“I learned that at twelve. You made sure of it.” Stuffing my hands in my pockets, I leaned on the door. “What are you doing here?”
He sniffed. “Rosalie insisted I come. Preston shot. Carter shot. And that girl abducted and beaten. She felt you needed my support, and was most insistent.”
“She really is a force of nature, isn’t she?” I laughed. “Getting you to come here to check on me? I’m tempted to ask if blackmail or bribery was involved.”
Orion’s lips curled. “Don’t you dare use that tone with me.”
“Oh look, the grandpa-grandson bonding is over. Shame.” I cracked open the door. “You can go now.”
He reddened like I told him to leave by the balcony instead of the door.
“Ungrateful, spoiled brat. I flew all the way here to call on your friends and bring you home, and this is the welcome I get? You have no respect. No discipline. And no common sense. You three were fools chasing after that man with nothing but a flare gun,” he spat. “Your idea, I’m sure. Carter and Preston are good sons from good families, and you almost got them killed. Is it any wonder I treat you as I do?”
I listened impassively, and answered the same.
“You treat me as you do because you’re a racist.”
“Excuse me?!” he sputtered. “How dare you?! I am no such—”
“Save it,” I sliced in. “Didn’t think Mom would tell me, did you? Maybe she wouldn’t have if things had been different, but we’ve always talked, and Alzheimer’s hasn’t changed that. One night, she told me the full story of the day she brought the love of her life home. How her father took one look at him and said a ‘nappy-headed thug would marry my daughter over my dead body.’ She didn’t forget to mention you sending the police after them.”
Orion’s face went slack—jowls bleached of color. He hadn’t thought I knew about that day.
He opened his mouth. “Things are said in the heat of the moment—”
“What moment?” I cocked my head. “The moment you send your daughter to an island to find a wealthy husband and she comes back with one? That’s what you wanted, wasn’t it? So, why wasn’t it a happy moment?”
His chest heaved. The colonel always had something to say. He was always larger in the face of me. Not today.
“Vanessa did not recall that night in its entirety,” he finally said. “She has dementia, Nathaniel. You should know better than to take everything she says at face value.”
I quirked a brow. “That’s what you’re going with? Seriously?”
“I am not a racist,” he snapped. “A racist wouldn’t have taken you in. Provided for you. Given you the best education money could buy. I have been there for you.”
“You abused me.” The sentence fell from my lips, taking a great, heavy burden with it. “Emotionally and verbally. You’d bellow for hours that I was an embarrassment. A waste of blood and oxygen, and I should have been on that boat with my father. You’ve fired anyone that stood between you and me, and you’ve been tirelessly fighting to cut me out of my mother’s life, so I’d finally be gone for good.”
“Nathan—”
“No. No!” I shouted. “I talk now, you bastard! For once, you’re going to listen!”
Orion fell silent.
“I’ve seen what a real family is,” I said. “Families who give up everything for each other. Who are supportive even when they don’t agree with their choices. Who love each other unconditionally. Belle’s father watched his life fall apart and his first thought was to protect her. Her mother got herself kicked out of a wedding, defending an outfit she didn’t even like. While you have never said a kind word about me to anyone. Ever.”
I shrugged. “That’s sad. It was for me and every kid that wanted a family and got an abuser instead. But you know what? It’s you I feel sorry for. You wanted a family molded, cut, and beaten into your perfect image, and now... you have no one.”
Straightening, I looked my Malcolm Byrne in the eyes. “I’m moving out for good, and I’m taking my mother with me.”
“The hell you will!”
“I will,” I said clearly. “Forget marrying a rich wife or waiting until I’m twenty-five. I have seven years of abuse and countless witnesses to prove you’re not fit to be her guardian. You got something to say about it, I’ll hear it all in court.”
I crossed to my nightstand, plucking something out as a stream of filth flew from his mouth.
“—waste is exactly what you are! You should have been on that boat! You and that piece of trash stole the best years of my daughter’s life. She could have been a success. Rose to the top. But you two dragged her down and made her nothing! You are—”
Slamming the door shut, I cut off his tirade. “Have yourself a heart attack, you miserable old man. I have somewhere to be.”
Bounding downstairs, I snatched poor Hendrix’s keys off the hook again and took off in his car. A strange, humming fervor took over me. Lighting my nerve endings with sparks.
I was free. I was fucking free of that man forever, and soon—much sooner than six years—my mother would be too.
I swerved into the hospital parking lot and hopped out, rushing up three floors and down a wing to Belle’s room. She, Carter, and Preston jumped when I burst in.
Carter was sharing her bed, showing her something on his phone, and Preston was sharing her lunch. It was the kind of peaceful, relaxed scene I hoped I’d walk into for the rest of my life.
“Nathan,” Belle said, smiling fit to turn me inside out. “There you are. Get in here. There’s room in this bed for you.”
“That is part two.” I reached into my pocket, pulling out the ring box. Her eyes widened as I knelt beside her bed. “This is part one. Belle, I love you. I love everything about you—and not in the way that everyone says it. I love your style and your threats. I love the way you kick me and drool in your sleep.”
She pinked. “I don’t.”
“You do, and it’s the cutest damn thing ever. Everything you do is magic, Belle Adler. You are my fairy tale, and if I spend the rest of my life drowning in you, it’ll be a life lived better than everyone else on the planet.” I bobbed my head. “Except for these two assholes, if you insist on keeping them around.”
Eyes shining, she laughed breathlessly.
“I love you, Belle. Will you marry me?”
Tears dripping down her cheeks, Belle put out her hand... and bopped me on the forehead. “Get off your knees, dummy. We can’t get engaged.”
I blinked. “Uhh... Okay. That wasn’t the answer I was expecting.”
Belle took my hand, dragging it, and me, to her heart. “Nathan, I love you too. That proposal was perfect, and I want to say yes. Just not today.” She looked at all of us. “We’ve been raised to do this all wrong. To get caught up in the heat and romance of a perfect summer, and then jump in with our eyes closed. But I don’t want to do that with you guys.
“I want college, crappy apartments, and eating cold pizza on the floor. I want the awkward meet-the-parents family dinners, and summers backpacking. I want to fight and make up a million times. And then, I want to marry the shit out of you. Can that be okay?”