Chapter 121: Nolan’s call

Gavriel’s POV

“You were eavesdropping?”

I frowned at the device I held in my hands, and glanced down at the boner in my sweatpants and the novel I had been reading to get settled for bed. Damn, it would seem our rendezvous had been brought to an end.

What if this Chad tried to blackmail her some shit?

I tried to replay our conversation in my head. Had she mentioned my name? Was there anything that could implicate her?

Fuck. I had to go over there to help her if there was one.

“Camille?” I called the phone.

“Hi, I’ll call you later,” she replied, not sounding particularly afraid, and ended the call.

Did that mean she was okay?

I sent a text to her telling her to tell me immediately if something was wrong or if another father found out about us.

Then I called my pilot.

“Boss?”

“Have a jet ready to fly,” I ordered.

“Is there a problem Boss?”

I sighed and rubbed my forehead. The world sure works weirdly these days. Gone were the days when all I had to do was give a simple order and my employees would follow without questions. Now everyone had opinions and stuff.

“Not yet,” I told him. “If there is, I’ll be calling you sometime later tonight to move out, if there isn’t, I’ll let you know.”

“Yes Boss,”

I ended the call and trudged downstairs to get myself a bottle of scotch.

I knew I wouldn’t be able to sleep anyway until Camille updated me on whatever the hell was going on over there. I was halfway through a glass of scotch when my phone rang.

But it wasn’t Camille.

It was Nolan.

I froze for a second, before accepting the call.

“Hi, Dad,”

“Nolan,”

He had grown. I had seen him sometime last year, briefly. I was in the UK and he had been around Oxford so we had found a bar and enjoyed a bottle of Cognac together.

We had barely spoken though. We rarely did. Nolan was so reserved and I wasn’t exactly a fucking charter box, so we only spoke when we had to.

I should be glad he was reserved. At least he was more like me and less like his crazy mother. But that often meant that we had poor communication and the day he hit eighteen, I pretty much stopped trying to figure out what went on in his head.

“How are you doing Dad?” He asked.

“I’m doing well,” I replied, taking another sip of scotch. “How are you doing too? How’s .. college?”

“I’m okay. College’s fine. I’ll be graduating soon.”

“Good. You’ve worked hard. Do you need me to come?” I asked, hoping he would say I had to. For once, make demands, Nolan.

“Nah,” He replied. “You don’t have to.”

“I see,” I grumbled.

There was a brief pause on the other end of the line before Nolan spoke again. “I heard about Mom.”

I sighed, feeling a mix of emotions at the mention of his mother. “You did?”

“Yeah,” He replied. “Saw the papers. They said you and her were back together.”

“You believe that?”

Nolan was quiet for a moment before he spoke softly, “I wanted to. I called to confirm. I can see it’s not.”

I was taken aback by his words. It was rare for Nolan to speak about his mother to me. In the past years, we had pretty much taken an unspoken vow of silence when it came to discussing Victoria.

“I can’t be with your mother, Nolan. It’s been twenty years.”

“Well you’re growing old Dad,” He sighed. “You’ll need someone.”

“I may have someone,” I chuckled and he ‘oohed’.

“Now that I didn’t know. Who is she? Some charity lady? A widow? A celebrity model from the 90s?”

Ah, that was who he expected me to be with.

I downed another bottle of scotch. Nolan would not be happy to hear I was currently doting over a woman around his age. We already had a huge gap between us, I didn’t want it to widen any further.

“Well, it’s a little complicated,” I began, unsure of how much to reveal to my son. Despite our lack of communication, I didn’t want to completely shut him out. “She’s someone special. Someone who makes me feel like I’m not just going through the motions, you know?”

Nolan was silent on the other end of the line. I wondered if he was trying to process this new information about his father. I had always been the detached, aloof figure in his life. To suddenly hear about me being involved with someone must have been a shock.

“Is she... serious, Dad?” Nolan finally asked, his voice hesitant.

“I believe so,” I replied honestly. “But there are complications. It’s not exactly easy for us to be together.”

There was another pause before Nolan spoke again. “I hope you figure it out, Dad. You deserve to be happy.”

His words hit me harder than I expected.

“Thanks, buddy,”

He sniggered at the nickname.”You haven’t called me that in years.”

“I see it still makes that funny sound.” I teased and for a while, everything felt perfect.

Until I opened my fucking mouth.

“So you’re graduating. What are your plans afterward?”

I wasn’t ready to retire. But I wanted to do so before I got a doctor’s notice though that probably would not be happening in a long while. But before that, I needed to train Nolan to take over the company first.

“Well, I was thinking of moving back to New York, for a while.” He replied.

“A while?”

“Yeah,” His voice sounded timid and I heard him draw in a deep breath. “I don’t have an interest in running a business or a company Dad.”

And there it was.

The dagger buried deep in my chest.

“You don’t want my company?”

“Yes,”

It was so fucking direct, It hit me square and I couldn’t process what exactly I was feeling.

There was a storm of emotions within me. His lack of interest in taking over the business felt like a betrayal, a rejection of everything I had worked so hard to build.

Twenty fucking years and counting. I had envisioned passing down the reins to him, teaching him to take over everything I had painstakingly crafted. And now, in one simple statement, it all seemed to unravel before my eyes.

“Why?”

I had more questions but I stuck with the simple why. He had called me for the first time in years, I didn’t want to give him a reason never to call back.

But dammit, it hurts.

There was a heavy silence on the other end of the line as if Nolan was trying to find the words. When he finally spoke, his voice was tinged with uncertainty. “I know, Dad. And I appreciate everything you’ve done for me... but it’s just not what I see for myself.”

“Fine,” I replied. “What do you want to do?”

“Well, I wanted to see if I could have a tattoo parlor,”

A bitter laugh rocked my insides but I swallowed it down before it could surface. My son was choosing a tattoo parlor over a billion-dollar industry. Victoria would lose all the hair on her head in agony if she ever found out.

A tattoo parlor? What the hell was he going through?

“Have you been seeing Dr Peterson?” I asked changing the subject before I said something offensive.

“No,” Nolan deadpanned, for the first time, sounding somewhat angry. “I haven’t. And I don’t want to see her anymore.”

“Nolan-”

“I’m grown up Dad, I don’t need a fucking therapist anymore. Good night,”

And with that, the line went dead. I sat there in stunned silence.

“I didn’t even get to say goodnight,” A bitter chuckle rolled off my lips as I stared down at the golden brown liquid in my glass. I might as well look for someone else to take over the company. Someone who could not be manipulated by Victoria. Maybe it was good that Nolan had no interest in the family business. I would carve out a hefty inheritance and he could live his life in peace.

Everything was so damned annoying it had my head pounding hard. Groaning, I tapped rapidly on my phone, texting Camille.

“What’s going on? I’m getting worried.”