Page 25 of Baby for the Bratva King

“Perhaps you should join our table tonight, Mr. Brouwer,” Jude says while flashing me a predatory look, his hungry eyes scanning my chest. “Come and meet some members of the committee. They’ll be thrilled to meet you.”

Fleur and I exchange a look as we’re guided over to a table of men.

“Gentlemen,” begins Jude, stepping aside. “This is Vesper Brouwer and his two daughters, Fleur and Saskia.”

“Ah, yes,” says one of them, rising to greet us both. “The Brouwer daughters.”

“Such beauty,” adds another. “How did an old man like you manage to raise two beautiful daughters?”

“Well,” laughs my father. “I was much younger back then.”

“Probably not much of a looker, either,” jokes another.

My father holds his composure, searching the table, desperate to be liked. These men are way out of his league, and all he wants is to be respected.

The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree, at least with me.

Fleur doesn’t give a shit about what my father thinks, but I’ll do anything to feel like his daughter. To be good enough.

“Come take a seat, Brouwer.” Jude pulls up three extra seats. “Does Saskia want to sit beside her daddy, or next to the best council speaker in all of New York?”

“Saskia spends enough time with me already, don’t you, sweetheart?” laughs my father. “I’m always in her ear about something, how she always makes her old man proud. She was itching to come here and catch a break.”

Hilarious.

My father avoids us like the plague. We’re not daughters, but burdens. We needed to go to school, we needed food, clothes, a roof over our heads.

My father would ignore school parent-teacher meetings and only make an effort when they raised safeguarding concerns; when he needed to save himself.

Of course, all the concerns were dropped when my father eventually decided to show up at the school. He knows how to act, how to win people over. The charity card goes a long way, especially in the education system.

But as we matured, we stopped being burdens. We started being his daughters. Tools that he could use to climb the ladder and get ahead.

Finally, I was able to redeem myself, to make my father realize that I was worth something.

But the more I attend these events, the more shit I feel afterward, and the harder I try to win over my father’s praise.

“You’re chasing a receding tide,” is what Fleur always tells me. “You’ll never catch up and be good enough. All you’re doing is wasting your time.”

I watch him interact with these men, laughing when they make jokes.

“My daughters are my everything,” he says to the men.

“I wish I settled down and had kids.”

“A man’s greatest accomplishment is his family,” champions my father, already winning over the table.

I turn to Fleur, the ache in my chest easing slightly. Our father might be a compulsive liar, but we know the truth. We validate each other’s feelings. We’re shoulders for each other to cry on.

But when do the tears stop?

My father stops caring behind closed doors. The fake transatlantic accent fades, and the truth comes out.

He shuts himself away in his office, ignoring us until he needs a favor.

Those are the only times I feel loved, when he’s patting my back and telling me “good job tonight.”

I savor those moments because they don’t happen often.