"I don't like seeing you like this."

She looked up from her computer to see him standing at the foot of the bed, dressed in only a pair of black jeans. His bare chest did wonders to her insides, and she couldn't help but wonder how she had gotten so lucky to end up with a guy like him. "Like what?" She asked once she was able tare her eyes away from his bare chest and rippling muscles.

He moved forward to sit down on the bed next to her. Darcy tried to shuffle over to make room for him, but he merely pulled her closer to him so she was now sat in between his legs. "Sad." He mused aloud. "Seeing you sad makes me sad." He nuzzled his face against the side of her neck. "I only want to see you happy and smiling."

Her heart melted at that and she feared she would slip through his arms if he continued being so damn adorable.

"Well, you have my father to thank for that." She scoffed, but then sighed in longing. "I wonder what other secrets he's keeping."

Thelonious tightened his arms around her, pressing his lips against the skin behind her ear. "I don't think he mean to keep it a secret from you."

Her nose turned up at that but she didn't comment further. Thelonious had said that talking about it would make her feel better but right now, that was the last thing she wanted to do. Her father had lied to her for several years, and that was that.

She was allowed to be angry at him.

"I think he was just scared to tell you." He mused aloud, opting to be the voice of reason.

"What's there to be scared about?" She asked, sitting up and closing her laptop, placing it down on the bed next to them before she turned around and nuzzled her face in his bare chest. Burying her face in him, she inhaled. Darcy loved the way he smelled; musky and all man, just like him.

"He could have just told me he was seeing someone when it first started." Her voice was small. She shrugged her shoulders, almost as if it was as simple as that, but her heart remained heavy.

It wasn't, and they both knew it.

He pressed his lips against the crown of her head and laid the side of his face against it, his arms still wrapped around her. "Maybe he was worried about what would you think."

Her ears perked up at that. Sighing dramatically, Darcy pushed herself up so she was now lying against the headboard. He moved to lay down on the bed next to her, playing with the drawstrings on the jogging bottoms that she had borrowed from him.

Despite how hard she denied it, she knew that she would have to eventually go home. Having spent the last two weeks staying at the hotel with Thelonious travelling back and forth from university from there, she knew it wouldn't last forever. As much as they both enjoyed it, she couldn't do that to her father.

She still loved him, even if she was angry at him right now.

There was also the fact that she couldn't keep washing the same pair of clothes over and over again, nor could she keep borrowing clothes from Thelonious as while his shirts were oversized, his bottoms just did not fit her at all. And buying a whole new wardrobe of clothes was out of the question; she was a student, after all.

Her frown lightened slightly. "I can't ignore him forever." She suggested, her voice and her eyes downcast, almost as if speaking to herself.

He reached up and laid his head on her stomach, purring slightly when she ran her fingers through his hair. "No," he whispered against the exposed skin from where her top rode up. "He's your father and I think he meant well, but things just didn't play out that way."

"I should probably call him." She frowned, but mulled over the thought. "I'll call him tonight." She answered, much more determined than before.

Thelonious smiled against her stomach and blew a raspberry there. He boomed with laughter as she giggled and squirmed from under his head. "As much as I would love it if we could stay like this, I need to start making my rounds and you need to get ready for university."

Sometimes, she hated how right he was.

With lingering kisses and wandering hands, the couple both finished showering. Once they finished getting dressed for the day, him in some dark jeans and jumper, and her in one of his shirts which she tied at the waist and the one pair of jeans she had worn nearly every day this week; Thelonious gave her another kiss before instructing her to head down for breakfast while he checked up on his staff.

Darcy took her usual seat in the dining room, knowing fully well that Thelonious would bring her some food soon, if Mac didn't beat him to it, that was.

In the meantime, she scrolled through her social media, yawning a little.

Her eyes remained glued to the screen of her phone watching a cat video as she heard someone approach her table before coming to a stop. "I really hope you brought me some eggs."

"Sorry, no eggs." The voice replied.

Darcy looked up, surprised at the sound of a foreign voice. A frown settled on her face as she recognised the woman.

"I'm not sure I had the chance to introduce myself last time, but I'm Stacey." She smiled and held out her hand politely. Darcy didn't want to be rude so she had no choice but to accept and shake her hand. "I'm your dad's girlfriend."

"I know." She replied, nonchalantly, though she held herself back when her lip threatened to curl up in distaste. Even though she had promised herself that she needed to talk to her dad and sort things out with him, she couldn't help but feel a little animosity towards this woman. Essentially, her father had lied to her for so many years, and all because he was in love with this woman; Stacey.

Before her, her father had never lied to Darcy.

"Mind if I take a seat?" She asked, gesturing towards the seat across from Darcy.

She merely shrugged but her phone down, nonetheless. Something told her that Stacey wanted to chat.

"Did you know about me?" She asked, cutting straight to it.

Stacey nodded with a small smile, nervous. Elijah had warned her not to speak to Darcy as he knew his daughter was angry with him and didn't want her to get into his mess, but both sides were just so stubborn. And she couldn't bare the thought of a father daughter duo being driven apart, especially because she was right in the middle of it all. She felt strangely responsible even though it was Elijah's decision to keep his daughter in the dark all these years.

Stacey offered a warm smile. "Your father told me all about you on our first date. You were all he could talk about. He loves you so much."

Darcy's lip twitched just the slightest bit. "I know, I love him too."

"He's absolutely distraught over you being angry with him."

Darcy sighed but nodded. "How is he?"

"He's doing alright, given the situation. But he misses you, terribly."

"I miss him too." She admitted honestly, not really sure why she was being so open with a woman she had just met.

"Then why are you here?" Stacey asked, rather abruptly. "If you miss him then you should go see him."

Darcy scoffed and rolled her eyes "I could say the same about him. If he really missed me then he knows where I am, he could have just come here." It was true. If her father truly wanted to talk then he knew where to find her and not once had he come to see her. But this worked both ways and she hadn't returned home in two weeks.

"He thinks you don't want to talk to him."

She shook her head and sighed, fiddling with the end of the table cloth. "I didn't, before." She paused, mulling over the right choice of words. "But I've had some time to think about it and I know that we need to sort things out." It was almost as if just uttering those words released her of some of the burden and grief she had been carrying around for the past couple of weeks.

"Are you going to go see him?"

She nodded. "This weekend, I think. But I was planning on calling him tonight."

Stacey grinned, clearly overjoyed at the notion. She knew Elijah would be absolutely relieved to have his daughter call him. Talking was the first step on the road to recovery. "I'll leave you to breakfast then."

When she made a move to leave, Darcy called her back. When Stacey turned to look at her expectantly, she struggled to find the right words. But ultimately, if this woman was important to her dad then she was important to her, also. So that meant that they needed to get to know each other and this was a great time as any other to start.

"I'm not angry at the fact that he's seeing someone, you know." She began.

Stacey nodded and sat down, gesturing for Darcy to continue. Something told her that she needed to get a few things off her chest.

"In fact, I'm glad that he's got someone. After mum died, dad was so lonely so I'm glad he doesn't need to be lonely anymore." She paused. "I'm not angry that he's seeing someone; I want to see him happy. But I'm hurt that he felt the need to hide this from me, especially since we don't keep secrets from each other."

"I understand," she smiled. Stacey truly did understand.

All of this could have been avoided if Elijah had been honest and introduced Stacey to Darcy from the very beginning, but that in the past now and there was nowhere to go but forward. There was no point in dwelling on mistakes from the past because that's all they were; just mistakes. "When we first started dating, I wanted to meet you but your father was so nervous about it all and we just kept putting it off. I guess we didn't realise it would get this far."

"I definitely need to clear things up with him. I don't want this to come between us."

"It won't, trust me." Stacey reached out and gave Darcy's hand a reassuring squeeze. "He loves you."

Darcy couldn't help but beam at that. "He loves you too," she laughed as she watched her flush a little at that. "Why don't you join us for breakfast?"

The woman beamed back at the girl. "I would love to."

-

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Layla Knight

09.03.2020