MIA
“You’re joking.” Dad laughs—a loud, empty sound. Like a bark from a big dog. “Right?”
“I’m not. I want Mia.” Zeke turns to look at me before reaching out to touch my arm. “I love her. She’s the world to me. Going after her tonight had nothing to do with you or my job. I did it because I need her. It’s that simple.”
Does he know what he’s saying? Does he know he said he loves me? To my father, of all people? He’s never even said it to me before now.
And I love him, too. I know I do. I might’ve spent the rest of my life telling myself I don’t, that I never did, but that wouldn’t have changed the truth in my heart. I’ve loved him for such a long time. I can’t help what he’s done. I only know how he is with me, how we are together. How he’s the only man I’ll ever want.
It’s a shame my father could literally kill him for it.
He looks like he wants to, for sure. “I’m going to pretend I’m not hearing this.” He’s fighting as hard as he can not to shout—though the low, even, flat delivery he went with is even scarier. It makes my skin crawl.
“Sir, you know—”
“Don’t call me that when you just got done saying you want my daughter.” He shoots up off the desk and turns to me. I’m tired of red-faced men. I’ve seen enough of them tonight. “What’s happening here? He’s coming up with this out of nowhere, right? He’s fucking with me.”
So much has changed. I’m not the person I was this morning. She was ignorant and didn’t try hard not to be. Ready to sneak around for weeks to be with Zeke behind her father’s back. Prepared to overlook it whenever he ended a conversation, all because she walked in a room. Afraid to speak up about things that actually mattered.
“I need to talk to you. Alone.” Zeke’s going to have to trust me. I hope by now he knows I wouldn’t throw him under the bus. I don’t want to think about him wondering whether he’ll come out of this with his head attached to the rest of his body.
Jesus, that’s not even a joke now. No wonder he fought so hard to stay away from me at first.
Dad points at Zeke, lowering his brow. “Don’t even think about leaving the compound. We have a lot of things to discuss, you and me.” All I can do is glance at Zeke as he stands, but he’s not looking at me. I wish he would.
Once we’re alone, it’s time to be brave. If Zeke can do it, so can I. “I know you don’t want this to be true, but it is. I love Zeke, too. And if he wants me, he’s got me. I don’t know any other way to explain it.”
“You—you—” he sputters, eyes wide.
“Calm down.”
“Who the hell do you think you are, telling me to calm down?” He stomps around his desk to where he left his phone. “That motherfucker is dead for touching you.”
For some reason, that’s the last straw. I’m so done with all of this. Being under his thumb, controlled, demeaned. Used like a pawn. “Who do I think I am?” I stand and drop the blanket. “Who do you think you are?”
He’s so surprised that he drops the phone. “You got fucked up somehow tonight. I’m ready to chalk this attitude of yours up to that. And if you’re smart, you’re going to stop talking, and that’ll be that. Understood?”
“Stop dismissing me. You weren’t around for the first seventeen years of my life, and now you act like taking care of me for a year is enough to earn the right to treat me like a pet. I deserve better than that, if only because I’m your daughter.”
“If you weren’t my daughter, you wouldn’t be here. Did you forget about that?”
“I don’t have to be here anymore, then. I don’t need anything from you, and I don’t want anything from you. I’ll leave with nothing but the clothes on my back. No school, no anything. It’s fine. I’ll get by.”
“Right. Like you’d do anything that drastic.”
I actually feel sorry for him, so sorry I stop barking because all it does is make him shut down. He’s not a complex man. “As far as you’d be concerned, I’d be a stranger. I don’t need you. Our lives could go back to the way they were before.”
He’s sizing me up, trying to figure out whether I mean it. “You’re bluffing,” he finally decides. “You can’t mean it.”
“Try me. I would rather walk out of this house with only these clothes than marry Eric Rinaldi or any man because you decided I would. I never signed on for that, and you never even gave me the benefit of telling me you’d pick my husband one day. I didn’t even get that courtesy.”
He scoffs. “Courtesy.”
“Yes. I deserve that much. This isn’t the old days. Fathers don’t order their daughters to marry a stranger. Even if I never met Zeke, I still wouldn’t want to marry the man you chose just because he was the man you chose.”
He’s still pondering this, like the concept of a woman having a mind of her own is too much to comprehend. I can’t say I’m surprised. “If I walk away, it means everybody you’ve ever told about me wondering where I’ve gone. You could make up a story about me traveling, rebelling, or even needing rehab. Right?”
His look of confusion turns to a scowl. “Right. Like they’d buy that for long. This would mean nothing but questions and suspicions. Especially now that the press has picked up on what happened tonight. You’re linked to me.”