Stephanie scooted Tiara out of the room and told her breakfast was on the table.
“You need to be out of the house by 7:00! I’m serious today, Tiara. Your car will be waiting out front.” Tiara hurried down the stairs and made her way to the kitchen. She heard voices that belonged to her mother and her father already there, and she stopped to listen to their conversation.
“You really need to learn how to control your anger, Blake,” Cat said to her husband. “Remember what happened with Vincent?”
Tiara remembered far too well, and she heard her father grunt.
“That is old news, my dear,” Blake said to his wife. “Vincent has long since forgotten about that incident and has retained his position as my most trusted.”
“Well, regardless of that, you need to get a handle on it. It’s starting to get out of control.”
“My anger is how I keep the control,” Blake responded, and Tiara heard papers shake.
She smiled, knowing that her father was reading the newspaper and probably drinking a cup of coffee. She imagined her mother smiling at her father’s smart mouth like she always did and saying . . .
“You get on my nerves,” Cat said, just as Tiara thought it.
“I’m a man. That’s what we do,” Blake replied.
Tiara walked in on the two of them just as her father grabbed her mother in for a playful hug. The two of them were still laughing when they finally noticed their child’s presence. Blake sat wearing an all-black Versace suit that accented his muscular frame. His black hair that he rocked in a low cut had a few gray streaks, but that didn’t take away from his youthful face. Many girls Tiara’s age and women of all ages sent lustful eyes Blake’s way, but he let everyone know that he only had eyes for one woman and that was his wife. He checked the gold Rolex on his wrist and gave a faux gasp.
“Who are you and what have you done with my daughter?” Blake said, letting go of Cat and picking up his newspaper again.
Tiara giggled and took her seat at the kitchen table. Although they had a dining room, her mother made sure to keep everyone out of it. Only on Sundays during Sunday dinner were people allowed to enter her sacred room. The kitchen area was spacious and every homeowner’s dream. She had designed it a few years back, and everything had been custom built. It was equipped with state-of-the-art stainless steel appliances. The cabinet doors were a deep mahogany with chrome-accent handles. The color scheme included many bright colors because Cat believed that subconsciously, bright colors made you happy. And since most people started their days in the kitchen, then they were bound to have a good day. Cat loved decorating and designing. It had always been a passion of hers. Over the years, she had put a lot of time and effort into redecorating the house to her liking. She had a vision for the whole house that she carried out effortlessly.
“I’m the same me, Daddy,” Tiara said, staring down at the plate that was already filled in front of her. “You can thank Stephanie. She forced me to get up.”
“Good,” Blake said. “I’ve been thinking, it feels like I rarely see you anymore. How about I take you shopping this weekend before I head out to California?”
Tiara used her fork to scoot her bacon around the French toast on her plate. She knew her father would want a response, but she couldn’t give him the one he wanted.
“Daddy, what’s the point in going shopping when nobody will even see me in any of the beautiful things you buy me?” she said dully. “I still have tons of bags with clothes and jewelry that I haven’t even worn yet.”
“What do you mean nobody will see you in them? You have friends, don’t you?”
“Yeah, but they ain’t nobody. I never get to really go anywhere with the kids my age.”
Blake sighed deeply knowing that she was right. But the last thing he needed was for anyone seeing Blake Rogers’s daughter out and trying to get to him by harming her. He knew that growing up the only child of a drug kingpin couldn’t have been easy, and Blake sympathized with her for that. But it was essential for him to keep an iron fist around her, even if it meant that she didn’t have her own identity. School was the only getaway that she got, and for now, that was enough.
Tiara was convinced that no matter how much her parents loved her, they would never understand her. The way she thought was so much different than them, and it annoyed her that they acted as if she didn’t know what was going on around her. She had seen firsthand what kind of man her father was at an early age. She knew what he was capable of. Every time Blake got free time, he thought that taking Tiara shopping would make up for all of the important events in her life that he had missed. But Tiara felt obliged to let him know that he couldn’t buy her love. She also was annoyed by the fact that after all the time they’d spent together, she thought he’d known by now that material things meant nothing to her. That she wanted to see the world and do fun things like scuba dive and BASE jump. To him, he thought they had a good relationship, but to Tiara, they couldn’t have been on further ends of the totem pole.
Tiara looked at Cat who, instead of backing her up, placed her hand on Blake’s shoulder and threw daggers with her eyes at her.
“Don’t take that tone with your father, young lady! He works hard, and all he’s saying is that he’s wanting to spend some time with you! Most girls who have fathers like yours don’t even get to see them at all because they’re too busy!”
Blake held
