Page 10 of Taking His Heart

My eyes bug out of my head. “What? No. I mean… I can just stay at the hotel. I’ll be fine there.”

“You were just the target of a drive-by shooting, Daniella. Hell is going to freeze over before I let you go anywhere alone again,” Dad says.

“Aiden, tell Mom I’m ready to go home!” CJ calls out to his brother while grinning at me. “Looks like we’re going to be roomies.”

“You should learn to sleep with one eye open, CJ. I’ve been known to smother people when they sleep.” I smirk and walk out of the room, my dad’s laughter following me.

Chapter Five

I’ve been holed up in bed for a couple of days. Well, mostly. I’m avoiding the guests in my parents’ house. I don’t even live here, but when I heard she was going to be staying, I thought it’d be a great idea to spend some time with my family.

I’m blaming the effects of whatever drugs the doc gave me, because as soon as I got to the house, I realized I don’t actually want to be around her. I don’t want to walk past her in the hall or see her at the breakfast table in the morning. I don’t want to pretend that I’m fine with her being here like I have been.

I don’t even know why my father thought inviting her family to stay with us was a good idea in the first place. Which is why I’m currently sitting on the sofa in his office asking as much.

“Why let them come here? You know they have cash, right? They can go rent any house. Or better yet, jump on a flight back to Australia.”

“Last I checked, this was my house, CJ, and I didn’t need your permission to have friends stay over. If you don’t like it, you do have your own home to go to,” Dad tells me.

“I’m recovering from a bullet wound. I need my mom.” I smirk at him. I’m more than milking my recovery, but if you had a mother like mine, you would too. She hasn’t stopped bringing me food every couple of hours, and something my mom does best is cook.

Dad shakes his head. “I want my wife back. You need to go home, CJ.”

“She’s my mom. Pretty sure that trumps wife,” I tell him.

“Yeah, tell me that when you have a wife and kid.”

At that, I laugh. “Never gonna happen,” I say, because I can’t have the one person I want. Correction, wanted. I wanted her. I don’t anymore.

“You sure about that?” Dad asks.

“Yep.” The P sound pops at the end of the word as it leaves my mouth.

“So, you don’t care that Daniella is upstairs right now getting ready to go on a date then?”

His question has my head snapping up, my eyes pinning his as I’m trying to determine if his whole plan is to get a rise out of me. His face gives nothing away. I stand and wince as I move faster than what my body wants to allow me.

“I have shit to do,” I grit out.

“If that shit has to do with Daniella, I would suggest you get a handle on your emotions before you go and see her,” he says.

“Why do you like her so much?” I ask the question that’s been burning on my mind for the last couple of days. My father has always been polite to her, but lately he’s been… extra about it.

“She’s going to be my daughter one day. It’s not so much that I like her. It’s that I know you and I know you love her,” he says matter-of-factly. “Besides, she’s a nice girl. You could do a lot worse.”

I blink at him, dumbfounded. “You know she doesn’t actually want me, right? She left. She made her choice and it wasn’t me.”

“So, change her mind,” he says.

“I’m not begging for scraps of anyone’s affection, Dad.” I walk out and head upstairs, because despite what leaves my mouth, I am not okay with her going on a date with anyone else.

I reach the bedroom I know she’s staying in. I know that because my dad made sure to inform me which room she was in the day I came home. I’ve done everything I can to stay away, to give her what she wanted. Because we both know there is nothing I wouldn’t give her, even if it meant having to lose her.

That was then. I’ve changed. I’ve gotten older, wiser and all that bullshit. Or perhaps I’ve just gotten angrier.

She wanted me to let her go and I did. But now she’s back. She’s in my fucking parents’ house and thinks she’s just going to walk out the door and go out on a date with another fucking man? Fuck that.

I knock on the door before I decide to just open it. I know I’m an asshole and shouldn’t just walk in on her. She could be getting dressed. Then again, it’s not as if I haven’t seen her naked before. I can still picture her spread out on the sheets beneath me as if it were just yesterday…