Gilded Cage

Chapter 63

Sight unseen, the front door swung open and shut with a light, unobtrusive click.

Our uninvited guest had entered the townhouse. Zac and I were inside the walk-in closet. The door to the closet was shut tight, and the light was turned off. With only the faint ins and outs of our breaths filling the air, we waited and listened in the adrenaline-soaked darkness. Heavy footsteps padded across hardwood floors in the living room. The thud-thud-thud came nail-bitingly close to the guest room where Zac and I were hiding before veering off in another direction.

My heart pounded wildly in my chest. Without ever taking his eyes off the door, Zac pulled me behind him, protectively, as though on instinct. I pressed my hands against his back. The hard muscles along his wide shoulders felt tightly coiled and ready to spring forth at a moment's notice.

Through the walls, we heard the muffled melody of someone's ringtone begin to chime. Both Zac and I tensed up. Thank God it wasn't coming from either of our phones. We quickly pulled them out and switched the volume to silent mode. Not long after, the ringtone stopped as a man's voice answered the call. His words were difficult to make out clearly, but—

The harsh, clipped tones of his voice sounded just like my fucking dad.

Through the shadows, Zac and I turned towards each other with wide, worried eyes. We didn't dare utter a word for fear of being found out, but there was a shared sense of horror between us that didn't need to be vocalized to be felt. I saw in Zac's eyes that he, too, recognized my dad's voice. It was a realization that could only be described as one painfully drawn-out mental "f-u-u-u-u-ck" that dragged across my brain all the way to Zac's mind.

I'd never been a religious or spiritual person, at least, not in the sense that Bea identified herself as a devout child of God. Right then, however, I offered a silent prayer to Him, to Allah, to Buddha, to any higher power in the universe who might listen—to send my dad on his way without discovering our presence.

As far as he was concerned, Zac and I were supposed to be at school. We were also supposed to be broken up. It wouldn't take a genius, let alone someone as sharp as my sperm donor, to figure out what Zac and I had been doing here in the townhouse all morning instead of going to class.

A minute later, my dad ended his conversation on the phone. His voice had thundered loudly and aggressively through the walls. I caught a snippet or two from his heated exchange. Something about "now isn't the time to give up, Bilson" and "we're so fucking close."

My anxiety subsided by a fraction of an iota as I processed this new information. As always, question after question without any obvious answers scurried through my head. It sounded like Bilson might be working on some top secret project with my dad.

Why was my dad pushing so hard to keep going?

And what the fuck was he doing here at the townhouse, anyway?

Banging noises from the other room interrupted my train of thought. My whole body jumped. Now that the identity of the intruder had been confirmed, Zac was no longer staring down the closet door as though our lives depended on it. He reached over in the dark to draw me to him. I clung to him as tightly as he clung to me as we continued to play this nerve-wracking waiting game with my dad. From the shuffling noises I kept hearing, it sounded like the man was on the move, but I couldn't tell which room he was in until I heard the startling wham of a drawer being slammed shut.

Ah, he was probably in the study.

There was a metal filing cabinet in there.

Afterwards, the townhouse went eerily quiet. Then, my phone lit up. It was another text from my dad. My heart rate shot through the roof as I peered down at the message.

Cate, I need to fly out to DC tonight. Something came up at work. This trip might take longer than usual. I have some documents from Wyman & Rimmel that I want to review with you before I go. I'll pick you up from Ashton Wellesley in twenty minutes to look over them in the school parking lot. You can go directly back to class after we're done, and I'll head to the airport.

Fuck, fuck, fuck!

There was no way that Zac and I could get our asses back on campus before my dad got there!

I showed my dad's latest text to Zac. His expression twisted with dismay as he read it. I could tell that he understood just how completely and utterly fucked we were as well.

At this point, Zac and I were sitting ducks. All we could do was wait for our timer to run out. If my dad didn't walk in on us now, then he was bound to know that something was amiss once he walked into the front office of Ashton Wellesley to sign me out. I was already marked sick for the day, my dad was supposed to be the one who called in my absence, Mrs. Kim would figure out that she'd been played in a heartbeat, and then our whole goddamn ruse would fall apart.

Under such dire circumstances, it seemed, all of the higher beings I had just petitioned for help decided to take pity on me. They didn't quite answer my half-assed prayers from earlier, but they blessed me with a small gift. My dad left the townhouse five minutes later. He never even stepped foot inside the guest room where Zac and I were hiding.

His car engine roared to life on the driveway. Zac and I held our breaths. Only after the hum of my dad's Benz faded in the distance did we emerge from the closet. Defeat hung between us. Our day had started out with the utmost sweetness, but now it tasted bitter beyond belief. Despair clawed at my insides as I stared helplessly into Zac's eyes.

With a sigh, Zac broke the silence. His voice sounded strained and anxious. "Shit's about to hit the fan, babygirl. What should we do now?"

I didn't know how to answer him right away. My brain was whirring along at a million miles a minute. Briefly, I considered texting my dad to tell him not to "come" to school today because I had an important exam that couldn't be missed. However, I also recognized what a momentous event it was for my dad to personally deliver those Wyman & Rimmel documents to me.

In the past six years, I couldn't recall the last time the man had shown up to school on my behalf. Nor could I remember him ever offering to spend one-on-one time with me to review any sort of matter at all. If I turned him away today over a subpar excuse, then it would surely raise a hell of a lot of suspicion on his end.

Try as I might, I simply couldn't scheme my way out of this disaster. Not within twenty minutes, anyway. Once my dad arrived on campus and uncovered the full scope of my deception, I was afraid of the extreme lengths he might take to remove Zac from my life. He was already prepared to give me a fucking inheritance in exchange for our break up. A part of me feared that, by refusing to take the carrot, I was essentially giving my dad the go ahead to haul out the big guns and rip us apart once and for all.

I needed to prepare for the oncoming blows. If Zac and I were going to come under fire no matter what, then I was determined to make the most of what time we had left to prepare for battle. We needed to collect as much ammo as possible to fling back at my dad whenever he came to confront us.

I grabbed Zac's hand and tugged him towards the study. It was time to empty out that motherfucker and see what shady secrets my dad was trying to hide in there. "Come on, baby! We're not going down without a fight. Let's go dig up as much dirt as possible before my dad puts us on the chopping block."

Zac gave me a waary grin. "You and me against the world, huh?"

I echoed his sentimentwithout missing a beat. "Forever and always."