I rose and walked to the door. “Sorry about the timing,” I said to Sage as she sailed out. “It can’t be helped.”

“Par for the course from a Hamilton,” she said under her breath before turning a sunny smile on my father. “Have a nice day, Sir. It was good seeing you again.”

“You too, Sage. Don’t be a stranger. You’re welcome here anytime.”

With a bounce of her blond curls and a flounce of her non-flouncy skirt, she was off.

I closed the door and turned back to my father. He raised an eyebrow and gestured with the Hamilton Realty folder in his hand. “Why do I know this has nothing to do with the Parsons deal?”

“Because unlike you, work isn’t the center of my world.”

“Forget center. Sometimes it’s barely even in your peripheral vision.” Huffing out a breath, he sat in the chair Sage had vacated and crossed his legs. “What is it now, Seth?”

I didn’t sit. I leaned against the desk beside him and crossed my arms. “I’m starting a family with Ally.”

Wow, those words didn’t burn my throat nearly as much as I feared. Not because they weren’t true, but because they were. Saying them to my father was acknowledging their truth. Their power.

And from the expression on my dad’s face, I might as well have thrown down a gauntlet.

“Is this about that contract business?”

I didn’t ask how he knew. In an office this small with paper-thin walls, he could’ve easily overheard us talking.

Which also meant Shelly had probably heard Ally and I having sex. That should probably embarrass me. And yet…

I wanted to tell the world she was mine, in every possible way. Even the graphic, inappropriate ones.

Or Oliver could have told him. I wouldn’t put it past my twin to have hopped on the phone to my dad the minute he walked out the front door of the building. But he’d said he wanted to fix things with me and Ally. Telling my dad wouldn’t fix anything.

Then again, there was my lawyer. My lawyer who golfed every Sunday with my father and had a shark emblem on his golf shirt rather than an alligator.

“Talked to Artie, hmm?”

My father glanced away, all the proof I needed. “Don’t be ridiculous. That would violate client confidentiality.”

Yep. I’d called that one right. At least it hadn’t been Oliver who’d blabbed. I really didn’t want to have to kick his ass after he was purportedly doing me a favor with Ally.

Though, God, I’d sunk low if I was accepting his help. Oliver’s love life was even worse than mine. He went through women like ties. Actually, he probably used ties with women, since his tastes veered toward the dominant side. Yet another thing I had no desire to ponder.

“That contract was a mistake.”

My father didn’t reply for a long moment. “But she signed on the dotted line, didn’t she? She agreed to take money for your child. Just like Marjorie did.” He lifted his head and narrowed his flinty eyes on mine. “Women are all the same, Seth. You may think me wrong for offering a payout to your mother. The truth is, it was a test, and she failed.”

“Ally didn’t fail, and what the fuck kind of test is that to do on someone you love?”

“You don’t love her,” my father scoffed.

“How the hell do you know? Because you didn’t love Mom? Because I didn’t love Marjorie the way I should?”

“I loved your mother. You will never understand.”

“Then tell me. Explain it to me. I’m begging you.” I spread my arms wide. “I’m standing right here, waiting. Listening.”

“She wasn’t faithful to me,” he said in a nearly inaudible voice.

Laughter ripped from my chest. “So? You weren’t faithful to her either. That’s why we have that damn camp that you refuse to go near any longer. Which mistress lived there, Dad?”

He didn’t look at me, just cracked his knuckles. “It doesn’t matter. Your mother was unfaithful first. She bore another man’s child.” He forged ahead before I could finish processing what he’d said.

Did he mean the daughter she’d had with her new husband? Or…worse?

“Do you even know if Laurie is yours? Did you ever ask for proof?” he demanded.

Though I knew the question was just his version of lashing out, it hit me square in the gut just the same. I started to respond, but he cut me off, his low voice as brutal as a whip.

“Or did she use her as a bargaining chip as your mother used you and your brother?”

I gripped the back of my neck. “Laurie looks like me. She’s mine. But you know what? Even if she wasn’t, it wouldn’t matter.”

Deep down, it was true. I couldn’t deny it would hurt like a bitch to find out she wasn’t my child biologically. But I’d get over it. Because she was mine in every way that counted, and I didn’t need a useless slip of paper to prove it.

Every time she called me Daddy, I knew the truth all over again. She was mine and I was hers. Against all odds, we’d made a family.

And now with Ally, hopefully our family would expand.

“Sure, it wouldn’t.” My father laughed mirthlessly. “How much of your savings did you use to buy her safety from her mother?”

“She wasn’t in danger from Marj. Not physically. But neglect is just as hurtful. I would’ve emptied my bank account to ensure my baby didn’t have to deal with a parent who didn’t want her.”

He lifted his head. “So would I.”

I exhaled and moved around my desk, dropping into my chair. “She didn’t sign it. Ally. She wouldn’t. Even when she said she had, it wasn’t legal. She didn’t want a contract between us. If I’d been thinking straight—hell, if I’d been less of a coward—I never would have either.”

When my father didn’t speak, I leaned forward and braced my forearms on the desk. “I don’t know why you don’t like her, but I hope to God it’s not for the reason I think. Because all these years, I’ve told myself there’s some good in you, some decency. If you’ve let your feelings about her bank account color your attitude toward her all these years…” I trailed off before I said something I probably wouldn’t regret.

Defending Ally came before everything else except protecting my daughter.

“You would see it that way,” he said tiredly, and I jerked up my head, shocked to hear the fatigue in his tone.

My father was a bull of a man. Strong, healthy, larger than life in every way. Years had passed since I’d really looked at him and seen him as anything but a force of nature.

Until now. Now the lines on his face seemed like a roadmap, where most of the best days of his life were behind him.

I swallowed hard. “Then explain it to me. Please.”

“She has the power to break you.”

“You just insinuated I don’t love her, and now you’re saying she could break me?”

“I wanted to see if you truly knew your own mind yet, or if you were just playing games with a future you weren’t ready for.” His shoulders relaxed. “Maybe it’s finally time.”

Words left me. Just completely vanished from my head.

“I was you once.” He leaned back in his chair. “I loved your mother more than was wise, and what did it get me?”

“Christ, did everyone see what I couldn’t when it came to me and Ally?” I exhaled. “What I didn’t have the balls to acknowledge?”

“You were smart enough to tread gently. Because you knew. You understood that once you committed to her, there was no going back.”

I wasn’t sure he was saying that as a positive thing, but I nodded. “You’re right. There isn’t. I love her and I want to spend the rest of my life with her.”

Coming clean didn’t scare me anymore. The truth just filled me with a sense of rightness. Like I’d been traveling down a road with my headlights off, and now I’d finally turned them on.

My future was right in front of me, and all I had to do was reach out and take it. And nurture it, and care for it, and protect it with everything I was.

My father nodded and steepled his hands over the folder in his lap. “Does she feel the same?”

“I don’t know. I hope so. I think so, maybe.” I blew out a breath. “But if she doesn’t, I’m a patient man. I’ll just keep at her until she has no choice.”

He surprised me by laughing. “Stubborn to a fault, you and your brother.”

Questions sprung to my mind about what he’d said about my mother having a child with another man, questions I wasn’t sure I was ready to hear the answers to. Not now. Today Ally and Laurie and our future family was where my head was at. As well as my heart.

“Yeah. Not too bright when it comes to pleasing a woman either,” I added. My father coughed and I smiled. “Not like that. We’re both good there. Well, I know I am. He’s probably just all talk.”

“He is about most things.”

My smile grew. “I meant more about saying the words, giving out the romance. I kinda suck at that.”

“Oprah,” he said gravely.

I laughed. “What?”

“She told women not to settle. Now they all want a free car and a fairy tale.”

Back to the fairy tale. Obviously the universe was trying to send me a message. I was listening.

“If any woman deserves one, it’s Ally. She deserves the big dream, all wrapped up in a big bow.”

Maybe I did too.

I reached for my phone. I had some preparations to make before the reunion on Friday.

It was fucking fairy tale time.