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Momma reached for my free hand. “Shelby, look what you’ve done. You need to fix this and go after him.”
I was beginning to think my mother had a mental disorder. I shook my head. “Momma, listen to yourself. I don’t care for Barrett. I never have.”
“But you could. You would be so good together. We only want what’s best for you. Why can’t you see that?”
That was the last straw. I dropped Ryder’s hand and stood tall on my own looking between my parents. In a sense, they were strangers to me. “For once, we are going to be honest with each other and you are going to let me have my say. You have never wanted what’s best for me, only for yourselves.”
Momma tried to argue, but I held up my hand. “It’s my turn to talk.” She shut up, but it was all she could do.
“You’ve lied to me and manipulated me,” I continued. “You callously tore me away from the man I love, not thinking at all about how much that would devastate me or him. You say you want what’s best for me, but how could you, considering you don’t know me?”
They both looked thunderstruck.
“Why so surprised?” I directed my attention to my father. “Daddy, when is the last time you called me?”
He swallowed hard and thought. “We talked over the holidays.”
“No, Daddy, you were too busy wining and dining business associates. Business has always come first.”
I inadvertently looked at Ryder, who hung his head.
I wasn’t finished with my father. “I would guess you don’t even know when my birthday is.” My voice trembled with emotion.
“It’s in February,” he stumbled, trying to think of the date.
Momma elbowed him. “It’s Valentine’s Day, Montgomery.”
“I knew that.” He refused to make eye contact with me.
“Maybe once upon a time you did. Believe me, I know how little I have meant to you in your life.” Tears streamed down my face.
“That is not true,” Momma cried desperately. “You are the apple of our eye. Our pride and joy.”
I shook my head. “No, I’m a status symbol, like the expensive car you drive and house you live in. You only wanted something you could show off, and it killed you when my choices weren’t the sparkling ones you hoped for. So you punished me by taking away the person who always used to put me first. Who showed me what real love was and that success had nothing to do with your job, but how important you made the people around you feel.”
I met Ryder’s eyes. Sorrow swirled in his. He reached out and took me into his arms. There I fell apart and cried into his chest.
“I’m sorry, Chief,” he whispered in my ear. “After you left, I kept staring at the picnic basket and thinking what an idiot I was. You’re the reason I started this company in the first place, and I already lost you once because of it, and I’ll be damned if I let that happen again. I’ll close the doors tomorrow if I have to.”
I leaned away and peered up into his misty eyes as if only he and I existed, not caring we had an audience. “Ryder, I don’t want you to lose your company. I’m so proud of what you’ve built, but I’ve told you from the beginning that I wanted something different from what I grew up with.” I grabbed his shirt and pulled him closer to me. “I didn’t fall in love with you because of the things you could buy me. I fell in love with you because you gave me all the things money can’t buy. And . . . I like the way you kiss.” I gave him a come and kiss me right now grin.
He flashed me a sensual smile before leaning in, but unfortunately, the audience wouldn’t stay silent.
“Shelby Katherine, mark my words, you are going to waste your life away with this boy,” Momma screeched.
In Ryder’s arms and together, we faced my parents. “No, Momma, I’m going to live my life with this man, a real life, and I suggest that you don’t get in the way of that.”
Momma’s skin blotched red with anger as she realized she couldn’t control me. Daddy was assessing Ryder with his stare but not saying a thing.
“What about us?” Momma cried. “We are your parents. Your blood.”
I shrugged. “If you can’t accept Ryder and me, then you can go to heck.”
“She means hell,” Ryder clarified through his chuckle.
Mr. Carrington, who had been keeping watch over me, laughed at my manners.
Momma squared her shoulders. “Well, I see there is no reasoning with you.”
“Not even a little.” I smiled at her.
Momma pointed at Ryder. “He has had a wicked influence on you.”
I gazed up at Ryder. “Wickedly good, I would say.”
Ryder leaned in and brushed my lips with his.
