lives. They just wanted a nice house they could move right into without needing to renovate. So in trying to attack my flank, he’d exposed his own. I climbed into the van and took off down the road, heading straight to my parents’ place.

“Son.”

That smug-bastard look on Dad’s face, I caught it the moment I walked out the back door of my parent’s house.

“Hello, darling.” Mum was sitting there in a fancy-looking dressing gown, sipping a cup of tea on the rear veranda. It was always a beautiful spot, the sun streaming down and warming the slate tiles, the perfume from the many perfectly maintained rose bushes wafting over. But I didn’t give a shit about any of it as I jerked a chair out and sat down.

“I assume you want to talk about last night?” he asked.

“Yeah, I do.”

“Tea?” Mum asked, grasping the beautifully made tea pot.

“I’m fine, Mum, or rather…” My eyes locked with Dad’s. “I’m not. That’s the point, isn’t it, Dad? I’m not allowed to be happy—”

“If you came over here to spout a bunch of overly emotional bullshit, then turn your arse around and head back to that little house of yours,” Dad snapped.

Only my father would describe a four bedroom house as small. His McMansion towered over the rest of the houses on the street, but why the hell did the two of them need eight bedrooms and five bathrooms? No one came to visit. The place was as empty as his heart.

“Or I could stay right here and discuss the potential embarrassment of having a son in an openly polyamorous relationship,” I said. Dad’s mouth clicked shut, that was my first clue. For an overbearing prick, he was so damn stupid sometimes. Always blustering his way through everything, he never seemed to realise other people had fangs too. “I mean, that’s what this is all about, isn’t it? Preserving whatever ‘reputation’ the two of you think you have.”

When I was a kid, I believed my father’s bullshit, that we were somehow more special than the other families on my street. But playing football against kids from other schools, particularly the private schools, I learned. Mum had wanted me to go to a good private school, but Dad had overruled her, wanting to make sure I grew up hungry, but most of all… I’m fairly sure his narcissistic brain knew on some level I would never have fitted in.

Australia prided itself on being an egalitarian society, but it wasn’t really. There were some families that got large land grants in the early days of colonisation, others then came here with a lot more money and resources than others. They’d built grand houses in the most desirable parts of the city and passed them down through the generations, creating a kind of wealth other people could only dream of. They didn’t announce that privilege to all and sundry, but it was always there. We saw it in the attitudes of the boys we played against from some private schools. From princely composure to a more blatant arrogance, they were brought up to believe they were better than us.

And they had the money and property to preserve that illusion.

“It will cost me nothing to make clear to any and every one the nature of my relationship with Kendall,” I told him.

“I think you’ll find—” Dad blustered.

“No, I won’t. I won’t.” I could say this with complete authority, because I knew. “We’ve shared girls before. Blokes I work with, they know, and it’s pretty well established that construction workers are the most gossipy little bitches known to man. Word will have well and truly gotten around. Some of our suppliers might not be keen for us to meet their daughters, but my money is as good as the next bloke’s, so timber and tiles get delivered, just like they do for anyone else.”

I leaned forward.

“You want me to be a symbol of your success. It’s all you’ve ever wanted.”

“Now, Connor—” Mum started to say.

“Don’t try to deny it, Mum, because I worked that out a long time ago. It’s why I was never home, always at the Kennedy’s. They were good people, a family… and they took me in, cared about me, not what I could do or how I could better represent them. They didn’t give a shit about any of that, instead just…”

I blinked, seeing Kendall with a couple of small children by her sides, her hands reaching out for theirs, and I fucking wanted that so damn much. Having kids as a do-over of your parents’ mistakes was not smart, but it didn’t stop me from wanting it. Everything I’d done thus far was me trying to navigate the world, build something meaningful, something real, in comparison to the house of cards my father was determined to live in.

“They just loved each other and their kids, which is what I hope will happen for us one day.”

“You want to have children with this woman?” The muscle in Dad’s jaw jumped as his eyes bored into mine. “You’re going to throw everything away for—”

“Love? Fuck yes, I will, Dad. Fuck yes I will, but what you need to ask is what are you going to throw away? I’ll get you your money—”

“Soon.” He smirked. “I’ve already spoken to the lawyers. You’ll have about a month to repay the lot.”

“Or what?” I waited for him to see it, that I was not cowed or intimidated by him for one second. “You’ll take legal action? Drag this through the courts?” Mum started to shift restlessly beside him, always the one to sense the potential for embarrassment first. “Maybe even have the details published in the newspaper for everyone to see?” I nodded slowly, seeing my father put two and two together. “Means nothing to me and mine. If I pay my bills, my suppliers are happy. Real estate agents fall all over themselves for the privilege of selling my houses. They know they’ll make a nice chunk of change in commission and I… I’ll organise a payment plan with the judge.”

“With interest.” Dad snapped.

“Which I won’t like paying much, but I’ll do it. I’ll fucking do it, and…”

A persistent buzz from my phone told me I had a text, then another and another. Them coming in rapid succession had me looking down at my phone.

Then smiling.

I never, ever wanted to see photos of my mother getting dick from two guys again, but when I saw they were coming from Van, I knew what he had done. Found me dirt on my parents and then handed me the weapons I needed for just this moment.

“There’s also the matter of these.”

I held up my phone, and Dad’s eyes narrowed, but while he reached for his reading glasses, Mum gasped.

“Where did you…? How…?” She was up and out of her chair, pacing back and forth.

“What…?”

Dad’s voice faded away, and I felt a vicious kind of satisfaction then, that I’d managed to shut up Mark Woods. His gaze was perfectly flat, making clear he understood that the tables had been turned. I didn’t want to stoop to his level and blackmail him, but fuck… There was no reasoning with my father, ever. Might equalled right in his eyes and if he was the mightier one, he was calling the shots.

“And what do you think you’re going to do with those images?” Dad said coolly. “Sharing sexually explicit images without permission is a form of sexual assault. Young Kenny went to court for just that.”

“And I’m prepared to do the same to protect what’s mine,” I growled. I rose to my feet, slapping my hands down on the table. “Whatever it fucking takes. I’ll pay your loan off more aggressively, pay interest if that’s what you want, but we will formalise whatever agreement we come to in a legal document, and you will not pull this kind of bullshit again.”

“Do it…” Mum’s voice was thin, her hands fluttering. “Do it, Mark! You borrowed enough money from my father to set up your businesses in the past, and Dad had to bail you out more than once.”

“Granddad…” I blinked and stared at my father like he was a complete stranger.

“I was going to talk to him today,” Mum said, shooting me a weak smile, but it faded as soon as she saw my phone. “Ask him to sort this problem out.”

“Jane—” Dad growled.

“Don’t Jane me.” She shook her head sharply. “You tried to play hardball with our son, but Connor learned the same tactics at your knee. You could’ve tried to talk to him, Mark.”

“No, he couldn’t.” I stared at my mother, seeing the woman I always dismissed as weak gain a spine, but how long would it last? “Nobody has a say over what goes on in my relationship but the people that I share my life with.” I shook my head. “And that’s not you two. Have your lawyers talk to mine,” I told Dad. “Because we won’t be discussing this further.”

My mind wouldn’t let me take the victory as I strode out of the house, but I felt lighter. We still needed to pay that debt off, sooner rather than later, though… I smiled then, my face feeling stiff, and as I got into the van and passed all the familiar houses, it got wider. My grin grew and grew, right up until I parked outside our house, only to find all of the other vans were parked out front.

They were here.

Everyone I loved or cared about was under this roof and right now that was all that mattered. I opened the front door, calling out Kendall’s name.

“Kendall, you up? You will not believe the morning I had. I have seen photographic evidence of our parents, yours and mine and Gage’s and Connor’s, all having a gang…”

I found her alright, sitting in the kitchen, along with her family.