“It’s not a joke, Dad,” Savannah says quietly. She reaches out for my hand. Her face is completely serious now. “I love him, too. This is real.”
Greg’s face undergoes a number of changes first, disbelief, confusion, then anger.
It lingers on the last one, and I feel myself tensing up, ready to defend our love.
“No, it isn’t,” he declares. This time, he isn’t laughing. He sounds dangerously mad. “You’re going to tell me right now that it isn’t, and you’ve taken a joke too far. Because this isn’t funny.”
“No one is laughing,” I tell him. “We’re serious. We’re in love, and we want to give each other a chance. Which means Savannah coming home isn’t an option right now.”
Greg shakes his head rapidly. “This is ridiculous. You’ve known each other for – what? Six days!”
“A lot longer than that, Dad,” Savannah says, giving him a pained look.
“Wait…” he looks between us, his gaze horrified. “This didn’t start when you were a kid?”
“No, no!” Savannah cries out, waving her hands in front of her face quickly. “No, it’s not like that. I always had a crush on him, but Jonas didn’t even know. I swear, it’s not like that at all. It was just this week. We reconnected, and… we’re both adults now.”
“Greg, I swear, this wasn’t planned,” I say. “How could it be? I didn’t even know she was here. We just bumped into one another on the street.”
“It was more than that,” Savannah points out quickly. “He saved me, Dad. I was about to get mugged, or worse. He stepped in and scared off those men before he even realized who I was.”
“And I couldn’t believe my eyes,” I say, looking at her tenderly as I pick up the story. “I never expected her to turn out so beautiful, so enchanting. You know I never found my soulmate, and… now I think I know why. I was just waiting for her until she was ready. She’s the one, Greg. I mean it.”
When I look back at the camera, there is something softer in Greg’s face. It wars with the anger, but I see it, a tiny flicker of doubt. He must see how much we mean it. How real our feelings are.
“This is ridiculous,” he declares. “Savannah, I forbid you from taking this any further. It’s far too soon, and it’s – well, it’s wrong. He’s far too old for you.”
“Age doesn’t mean anything to me, Dad,” Savannah argues. “We’re right for each other. This is right. Like Jonas said – we’re soulmates. I really believe that.”
“You’re being childish,” Greg snaps. “You can’t even see what’s really going on here. A man twice your age. A vacation romance. Just stop this and come home!”
“Now, hold on,” I say. “There’s no need to talk to her like that.”
“I’ve heard enough from you,” Greg says, turning on me. His face is getting redder by the moment, and I can see rage descending over his eyes. Does it even matter what we say now, or will he hear none of it because he’s already too angry? “You backstabbing predator! How long have you had designs on my daughter? How long have you been grooming her?”
“Grooming?” I repeat, taken aback. “That’s a bit much. I haven’t even spoken to her before now…”
“How did you even know she was in Vegas?” Greg demands. “Have you been stalking her online? Following her every move like a creep, waiting for her to come to you?”
“That’s…” I shake my head. Ridiculous. Preposterous. Completely made-up. But I can’t even grasp a word. I can’t believe he would accuse me of that.
“Dad, stop it,” Savannah says, her voice tight with emotion. “Please. There’s nothing like that going on. We just reconnected as adults, that’s all, and…”
“Don’t be so naive, Savannah! You really think you’re what he wants?” Greg snarls. “Just wait until he’s bored with you and ditches you for one of those casino bunny girls, and you’re left with nothing!”
Savannah makes a huffing noise and leaps up from the seat beside me, shaking her head. “I can’t do this,” she says, clearly already in tears. “I can’t. You deal with him. I won’t listen to these things he’s saying!”
She turns and dashes out of the room, leaving me to stare after her for a long moment.
I don’t look back at the screen – not at first. Not until the bedroom door closes behind her and she’s truly gone. Then I look to see Greg staring back at me not with the same feeling of shock, or with any remorse for upsetting his daughter – just cold, seething anger.
This was a bad idea.
What have I done?
By suggesting we make this call and tell him the news, have I ruined every chance we had?
Chapter Twenty-Six
Savannah
I hide myself away in the bedroom, throwing myself onto the bed and hugging one of the Jones’s scented pillows against my face to bury my tears. I can't believe he would say those things. He made it sound like Jonas is a monster, and I'm just a naive little schoolgirl still who doesn't understand the way the world works. But that's not it, that's not it at all.