Part 2Seven Years Late To His Wifes Funeral

Leaving the cemetery, I wandered aimlessly.

A passerby alerted me that my phone was ringing. It was an unknown number.

Pierce Harrison had somehow gotten my contact information from the school.

“Aubrey, your dad just wants to see you and your mother…”

I hung up immediately and blocked the number.

I didn’t have a father.

I was better off without him.

But he clearly wasn’t giving up.

Soon, a text message arrived from a different number.

[Aubrey, it’s your father. You don’t want me to bother Grandma Monroe, do you?]

I stared at the screen, my fingers clutching the phone until my knuckles turned white.

Seven years later, his shamelessness had reached a new low.

I took a cab to the address he sent.

He was wearing a bespoke suit, his posture poised, his demeanor cultured. He looked almost exactly as I remembered him.

But my mother was gone.

Seeing me enter, he set down the files he was holding and rose eagerly. “Aubrey, you’re here. Come, sit.”

I didn't move.

He didn't seem bothered, a smile plastered on his face. “I saw your transcript at the school. Very impressive. You are certainly my daughter.”

Hearing his compliment, I only felt contempt.

My accomplishments had absolutely nothing to do with him.

Quite the opposite: it was precisely his suppression and his abandonment that forced me to run forward, desperately.

The countless sleepless nights, the humiliation I swallowed—all of it was his doing.

I just wanted to be a normal girl, safe in my mother’s embrace. This so-called excellence was nothing more than a survival instinct.

Before I could speak, someone approached to greet him.

“Pierce, fancy meeting you here. And who is this?”

Pierce Harrison responded with a slight, proud smile. “This is my daughter, Aubrey.”

While they exchanged pleasantries, I slipped away to the restroom.

When I came out, I overheard the low voices of the group.

“Pierce Harrison has a grown daughter?”

“That’s the one from his marriage to Julia Monroe.”

“Those two were the original golden couple in our circles, building that empire together.”

“Didn’t that marriage end in a cheating scandal? A total mess, I heard.”

“Exactly. Goes to show how easily people change. Speaking of which, I haven’t seen Julia Monroe around in ages…”

I walked back, moving around them.

Pierce glanced at me. “What took you so long?”

“You couldn't even manage a greeting for your elders.”

I scoffed. “Mr. Harrison, why did you really ask me here?”

He frowned, his tone hardening. “Aubrey Monroe Harrison, what is that attitude?”

“I’m a Monroe!”

I cut him off.

“And I don’t have a father. Stop acting like one and lecturing me.”

He slammed his hand on the table.

“Your mother has truly ruined you. Is this how you speak to your elders?”

“Call your mother. Whatever issues we have are between us. It’s not your place to interfere. Call her.”

My eyes immediately turned red. I glared at him, venom in my voice.

“See her?”

“Pierce Harrison, do you think you’re worthy?”

Slap!

The sharp sting of the backhanded strike snapped my head sideways, my ears ringing violently.

“I am your father!”

I laughed out loud.

See? This was his true face.

A cold, utterly selfish businessman.

His nature had never changed.

If he set his mind to something, he didn't care about anyone else's feelings.

Admittedly, that very coldness and calculation were what allowed him to reach his current heights.

When my mother met him, he had nothing.

It was Grandma Monroe who, recognizing his talent, subsidized him so he could finish school.

From campus to the business world, in just a few years, he showed a startling commercial genius. He had drive, a plan, and ambition, completely shedding the label of a poor student.

And my mother was once his most trusted partner.

They pitched clients together; she blocked drinks and navigated social circles for him.

They pulled all-nighters on proposals together; she stayed up until dawn with him.

The company’s initial structure and clientele were all things my mother helped him build, piece by piece.

He absorbed her dedication as capital for his own success.

Successful career, beautiful wife.

At their wedding, he promised my grandmother:

“Teacher, I will take care of Julia for the rest of my life.”

Too bad a man’s promises are worthless.

Perhaps those moving words never truly entered his calculating heart.

And my mother’s life,

Because of him, stopped at thirty-three.

I stared straight at him, my voice eerily calm.

“When you were cheating with my classmate’s mother, why didn’t you remember you were my dad?”