Hate Me Like You Love Me (Serena and Caleb) novel Chapter 111

Caleb’s POV

The worst part about fathers is that they never stop calling, even after you have stopped answering.

My phone buzzes against the kitchen counter at 7:14 on a Tuesday morning, and I know before I look. The number is not saved in my contacts, but my body recognizes it the way a dog recognizes the sound of a belt being pulled from its loops.

Shoulders tighten. Jaw locks. Every muscle braces for impact before my brain has time to process.

Simon.

I let it ring four times before I pick up. Not because I am deciding whether to answer, but because I need him to wait.

"Caleb."

His voice is quieter than I expected. None of the slick confidence from the courtroom, none of the wounded martyr routine he performed on the stand. Just my name, spoken by the man who gave it to me.

"What do you want, Simon?"

"I want to see you. One more time, before the hearing next week." A pause, careful and deliberate. "Father to son."

The words land in my chest like a fist wrapped in velvet. Father to son. As if those titles ever meant what they were supposed to mean between us. As if he did not spend my childhood turning those words into weapons.

"We said everything that needed saying in that courtroom."

"No. We said everything the lawyers needed us to say." His breath crackles through the speaker. "I am asking for thirty minutes. A diner, somewhere public. You pick the place. I will come alone."

Every instinct I have sharpened over twenty-one years screams at me to hang up. Simon does not ask for meetings. He orchestrates ambushes. He does not request. He maneuvers.

But there is a sound in his voice I have never heard before. Not the rehearsed remorse from the witness stand, not the calculated calm he used to deploy before the violence started. This is the sound of a man with nothing left to leverage.

"Dutch's Diner," I say. "Noon. You get thirty minutes and not a second more."

"Thank you, Caleb."

I hang up before the gratitude can settle anywhere it does not belong.

Serena finds me ten minutes later, leaning against the counter with my coffee going cold between my hands. She reads my face the way she always does, with that quiet precision that strips away every mask I have ever built.

"What happened?"

"Simon called. He wants to meet."

Her body goes still. "When?"

"Today. Noon. I am going."

"Caleb." She steps closer, her hand finding my forearm. Her fingers are warm against my skin. "You do not owe him this."

"I know I do not owe him." I set down the mug and cover her hand with mine. "But if I do not sit across from him and look him in the eye without a judge between us, he stays inside my head forever. I need to face him on my own terms, not as his son on a witness stand."

She searches my face, and I watch the war play out behind her eyes. The protectiveness fighting the understanding.

"I could come with you. Wait in the car, at least."

"No. I need to do this alone."

"That is not strength talking, Caleb. That is stubbornness."

"Maybe." I press my lips to her forehead, holding the contact longer than necessary because the warmth of her skin steadies the tremor in my hands. "But it is my stubbornness, and I have earned it."

She pulls back just enough to look at me. Her eyes hold the same fierce certainty they held in the courthouse hallway, the same unwavering belief that I am more than the sum of Simon's damage.

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