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“I am. Why, do you have a problem with that?”
He shot me a look. “No, I mean… it’s your choice, of course. You’ll do whatever you want to. It’s just—” Zander paused as we crossed a road. It was late enough in the night that there weren’t many cars driving past anymore. “—you could get anyone you wanted. You don’t need to join a place like that.”
Sighing, I muttered, “That’s not what it’s about.”
“Then what is it about?”
I glared. “It’s none of your business.” I felt him getting a little too close to me as we walked, so I made sure to put some distance between us. I didn’t want him getting close to me. I didn’t want… I just didn’t want that.
“No, it’s not. I’m just trying to understand you, Giselle. That’s all.”
“Oh, that’s all, is it? Well, maybe you should just give up, because there’s nothing to understand. I am Miguel Santos’s daughter. I must be perfect at all times. I can’t date who I want. I can’t do what I want. The only things I can do are the things my father tells me to. I am the person he wants me to be, that’s it.”
Zander was quiet for a while. “It doesn’t have to be like that, you know.”
Again, I glared at him. “Why do you think I snuck out tonight? Why do you think I didn’t want you tagging along? Tonight was supposed to be about me.”
I could tell he wanted to reach for me, but he must’ve thought better of it, for he ended up simply saying, “I won’t tell your father about this, I promise. I… you might not know it, but I see you, Giselle. I’ve seen you this whole time. I only want the same thing your father does, and that’s to keep you safe.”
His words might’ve made me smile if he hadn’t brought up my father.
Because he was wrong. Where my father was concerned, he was so very wrong. Miguel Santos did not want me safe. If my safety was his top priority, he never would’ve done what he did three years ago. I believed the workers at the Playground were more genuine in wanting their clients safe than my father did me. How sad was that?
But Zander didn’t know the truth of the past. He didn’t know what my father had made me do.
And he wouldn’t, because I’d promised my father I’d never tell anyone—and unlike some people, I didn’t break promises.
