I stared at my phone longer than I probably should have, my thumb hovering over the green call button. It had been weeks since my mother’s birthday dinner in Florida, the one where Nathan told my parents about Jax. My mother had gone quiet, but my father had been harder to read. The way he always was.
And yet, I knew I couldn’t move forward, not fully, without speaking to him. Without saying the words I’d been holding back, the ones I’d shoved deep down every time a man in my life tried to control me, belittle me, or manipulate me.
But today felt different. Today, I needed to speak to him. Not to argue, not to prove anything, but to finally strip the armor I’d been carrying all my life. The armor that had made me soft and bending, always pleasing, always accommodating. The same armor that had let Jax manipulate me, let Nathan’s carefully calculated love ensnare me. I hated it, but I needed to understand it. And I needed him to understand me.
I pressed the call button.
“Hello?” His voice came over the line calm, but with that underlying tension I could hear even from miles away.
“Hi, dad,” I said, my voice smaller than I intended.
“Elise,” he paused, as if he were weighing whether to keep speaking. “I wasn’t expecting a call from you today.”
“I know,” I admitted, curling my fingers around the phone like I could steady myself. “I figured it was time we talked.”
“Go on,” he said, voice clipped but not unkind.
“I think I understand now why I’ve been the way I am. Why I let people, specifically men, push me around. Why I always felt like my job, my love, my life had to be about pleasing them. And I think… I think a lot of it comes from you.”
There was a pause so long that my heartbeat practically echoed in my ears.
“You think I caused that?”
“You never supported me,” I said softly, more statement than accusation. “Not as a dancer. Not as someone who had bigger dreams than you thought I could manage.”
“I know,” he admitted, his voice thick with something I hadn’t heard in my life.Regret. “I didn’t support you because I was afraid. Afraid you’d get hurt, afraid you’d fail, afraid I wouldn’t be able to protect you. I loved you enough to want the best for you, I just didn’t know how to say it.”
I closed my eyes, letting the words sink in. All those years I’d felt unseen, unsupported, punished for daring to dream, it wasn’t hatred. It was fear. A fear that had masqueraded as control, as doubt, and as cold indifference.
“So you loved me by being a nightmare?” I whispered, a laugh slipping through, soft and broken.
He was quiet for longer than I wanted, and I felt that old tightness creeping back into my chest. But then, he spoke.
“You’ve always been different, Elise. Fierce. And I’ve been terrified that the world would break you. I tried to protect you, but I see now that I protected you poorly. My way of loving you was cold and distant. I see now that it hurt you.”
I blinked, my chest aching, but relief threading through me. “It did,” I whispered. “It hurt me for years. And I blamed myself. For being soft. For wanting love that wasn’t conditional. For wanting to be seen.”
“I loved you badly. But I never stopped.”
I felt something inside me loosen. The knot I hadn’t realized I’d been holding since I was a little girl. My throat burned as tears pricked the corners of my eyes, but I let them come. “I forgive you,” I said, and it was more than words, it was a release. “I forgive you, and I forgive myself for believing that love had to hurt.”
“I want to do better. I want us to have a better relationship, Ellie. If you’ll let me.”
I smiled through the tears. “I want that too, Dad,” I paused. “So you gotta let go of your dreams of me being a doctor.”
He chuckled softly, a sound I hadn’t heard in years. “No white coat. I can accept that.”
And in that moment, I felt something I hadn’t in a long time.
Light.
Light enough to breathe, light enough to finally start shedding the person I had been. The one who had bent and twisted herself for approval. Today, I was Elise. Whole, unafraid, and finally ready to dance in my own rhythm.
CHAPTER FIFTY
NATHAN
I TRIED TOlose myself at work, but it was useless. After a week of slipping, I stepped away before I did real damage. There was no point in pretending I was anything resembling useful. Ever since Elise left, I’d been a damn wreck, barely holding it together, much less capable of being the leader my company needed.
