Chapter 94: My Dark Prince: Chapter 93

Trial Day Twenty-Four.

Today’s heavy dose of sedatives came courtesy of Jack Daniels. (Eli, asshole that he was, hid the Macallan two nights ago in hopes that I wouldn’t lower myself to the bottom shelf stuff.)

I didn’t normally seek solace in alcohol, but I needed it to stop me from doing something drastic like ditching my responsibilities and moving to LA with Briar.

The fog lifted from my brain long enough for me to register the thump-thump of shoes thudding across my carpet. A cap-toed Oxford entered my line of vision, mingling with the empty bottles of whiskey around me.

“Christ, Oliver.”

I blinked up at him from my spot on the floor, my cheek still smashed against the rug. “Dad?”

This had to be a hallucination. He hadn’t entered this building in over fifteen years.

“Unfortunately.” He waved a hand across his scrunched-up nose, a vintage guilloche Patek winking at me from his wrist. “Quite frankly, Oliver, I’m ashamed to admit I had a part in creating …” He nudged my ankle with his toe. “… this.”

“Why are you here?”

And why are you wearing a suit?

The closest he’d gotten to one in the past fifteen years was his birthday suit. And only because showers required those.

He lifted my arm over his shoulder and hauled me up, discarding me onto the leather chair behind my desk. “Sebastian sent me.”

That couldn’t be right. He still held a grudge over the plastic surgery incident. I’d spent our last three Days of Our Lives binges in silence, nursing a bottle of booze as he gaped over the devil possessing Marlena without me. On some unspoken agreement, we refused to acknowledge one another’s existence, save for Sebastian retching whenever I passed.

Now I knew I’d hallucinated my dad.

I slumped against the leather backrest, aware my office – usually pristine and orderly – resembled a battlefield. Loose paper scattered across the mahogany desk, some tumbling to the carpet. The partially drawn blinds casted shadows over the room in dizzying slats.

Was this normal? I tried to remember the states Romeo and Zach had been reduced to during their separations from their wives. Romeo lasted three days. Zach lasted thirty. Neither achieved it sober.

Dad began piling empty bottles into a trash bag. “Are you ignoring me?”

“Are you really even here?”

“Excuse me?”

“Where did Eli go?”

“To plant a tree for you to hug. His words, not mine. You let him speak to you like that?”

I wasn’t exactly in a state to protest. I couldn’t muster the energy to fight him. Neither could a wild boar, for that matter.

“You hired him,” I pointed out.

“To get your ass into shape. Look how that turned out.” Dad tied the trash bag with a double knot, conjured another, and move on to the bottles stacked near the windows. “I wouldn’t have come if Sebastian didn’t send me. He never asks for anything, so I knew it was serious.”

I undid the top button of my dress shirt and loosened my tie, wondering how well it would hold up as a noose. “Why couldn’t I hallucinate someone hotter?”

“It’s Briar, isn’t it? If you miss her, follow her. I’ll hold down the fort.”

The second her name sliced past his lips like a dagger, everything faded. The click-clack of keyboards outside. The low murmur of conversations between my staff. Dad’s disbelieving grunts each time he unearthed a new stash of bottles. Vanished.

I didn’t even hear any of his words past her name.

My fingertips itched to turn over the photo lying face-down on my desk. Eli had smacked it down weeks ago, and I never bothered flipping it back over, afraid I’d hop onto a plane at the sight of Briar’s toothy grin and crash her movie set.

Unfortunately, I needed to prove to her that I could handle a long-distance relationship. And even more unfortunate, it seemed I couldn’t.

“Go home, Oliver. Get some rest. Pull yourself together.” Dad rubbed my back in big circles, the first comforting touch he’d offered in almost sixteen years. “Lay off the booze.”

I wiped my mouth with the back of my hand, trying to focus. “That’s rich coming from you.”

“You’re right, and I’m sorry.” He kneeled before me, catching my eyes beneath my disheveled hair. “I’m sorry I haven’t been around since your brother’s accident. I’m sorry you had to take on so much responsibility. And I’m sorry your mom and I never stopped to ask if you were okay.”

“Where is this coming from?” I shook my head, unable to form basic coherent thoughts. This felt important. Monumental, even. But my brain – and body – failed me.

The room spun, colors and shapes blending into a dizzying kaleidoscope. I knew I’d forget this conversation in an hour. And worse – that I’d hallucinated the whole thing. But it must’ve come to me for a reason. Maybe somewhere, deep down, I needed to hear this.

“Your brother smacked some sense into me last night.”

“Sebastian did?”

“He FaceTimed me. Forced me to stare him right in the eyes as he told me that I failed both of you. That it was my duty as your father to help you two navigate our new world, and I failed.” Hallucinated Dad sighed, raking a hand through his graying hair. “Let me pass your brother’s advice onto you, son. Sometimes things that never happened haunt you more than the things that did. Don’t live with regret, Oliver.”

A nauseating ache rose from somewhere I thought had healed.

I groaned into my desk. “This hallucination sounds an awful lot like an intervention.”

Dad gathered my hands together, laughing into my fists. “Ollie?

“Yeah, Dad?”

“I know we’re awful at showing it, but your mom and I love you.”

The room descended into heavy silence.

I remembered the last time I’d heard those words. Twenty-five days ago. From Briar.

The only woman capable of doing what no corporate rival ever could.

Break me.