I said nothing. I just closed in on him, cold and steady, backing him toward the restaurant door.
"You set that fire. Don't think I don't know."
It came out of me almost as a shout. No one alive could feel what I felt right then.
Because the person who'd destroyed me wasn't an enemy. It was my own father.
I couldn't accept it. I truly couldn't.
He froze, then lifted his head and looked at me with disbelief in his eyes, as though he'd never imagined I could know his secret.
My fists clenched hard, and the fury in my chest wouldn't let go.
"Dad, why would you do this to me?"
"I never understood your favoritism, not since I was little. I'm the one who's actually your daughter, but your heart always leaned toward her. You made me give in to her at every turn, forbade me from ever refusing her anything."
"She wanted my room, and you swapped it without so much as asking me. She ruined my homework, and before I could even scold her you'd jump in about how she had no parents, how pitiful she was, using my soft heart to help her dodge every consequence."
"I was naive enough to think you just felt sorry for where she came from. I never dreamed she was the daughter of your first love. The daughter of the woman who drove my mother to her grave."
"She's useless and helpless, so you burned down my restaurant to keep me from ever getting ahead. That's the only way she could feel at ease."
It came out of me almost as a shout, and the tears came down with every word.
His mouth opened. He wanted to explain something, but not one word would come.
I turned and walked toward the restaurant that had been burned to ash, my heart cut to pieces.
I thought of opening day, all of them standing at the door clapping and praising it, smiling as they wished my restaurant nothing but success.
I never imagined that inside they'd already been cursing it to die, praying it would never take off.
The human heart is the most sinister, treacherous thing in this world.
He came up behind me, looking at my back, and let out a sigh.
"Since you already know, can Dad just apologize to you?"
"If I hadn't burned your restaurant down, Cecily Finch would have been so jealous she'd have fallen into depression."
"She gets depressed, so you burn down my restaurant. Did you ever once think about me, losing everything? Did it cross your mind I might be crushed enough to kill myself?"
"You know I took out a loan to open that place!"
If he weren't my father, there was no way I'd let him off.
"Go. I don't want to see you."
But he didn't move to leave. There wasn't a trace of guilt on his face, only that torn look of a man with something more he wanted to say.
Looking at that face, I gave a cold laugh inside.
"Celine, there's something Dad wants to talk to you about."
I turned back and looked at him without a shred of feeling.
He hesitated, then chose to speak anyway.
"Cecily's leased a storefront to buy into one of those bubble-tea chains that's blowing up right now, but she's a little short on cash…"
"So…"
"So you came here to squeeze the last drop of blood out of me to help her?"
I cut him off and finished it for her.
No one knew how fiercely the anger was burning inside me.
"You destroyed my restaurant, you bankrupted me, and now I can't even pay my staff their wages. How favored does she have to be for you to stand here and ask me to help her?"
"I don't want to push this to the point of cutting family ties. Just go."
But right then, a voice reached our ears, disbelieving and guilt-stricken.
"Dad, is what my sister said true?"
"Did you really set fire to her restaurant when it was doing the best it ever had?"
The moment he saw Cecily, it was as if he were seeing his dead lover again, and he hurried over to stand at her side.
Guy glanced at me. Then he came over to comfort me.
"Celine, let it go, all right?"
"What's burned is burned. You can only accept it. He's your father, after all. Surely you're not going to cut him off over this."
"Why not?"
I turned my head and looked at him, and for reasons I couldn't name, I was so sick of that hypocritical face of his right now.
Cecily suddenly dropped to her knees in front of me with a thud.
"Sister, I'm sorry. I truly never thought Dad would do something like this for me!"
