Ophelia came down for breakfast, she had been in the city now for three weeks and this was the first time she was getting to have breakfast with her father, unfortunately for her, she did not know that Green was at the table before she came down otherwise she might have tried her best to avoid him.
“How hard can it be for a father to see his daughter?” Carter said as Ophelia sat beside him where they had set her utensils down for use trying her best to avoid eye contact with Green.
“One would think you actually care if they heard you, be careful not to spread misconceptions” Ophelia replied taking the coffee to her mouth and throwing it back into the cup in annoyance.
“WHO DID THIS?” she shrieked. Green had made it clear she was not a fan of anything bitter, she wondered why black unprocessed and unsweetened coffee was sitting in front of her.
“I asked them to prepare that for you” Carter said using his hand to dismiss the staff who came to respond.
“Why would you do that?” she said still in a high-pitched tone but much quieter than her earlier outburst.
“You are grown now so you need to act like that”
“See what I just said?” she asked dropping the cup to the table. “You act like you care but you are just self-centered. I wonder why you ask I be served something I can’t drink when it won’t take that much to prepare what I can actually drink”
“Just because you can have it doesn’t mean you should” Carter said dropping his cup to the saucer beneath him.
“Why need it if I can’t have it?” Ophelia asked standing up and walking into the kitchen. She surfaced in less than a second. “I would very much appreciate it if you don’t interfere with my coffee preference, you can’t control my entire life I have to at least have some form of control over a certain aspect,” she said.
“Ophelia…”
“Dad, just agree with me on this,” she said and he reluctantly nodded. Changing her coffee preference was not as important as the merger and she was already doing a good job with that.
“You are doing an amazing job with Mr Vale” Carter commented, taking his fork to his mouth and biting off the eggs on them.
“Is that not what you wanted?” Ophelia asked leaning onto the table. “You even had to ask Green here to convince” she added and for the first time since she sat down, she stared at Green tilting her head.
He shifted in his seat uncomfortably, Ophelia was an unpredictable person and he could not tell what she was thinking. She just wanted to send him a warning, she had always enjoyed being his friend but she wanted him to know that they weren’t on the same level and a word from her could take away his entire world.
“What?” Carter asked trying to sound confused.
“Stop the pretence dad, I mean he did a good job convincing me to marry a strange man,” Ophelia said tearing her gaze away from his face. “I could swear the way he vouched for this man I thought it was his brother”
“Oh really?” Carter asked giving Green a knowing look, he knew he did nothing like she was claiming and felt uncomfortable to receive silent praise from Mr Frost. On an ordinary day, the praise would have meant the entire world to him but now that he was trying his best to decode the message from Ophelia he could not be less concerned about it.
“My friend is having a product launch for his new product next week friday” Carter began turning to his daughter.
“Are you asking me to bring Cade?” Ophelia asked understanding her dad’s words without him having to say it.
“Yes, that would be lovely”
“Oh Dad, you never change” Ophelia let out before taking a sip from her cup.
“What?”
“You want us to go there and outshine the man of the day, you know we are the most searched people now in the city, being there would take off the attention from your friend” she said air quoting the word friend. “Is he your friend?” she asked.
“You have grown a lot” Carter said and Ophelia chuckled.
“I lived and survived on my own, I should understand some of these things by now”
“He is releasing his product before the launching season to make more sales, if we have you both there I guess he can say goodbye to the dream he has”
“I am already working so hard for the company, I guess working a bit more won’t hurt,” Ophelia said. She was putting so much effort into keeping her name in the mouths of people she might as well put in more effort.
They ate in silence for a while and somewhere in between Green excused himself, maybe he was really uncomfortable at the table. The silence went on for a little more time before Ophelia broke it. “I want to see mom”
Carter raised his head to make sure someone had not abducted his daughter and replaced her with a stranger. He had always denied her access to her mom when she asked when she was younger and so she stopped asking totally, maybe he wished she would forget all about that woman.
“You can’t” Carter’s voice was firm and strong.
“I am not asking for permission, I am telling you” Ophelia also made her voice firm.
“I forbid you from going close to that woman”
“Oh please Dad, I am getting married I should at least be able to see her now”
“It is not because I do not want you going to see her”
“But because it would hurt your ego?”
“No, because when she left she told me clearly that she did not want anything to do with you” Carter explained. He had been shielding her this entire time from her mom. She had brutally left her and asked that she was not bugged down by a child she was forced to have.
“I will see her and be a judge of that myself”