time she couldn’t stop her insides from twisting with guilt and a touch of shame.
She should’ve tried harder to return the money.
Too much had been said between her father and her that couldn’t be unsaid. Even after all these years, the pain and guilt were too vivid to be dismissed. And nothing in her father’s letter had given her cause to think his views weren’t as definitive as they’d been the last time she’d seen him.
He still laid the death of his wife, her mother, firmly at Rebel’s feet.
Suppressing her pain, she tried to ignore the pointed looks from the lift’s occupants. At any other time she would’ve turned the music down, but today was different. Today, she would be seeing her father again for the first time in five years. She needed a full suit of armour in place but the music was all she had.
When another suited businessman sent her a scathing look, she mustered a smile. His eyes widened a touch, his ire rapidly morphing to something else. Rebel looked away before her attempt to excuse her music’s loudness turned into anything else. Keeping her eyes on the digital counter, she exhaled as the lift reached the fortieth floor. According to what she’d been able to glean from their very brief, very stilted conversations over the last week, her accountant father worked for Angel International Group as their CFO. He hadn’t volunteered any more information when she’d asked. In fact, any further attempt to pave a reconnecting road with her father had been firmly blocked. Just as he’d firmly blocked her initial attempts to give back the money he’d given her.
The deeply wounding knowledge that her father was only doing his duty to the wife he’d loved and lost so cruelly should’ve driven Rebel’s actions, not her manager’s insistence that the money was the answer to all their prayers.
But it was her father’s insistence that the money was hers no matter what that had led her to finally confessing the money’s existence to Contessa Stanley. Her manager had had no qualms about Rebel using the funds. Especially since Rebel had recently lost yet another big sponsor due to the continued domino effect created by the sensational reports splashed all over the media. Even her retreat from the spotlight had been looked upon negatively, with wild speculation as to whether she was finally in rehab or nursing a broken heart.
With her chances of finding new sponsorship dwindling by the day, and the championship deadlines racing ever closer, Rebel had finally given in to Contessa’s arguments.
Which left her not just in a state of confusion about why her father was now avoiding her after reaching out, at last, with his letter, but also having serious qualms about using money she hadn’t wanted to touch in the first place.
‘Excuse me?’
Rebel started as the man closest to her touched her arm. Plucking out one earbud, she raised an eyebrow. ‘Yes?’
‘Did you not want this floor?’ he enquired, interest flaring in his eyes as he held the lift doors open and avidly conducted a study of her body.
Groaning inwardly, Rebel wished she hadn’t let impulse drive her here until after she’d gone back home to change from her yoga pants and vest top after her morning training session. Muttering her thanks, she slid through the throng.
Hitching her yoga mat and gym bag firmly onto her shoulder, she turned the music volume down as she stepped out of the lift. Plush grey carpet, broken only by a set of massive glass doors, stretched as far as the eye could see, with complementing grey walls interspersed with wild bursts of colour in the form of huge flower arrangements. On the walls along a wide hallway, high-definition images of some of the world’s most gifted athletes played on recessed screens.
The whole placed smelled and looked hallowed and expensive.
Rebel frowned, wondering whether she’d walked into the wrong place.
For as long as she’d been aware her father had worked as an accountant for a stationery company, not a slick outfit whose employees flitted past in expensive suits and wore futuristic-looking earpieces. Unable to accept that the father who’d vociferously voiced his hatred of her chosen sporting career would have anything to do with a place like this, Rebel moved towards the set of glass doors and pushed.
Nothing happened. Pushing firmer, she huffed when the door refused to budge.
‘Uh, you need one of these to enter,’ a voice said from behind her. ‘Or a visitor’s pass and an escort from downstairs.’
Turning, Rebel saw the man from the lift. His smile stretched wider as he waved a matte black card. The unwillingness to prolong the stomach-churning meeting with her father dragged another smile from her reluctant cheeks. ‘Damn, I guess I was a little too impatient to get up here. I’m here to see Nathan Daniels. You couldn’t help me out and let me in, could you? I’m Rebel, his daughter. We had an appointment and I’m running late...’
She stopped babbling and gritted her teeth as he took his time looking her up and down again. Fingering the sleeves of the sweater tied around her waist, Rebel waited for his gaze to meet hers again. ‘Of course. Anything for Nate’s daughter. Awesome name, by the way.’
Pinning the smile on her face, she waited for him to pass the card over the reader and murmured, ‘Thank you,’ as he held the door open for her.
‘My pleasure. I’m Stan. Come with me, I’ll show you to Nate’s office. I haven’t seen him today...’ he frowned ‘...or this week, come to think of it. But I’m sure he’s around somewhere.’
Rebel couldn’t stop her heart from sinking further at Stan’s news. Although now she was here, she realised she’d only assumed her father would be at work today. The hurt she’d tried for so long to keep at bay threatened to overtake the small amount of optimism she’d secretly harboured these past two weeks.
Pushing it back, she followed Stan along a series of hallways until they reached the first of two brushed-metal doors in a long, quieter corridor. ‘Here we are.’
Stan knocked and entered. The outer office was empty, as was the inner office once Rebel followed him in. Frown deepening, he turned to her. ‘Looks like he’s not here, and neither is his PA...’
Sensing what was coming, she pre-empted him. ‘I’m happy to wait. I’m sure he won’t be long. If he’s not back soon, I’ll give him a call.’
Stan looked uncertain for a moment, then he nodded. ‘Sure.’ He held out his hand. ‘I’d love to take you out for a drink some time, Rebel.’
Rebel barely stopped herself from grimacing. ‘Thanks, but I can’t. My social calendar is booked up for the foreseeable future.’ She had no intention of dating anyone any time soon, either casually or otherwise. At this time of year, she had her hands full dealing with her harrowing guilt and grief.
The press liked to speculate why Rebel Daniels loved to party hard in the weeks leading up to Valentine’s Day. She’d deliberately tried to keep that façade of wild child in place. The last thing she wanted was for anyone to dig beneath the surface, find out the truth about what had happened in Chamonix eight years ago. Besides protecting her beloved mother’s memory, the guilt she had to live with was monumental enough without having it exposed to prying eyes.
Now that her dreaded birthday was out of the way, her sole focus was the upcoming championship.
Smiling to take the sting out of the refusal, she breathed a sigh of relief when Stan gave a regretful shrug and left.
Rebel slowly turned and stared around the glass-walled office that belonged to her father. Exhaling, she allowed herself to scrutinise the expensive polished-leather chair and mahogany desk, upon which items had been laid out in the meticulous way her father employed. Insides shaking, she approached his desk, her eyes on the single personal item that stood to the right side of it.
The picture, set in a childish pink and green frame, was exactly as she remembered it when she’d given it to her father on his birthday twelve years ago. At thirteen years old, laughing as she rode a tandem