Father Ford was stunned in his spot. He had never once heard his daughter raise her voice against him. This was his first time.
"Helena…" He softly uttered her name and raised his hand to touch her.
But before he could touch her, Helena took a step backward and placed her hand as a barrier between the two. "Father…"
She wanted to speak but her eyes reddened and her lips trembled.
She took a deep breath to calm her emotions before she was finally able to speak again, "I need some time alone. Please leave my room for now."
Father Ford looked at her cold expression and felt something struck in his throat. He did not like the way his daughter was behaving with him.
But what could he do?
He deserved what she was doing to him. It was nothing but a result of his own actions and nothing else. He couldn't even scold her.
He lowered his hand and sighed in defeat.
After a couple of seconds, he finally raised his head to look back at his daughter, "Everyone is waiting for you at the banquet. You promised…"
Before he could finish his sentence, Helena looked at him coldly and raised her hand to stop him once again. In the depth of her cold eyes, Father Ford could sense the sadness and hurt she was feeling.
"Since you brought me my mother's ashes, I will uphold my side of the deal. Please don't worry that I will back down from my end, Mr Ford."
Mr Ford.
Mr Ford.
Mr Ford.
Did she just address him as Mr Ford instead of Father?
Father Ford couldn't believe his eyes. He looked at his daughter with his wide eyes as he asked, "What did you call me?"
"Mr Ford. Why? What's wrong?" Helena sounded like there was nothing wrong with her words.
"Helena. Why are you doing this? I made a very small mistake and that was only once. I even apologized to you. Why do you have to do this? Do you want to break contact with your own father?" father Ford asked her seriously with a mixture of sadness and anger.
"A very small mistake? You blackmailed me. No father would do such a thing to his daughter. On her wedding day nonetheless. If you used some money or company shares a leverage for that blackmail, I would still try to understand you. But you actually used my mother's ashes. She had been dead for not more than a week. When you used her ashes like that, it only showed how much you loved and respected her. My hurt was more about how you treated my mother than how you treated me.
"And what else did you ask? Do I want to break contact with you? Actually I did not think about that. I wanted to stay away from you for a while to calm down so that i wouldn't say something that would hurt the relationship between us father and daughter any more than it already did.
"But when you were more worried about how the guests would look at the Fords compared to your own daughter's feelings, how could it not hurt?
"Mr Ford, I am your daughter and a human being with all functional emotions. I am not a worker in your company who wouldn't be hurt by your orders. I expect my father treat me as his daughter instead of his employee. The moment you treated me as your employee, I will treat you as Mr Ford and not my Father. I only think that what I did was fair.
"If you still think that what I did was wrong, then you have to take a good look at your own actions first before coming to judge me. Now, please leave my room. I will come down in a few minutes."
Father Ford was stunned by his daughter's outburst.
He did not know how to react for a while.
He had never thought of treating his daughter as his employee. Also, he had loved and respected his late wife all his life. There is no way he did not love her after her demise.
"Helena, that wasn't what I meant. Princess, will you please listen to me once? I really loved your mother and I still do. At that moment, I wanted the wedding to go on. So, I just said what came to my mind. I did not think of disrespecting your mother in any way of form whatsoever. Please trust me on this, okay?" Father Ford knows how much his daughter loved her mother. If she continued to think that he did not love his wife, he was very sure that his daughter would break all contact with him in the future.
There is no way he would let that happen. He loved his daughter so much to have no contact with her.
Helena raised her moist eyes to look deep into her father's eyes. She tried to read all the hidden emotions within them.
She could feel the sincerity in his voice and also his eyes.
She took a tissue from the dressing table and gently tapped her eyes. Her face was all made up and she did not dare to smudge it before the banquet. She shouldn't cry at least for that purpose.
She sniffled softly and nodded, "Fine. I will trust you."
Father Ford should have felt happy when he heard her words. But he couldn't. When he looked at her face, which was the spitting image of his late wife, he couldn't help but miss his wife.
Now his 'wife' was in his daughter's hands. He could see how she subconsciously hid her urn from him so that his eyes wouldn't fall on it.
Helena was treating him, her biological father, as a thief who would steal his wife's ashes from her.
He sighed and held his sadness within himself. This wasn't the time to deal with this matter. He calmly left her room, giving her space as per her request.