His handsome features twisted until he was a broken shell. “I’d hoped that you’d never find out, or at least, not a day before I could explain why I gave you to him.”
“I know why, Father.” I had never spoken to my father this coldly. “It was easier for you if I belonged to someone else. I wouldn’t need you anymore. You told yourself you were protecting me to ease your conscience, but you didn’t just marry me to Angel. You sold me to a dead man’s legacy. How could you?”
“I’m sorry, baby girl. Please forgive me.” Through his eyes, I saw his heart breaking.
But he’d broken me long before I’d broken him.
“I don’t think I can, Daddy.”
I would no longer be the naïve little girl who would climb on his knee to beg for his love and attention.* * *“ARE YOU HUNGRY?” he asked after closing the doors of the estate. Angel barely kept his eyes off me during the ride home…here. He sat close, making sure we touched from head to toe. His mood was completely different from the car ride to the prison.
“Not really. Um… can we talk in private?”
He didn’t respond except to place his hand on the small of my back and lead me to one of the staircases. I didn’t speak, and neither did he as we walked through the east wing until we reached just another of the many rooms. It would be easy to get lost in a place like this. It was exactly the future I feared.
The room he locked us in smelled like leather and smoke. He moved behind the desk made of burl wood, intricately carved edges completed with golden leaf detail, and a rich finish. I sat on a sofa that looked like it belonged in a castle five hundred years in the past.
“What’s up?” The casualness of his question was forced. Just days ago, Angel had said he knew what was in my head as well as in my heart. If that were true, then he’d know what I was ready to demand.
“I think it’s better for both of us if I leave.”
“Why is that?” His voice was empty of curiosity, surprise, or anger.
“Because of all the things you’ve done to me and all the things you will do.”
I could see the first crack in his facade. “You promised you’d stay.”
“I promised I’d try. But Angel, letting my father go left a hole in my heart, and I don’t know how to fill it. Staying here will only make it bigger.”
I didn’t miss his flinch. “You know I can’t let you leave.”
“I’m done being scared! If you have to kill me, do it or let me go.”
His gaze narrowed. “What are you so eager to return to, Mian? That pathetic apartment and an empty stomach?”
“Freedom.”
“You’re not a prisoner,” he said through gritted teeth. It was nothing I hadn’t heard before.
“No, I’m not a prisoner, Angel. You are. You’re chained to Alexander’s legacy, and that may be fine for you, but it isn’t for me.”
“Even if you have to spend the rest of your days tied to my bed. You aren’t leaving. Three years ago, I let you go because I thought you’d be better off, and when you tried to steal from me, I found you starving, desperate, and the mother of a baby you can’t protect.”
“Fuck you.”
He scoffed. “You’re the same naïve girl you were when you were sixteen, only this time you’re mine. You’re not leaving.”
“If you don’t let me go, I’ll never stop trying to get away from you. Every time you walk out that door, you’ll wonder if you’re coming back to an empty home because, deep down, you know one day I’ll succeed.”
“You run, I’ll chase. If this is how we spend our lives together, then so be it. I won’t let you go again knowing what will happen. I won’t let anyone hurt you. Not as long as my ring is on your finger.”
With a yank, I ripped off his ring and tossed it at him. It bounced off his chest and fell on the desk. “The only one hurting me is you.” I saw his flinch just before I turned and fled. I hated him, not for making me stay but for the reckless part of me that wanted to stay.
I was too busy fighting the tears as they came to see him until we collided. Thanks to his quick reflexes, he caught me before I could fall.
“Easy, short stuff. You trying to take me out?” Augustine’s blinding smile broke through my tears. “I should warn you that I’m not a cheap date.” I was ashamed of the hiccup that escaped when I tried to force a laugh through my sniffling. “Now that was pitiful. I know you can do better than that. That was my best stuff.”