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There was the Dad in him. Always generous.
I shook my head. “Thanks, Dad, but no. You’ve done enough for me. The investment in the tea room means I can start the bakery up without needing a loan.”
Though he frowned, he just grumbled, “Good. I don’t want you to be in debt, and . . .” He swallowed. “I can’t be there, and I hate it, but I want to pay for the wedding.”
I sighed. “That isn’t necessary. Like I said, it’s only going to be a small affair.”
“A meal, then? Afterward. The wedding brunch?”
Because I could see how much it meant to him, I leaned forward and grabbed his hand. “Okay, Dad. Thank you. That means a lot.”
He squeezed my fingers. “I wish I could do more.”
“Honestly, it’s fine.”
“Stop saying that,” he grumbled. “It makes me think you don’t want me there.”
Snorting at his sulky tone, I told him, “If you stick your bottom lip out, don’t think I’ll cave in if you pout.”
That had him grinning. “My temper never works on you, does it? I can have all my staff flustered and flared with a single bark, but not you.”
I shrugged. “You never shout at me, nor have you given me a reason to get flustered.”
“That’s not the truth,” he stated, and I knew we were both thinking back to that time when we’d first met. When he’d grated out his terms in the back of his limo, and had expected me to comply.
I’d told him to fuck off and never darken my door again.
He hadn’t listened.
I sighed. “No point in thinking about that. We’re here now.”
“I want to meet him,” he said, his gaze catching mine.
“How would we arrange that?”
Alan reached up and tugged at his bottom lip. “I don’t know. But we’ll figure it out. I can’t let my daughter marry a man I’ll never meet. Christ, Aoife, just the thought kills me.”
Because I understood, I murmured, “Finn probably goes to charity events—he’s doing well for himself, Dad.” I cleared my throat. “We could maybe arrange to go to one you’re attending?”
“Do you trust him with who I am to you?”
It said a lot about my faith in the man, especially considering how we’d met, that I felt no compunction in telling my father, the Senator, the presidential hopeful, “Absolutely.”
