Free Web NovelChapter 31: Father (1)
"What is wrong with my look? I spent a lot of time putting this together," Monica said, sad that he didn’t appreciate her efforts.
Owen chuckled as he solved the mystery. "You’re doing that weird thing again where you dress up like the woman you think Ian is interested in. It never works because the body is not the same. Go back to your girly look."
"Shut up, Owen. I am having a private chat with Ian right now. I am not dressing like that woman-"
"You should have denied that part first to make it believable," Owen interjected. The fact she knew who he meant was the answer that she was lying. He would believe her if this was the first time. "It is starting to scare me that you might be doing this without realising what you are doing." freewebnσvel.cøm
Monica turned to Owen who needed to disappear at the moment. "I am not dressing like her. Who wants to be anything like a divorced woman?"
"Get out," Ian ordered Monica. There was already a lot on his mind to have to add speaking down on Scarlet being a divorced woman. "Right now."
"Ian," Monica panicked. What had she said wrong when Scarlet was going to be divorced? No one wanted to be in that position. "I apologise."
Ian put down the paper he was reading. If not for the people seated in his business right now, he would help her leave, but he always hesitated because of her father. Monica was lucky that her father was someone Ian cared for and he didn’t want to bother the man with his daughter.
"Get out. I only go easy on you to save your father from the stress of worrying about his daughter. I will inform him of your continuous disturbance in my business. Leave now and stop playing dress up," Ian said, ignoring the tears that started. "Very well, I shall give your father a call-"
"No!" Monica exclaimed, reaching for Ian. If her father knew that she was here, lying about having a message to send to Ian in his place, she would get in trouble and would be banned from here. "I apologise for speaking about her and for how I am dressed. I just thought it was something new you would like."
"You are not a woman I shall ever like and it has nothing to do with the way you look. Turn your attention to someone else and stop driving your father mad. There isn’t much patience left before I get rid of you for annoying me. Stop before you end up lost somewhere," Ian warned.
Monica wasn’t ready to give up on Ian when she had loved him for so long. Her father spoke of helping Ian when he was young so Monica knew Ian wouldn’t be able to push her from his side. Not when Ian owed her father for being kind to him when the town was calling him a bastard.
Monica wished Ian would stop for a moment to think about how Scarlet and her family might have joined in calling him a bastard.
’What is so special about her?’ Monica wondered. Did Ian want Scarlet’s money? Was that it?
Monica wouldn’t be able to offer him money like Scarlet would as she didn’t come from a wealthy family. Her father had just enough for her to not worry about not having a roof over her head and being able to shop once a week.
Ian stared at Monica, wondering what was going on in her strange head. He would pay her handsomely to leave him alone. Had she been anyone else, he would have Owen digging a hole somewhere.
After standing still for a minute or two, Monica turned around to leave.
"Your face is a terrible curse. It isn’t good to be too handsome," Owen said, touching his face. "I know the struggle all too well. Why are you looking at me like that, Ian?"
"Because you’re a liar and didn’t I tell you to inform the guards not to let her in? Do you want to lose your job? Go tell them again," Ian said, finding this to be Owen’s fault.
Owen was certain he told the guards at the door and was ready to defend himself but then remembered he got distracted by a woman passing by the front door and didn’t go to the guards. "Right- Oh," Owen said, shocked by the person entering. "Isn’t that your father?"
Ian looked at the open doors and found his father looking around. He expected a visit but not this soon. Ian thought Layla would do everything in her power to keep her husband and son from coming to him. How desperate was his father to be here right now?
"You two, you really look alike," Owen said, looking back and forth between Ian and Lord Kingsley. It was a bit odd for Ian to be referred to as a bastard when Ian looked more like the Lord than the other respected son. "I know how you were conceived wasn’t right, but honestly, no one should deny you as his son."
Lord Kingsley was quick to pick out the son he hadn’t seen in years. Ian had grown to look like him, but there were a few things he could pick out that Ian had inherited from his mother. It came as no surprise that Ian did not look happy to see him. They were more like strangers than father and son.
"When someone said a young man who looks like me was here, I thought they were drunk until I saw you leaving the ball. Why didn’t you inform me of your arrival or the time you ran away from home?" Lord Kingsley asked.
Ian had caused a bit of trouble when he ran away when he was only fifteen.
"How long did it take you to notice that I was gone?" Ian asked as it was something he wanted to know in the past.
Back then when there was a bit of love left for his father, Ian had wanted to know when his father noticed his absence and what his father did to search for him.
Hank could not answer as it had taken a few days or was it a week for someone to inform him Ian was not at home. Ian’s mother did not make an attempt to deliver the message to him. She was hardly concerned that her only child was missing.
"It is time for you to come home," Hank Kingsley said, not ready to speak about the past when there was a worker next to Ian.
Ian couldn’t help but laugh. It wasn’t home to him then and it wasn’t home to him now. "You want me to go back to the cottage?"
"Cottage? What," Hank stopped his question as he now remembered Ian didn’t live in the estate with him and the others. He had sent Ian to a cottage so he would be out of sight from Layla and he could live peacefully in the cottage with his mother. "You’ll be with us. Not the cottage."
"No thank you," Ian declined the offer. "Forget that you have another son like you always did and depend on the one you have at home."
’You are aware that he is sick. You may return to take his place," said Hank.
Hearing that he was merely to be a replacement for the sick son added to Ian’s anger. "If I return to your land, I am going to set it all on fire. Starting with the fucking cottage you forced me in."
