DIANA
My heart is pounding as I watch Rafe and his friends shove Dad offstage, while the security team surrounds the celebrities on stage.
I try to regain control of the crowd, but we’ve lost their attention, and my focus is completely divided. I can’t concentrate.
It’s then that Melanie appears. “Go,” she whispers, conveying urgency while maintaining a façade of calm. “I’ll take over.”
I nearly collapse on her, I’m so grateful. Covering my microphone, I say, “I’m so sorry. I had no idea he’d show up.”
She jerks her head a little in the direction they went. “Go,” she hisses, “And take your private life off the stage with you.”
She seems more empathetic than annoyed, and I nod my thanks, then turn to the audience and crack a quick joke to lessen the tension and get them comfortable again. I remove my microphone and rush in the direction they took Dad.
But as soon as I turn into the backstage corridor, I wish I’d stayed on stage.
“You want her back now?” Dad yells. “Is it because she’s making money now and again?”
I want to pummel my fists into his furious face.
“This has nothing to do with money,” Rafe replies, calm but with a rumbling fury in his tone. “This is your daughter you’re talking about.”
Dad pushes up against Rafe, getting in his personal space. “Yeah. My daughter. Did you touch her?”
Behind me, footsteps clatter up the corridor. Lizzie and Charlie, both breathless, arrive just in time to hear Dad yell again, “Did you touch my daughter?”
The fact that Dad seems to be fighting for my honour, or whatever it is he thinks he’s doing, is crazy. But even so, I can’t look at my friend.
“Dad! Oh, my God. Stop. Please.” Sylvie’s clutching at our father’s arm, trying to pull him away from Rafe, but she can’t move him.
I try to grab Dad too, but he shoves me off, and I trip backwards a few steps.
“Touch her again, and I will fucking kill you,” Rafe growls, his hands fisted at his sides, his face red, eyes aflame with rage.
He’s terrifying like this. Far scarier than Dad could ever be; he’s so much bigger, stronger. So much more forceful. I have no doubt he could swipe Dad once with the back of his hand and knock him stone cold dead.
“Please—” I whimper.
“Bet you’d like that,” Dad spits, addressing Rafe. “If I were dead, then you could take her for free.”
Behind me, Lizzie gasps, and Charlie curses.
“What do I get?” Dad continues. “My daughter shacks up with you, and what do I get out of it? You know she screwed me out of millions when she refused to marry Seb Hawkston? Fucking millions. Maybe you should pay it back.”
A potent silence fills the hallway. Rafe’s jaw is razor sharp, and a loathing I’ve never seen on him distorts his mouth and lights his eyes. Very slowly, he says, “You want me to pay you?”
“Yes.”
“You want me to pay you for your daughter?” Rafe asks again, low, and more threatening than anything I’ve ever heard.
Dad shifts his chin, his gaze sliding to me for a second, then back to Rafe. “You touched her, didn’t you?”
“Wait a fucking second—” Henry says, stepping into the fray like he thinks he can break it up with reasonable discussion, but Rafe bars his path with an outstretched arm, and Julian holds him back, stepping in front of him so he’s standing beside Rafe.
“Yes,” Rafe says, and his delivery is so calm, it sends shivers skating over my skin, raising every hair on my body. “I touched her.”
I cower where I’m standing in the middle of the corridor. At least we aren’t in public anymore, but as small as our little group is, with Lizzie here, it’s the worst possible crowd. She gasps again, and in my peripheral vision, I see her slump as if her legs have given out, but Charlie keeps her up, Henry rushing to her other side. Julian, still standing beside Rafe, bares his teeth like a guard dog.
“I touched her,” Rafe continues brazenly, like he doesn’t give a fuck about anyone listening. “But I won’t pay you for it, because I couldn't afford it. If you don’t realise that your daughter is priceless, then you deserve to lose everything you have.”
