I didn’t.
I let her hold me where she was brave enough to hold me.
Dinner kept moving after that because rich people were impressive performers. Her mother asked about dessert. Her aunt made a comment about the weather. Someone down the table said something about winter travel and flight delays, and the room latched onto it like none of us had just watched Lance Harlen try to slide a knife between me and his daughter with a salad fork still beside his plate.
Charm didn’t eat much after that, and neither did I.
I stayed because she’d asked me to come. I answered questions because walking out would’ve let Lance feel righteous. I laughed when I needed to. I kept my hands clean and mytemper leashed, even when her cousin asked if my tattoos all “meant something” in the same tone people used when they thought poverty was a Netflix documentary.
By the time the plates were cleared, Charm looked like she’d been holding her breath for an hour.
Her mother stood and smiled at her. “Come help me in the kitchen, darling.”
Charm’s fingers tightened around mine under the table before she let go.
I hated that she let go. I hated more that she looked sorry when she did.
She followed her mother because this house had trained her feet to move before her mouth could argue, and I watched her walk away with her spine straight and her hands folded in front of her like good daughters didn’t bleed where anyone could see.
Lance waited until she disappeared through the doorway before he looked at me.
“Ryan, would you join me in my study for a moment?”
I pushed my chair back and stood. No hesitation. No glance around for permission. No little-boy nerves for him to feed on.
Charm turned from the kitchen doorway, and our eyes caught across the room. Her face had gone pale again, but I mouthed to her, I’m good,mi hada.
Her mouth parted like she wanted to say something.
She didn’t, and her silence followed me down the hall.
Lance’s study was exactly what I expected from a man who wanted every room in his house to remind people he mattered. Dark wood. Leather chairs. Framed degrees. Books that looked untouched but expensive. A bar cart near the window with crystal decanters and amber liquor glowing beneath a brass lamp.
He closed the door behind us.
I didn’t sit and was happy he noticed that.
“Drink?” he asked, already moving toward the bar cart.
“No.”
He poured one for himself anyway, slow and deliberate, giving the moment room to become his.
I let him have the room because I had the power.
He turned with the glass in his hand. “You’re not what I expected.”
“I’m sure I’m exactly what you expected. I’m just less obedient than you hoped.”
The corner of his mouth moved. “Charm has always had a weakness for wounded things.”
My jaw tightened, but my smile came easier this time because he’d finally stopped pretending.
“Call me wounded again,” I said, my voice low, “and this conversation gets less polite.”
His eyes narrowed, but I stood my ground.
The space between us changed. It had been a study a second ago. Leather and money and fatherly concern. Now it felt like what it was—two men standing across from each other withone woman between them and neither one willing to step back first.
