“As long as you don’t expect me to call you Mom then,” she grins, “congratulations.” She grabs me into a hug, and whispers, “I really am happy for you both, Ivy.”
“Thank God… You had me worried there,” I admit, and then have my hand snatched by Parker, my whole body restrained by the seatbelt. “Ouch.”
“That’s a beautiful ring.” Parker smiles, no apology in her tone, just excitement. “Congratulations.”
I beam and sit looking at my hand while munching on my bagel.
33
Jarrod
Pulling into my driveway in a rush after a hell of a day, I notice Ivy’s parent’s car parked outside of the house. I’d gotten a heads up call from the security team that Hunter set up.
My heart has been in my throat the whole way home wondering why Suzanna and Charles would both show up here. Ivy had told them that she’d been staying here with Gia, so as they’d never shown interest in her whereabouts before, this time had me worried.
Gia had told me in the past that they constantly bullied Ivy into doing what they wanted. She’d said that Parker and herself, had never blamed Ivy when she’d let them down because they knew it was her parents’ doing and not hers.
Quickly entering my home, I head into the living room, and find Ivy practically cornered with her father hissing words of anger at her. The look of fear on her face pisses me off. Without greeting, I stride over to Ivy and when she notices me, the sadness I see in her eyes makes me want to pound her father into the ground.
Slipping between them, I pull her into my arms and sigh when she slides her hands into my jacket and around my back, her head resting against my chest as she sighs into me. I kiss her on the top of her head and then meet the furious eyes of her father.
“Why, have I arrived home to find you backing my fiancée into a corner?”
His eyes widen and he splutters while her mother clutches the pearls around her neck and sits on the sofa behind her.
I smile, realizing they hadn’t known and I feel pleasure that I was the one to tell them. “You heard me correctly, in case you were wondering.”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” Charles splutters. “You are not marrying my daughter. People will talk. There has to be twenty years between you both.” He shakes his head. “I do not give you permission to marry him,” he glares at Ivy, “daughter.”
I move her slightly away and intertwine our fingers. Tugging her with me, I move us away from the corner that she’d been backed into.
I face the man who is no longer welcome inside my home. “This is our home, so I’m asking you to leave.”
“We’re not leaving unless Ivy is with us,” he states, blowing out his chest. “And, if you don’t release her, we will be calling the police.”
I glance at him in surprise and laugh, and then tell him, “The police can’t and won’t do anything because Ivy is here of her own free will.”
“Of course she isn’t.” Charles reaches for Ivy, but I’m quicker and shove her behind me.
“This is your last chance. Leave now or I will be the one calling the police, or I’ll call the Marshals who currently have this house under observation.” I raise a brow and watch as he looks to his wife in anger and panic.
Ivy keeps her arm wrapped tightly around one of mine, and says, “Nothing you do or say will make me walk out of this house with you. I’ve been in love with Jarrod for years, and very soon I’m going to be his wife.”
“But what about children, dear?” her mother asks, the first time I’ve heard her speak since I arrived.
I squeeze her hand, and reply for Ivy, “I’ll give Ivy whatever she wants,” I move my gaze to Ivy, “and that includes children.” I smile and then hardening my stare, meet that of her fathers. “I love your daughter, and I’m going to be doing everything in my power to make her happy.”
Pulling Ivy against my side, I move toward the front door, and opening it, I come face-to-face with one of the Marshals.
“Everything all right in here, Judge Carrington?” he asks, looking into the foyer.
While I’m quickly debating whether to ask him to remove Ivy’s parents, she makes the decision for me.
“Please could you escort my parents from our home and the property. For now, they are not welcome here.”
Her mother gasps and her father hardens is stare on his daughter.
“You’d choose him over your own family?” he asks, moving closer.