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I knew how upset Isobel had been when I’d left the house, but I had no idea she’d show up here and confront my daughter. I had stupidly assumed she’d let it go and things would eventually go back to normal.
“Well,” Romero drawled, “daughter-in-law, she certainly put you in your place, and she wasn’t wrong. I just wish she would have told the rest of you off as well, because most of you deserve it.”
“Dad, really—”
“No, boy,” Romero growled, cutting off his son. “You stood next to me in my own kitchen after your wife tried to tell you I had something going on with Isobel, and you told me she was unstable.”
I didn’t want to, but I had to ask. “And what did my daughter have to say about her?”
The look on Ariel’s face alone told me that I wasn’t going to like whatever I heard. She looked incredibly guilty and almost sick to her stomach.
Romero sighed as if he was tired all of a sudden, but he still answered me. “She called Isobel a psycho and said that she and Finn deserved each other. I’m assuming Isobel heard this from Finn, considering she said all of that right in front of him. It was a shitty thing to say, and I should have anticipated he’d tell her because when I kissed him, he freaked out, saying he didn’t want there to be any secrets between the two of them. I knew he’d run off to tell her, so of course he’d tell her the rest too.”
Everyone turned to stare at Romero with wide eyes, like they couldn’t believe the shit he was saying. It was a good thing I had already heard about the kiss earlier so I didn’t lose my shit on him here in front of everyone. We already had enough problems on our hands, and I could kick his ass in private.
He spent so much time chasing after me that I’d grown used to him, just as I had Isobel, and now I thought of them as my own. They’d worn me down, and the thought of losing them now terrified me.
I still thought of my dead wife often and always would, but I no longer felt as though I would be betraying her memory of if I finally moved on with my life. I had spent so much time miserable and alone, and I didn’t think that would have made her very happy. It would have broken her sweet heart.
Seeing my daughter find true love and happiness had left an ache in my chest. I had missed out on so much of her life, and she would always be my little girl, but she no longer needed me.
It was time to let the past go and move on with my life. Isobel and Romero were my future, and as fucked up as it was, it looked like Finn was now a part of that future as well.
Now my daughter was attempting to mess that future up for me before I ever even got to taste it. I couldn’t even be mad at her because I didn’t think I had that in me, but I was so very disappointed in her.
I guessed I had wrongfully assumed that Ariel had accepted Isobel into our family as much as I had. I had never expected this out of her.
I met my daughter’s eyes, eyes almost identical to my own. Hers were pained, and it was obvious to me that she was miserable. For once, I had no desire to make her feel any better.
“Today you hurt a good woman, a woman who means a great deal to me. A woman who loves you very much and thinks of you as her family when her blood family is dead… or at least she had thought of you that way until this morning. And” —I looked around at all the others— “for the record, she’s not unstable. She’s been through a lot of horrible things that make it so she can’t get through some nights without waking up screaming unless she drugs herself before going to bed. That’s the woman you’re being unnecessarily cruel about.”
Romero placed his hand on my shoulder, and his fingers dug in painfully. He got right up in my face and snapped, “Why didn’t I know about the nightmares? What else have you been keeping from me?”
Not liking his accusatory tone, I shrugged his hand off of me. “I didn’t tell anyone because it’s her business and not anyone else’s. If she wanted you to know, she would have told you.”
“Well, someone should have damn well told me,” Tyson yelled at us. He stormed past everyone, shoving people aside as he went. “I could have actually done something about it, dammit.”
“Finn wanted to ask you about a dream catcher for Isobel or just on how to make one, but he figured you wouldn’t help him,” I shared unhelpfully with his retreating back.
He flipped me off over his shoulder as he pushed the front door open so hard it slammed into the wall before he walked outside.
I had always liked that one, his balls were fucking huge. If he set Isobel up for sweet dreams, it would bump him up to my favorite out of Ariel’s husbands.
“Do you think we should go and find her to make sure she’s alright?” Romero murmured to me as he chewed on his bottom lip. He watched the door Tyson just left through as if he expected Isobel to walk through it at any second.
He still hadn’t gotten the hell out of my space. If he were anyone else, we’d be having serious problems right about now. He was damn lucky.
“Finn is at my house right now sleeping in her bed. She’ll go back to him. There’s no need for us to go chasing after her. I’ve got to get back to work. You go do whatever it is that you need to do. But, make no mistake, Rome, you and I are going to be having words later in private because I’ve got some important things to share with you.”
His eyes scanned my face before he nodded. His features softened, and his lips curled up in the corners. “It wouldn’t have anything to do with that kiss, would it? You’re not jealous, are you? I’m not going to lie, I would absolutely be over the moon if you’re jealous. I’ve been waiting a long time for you to give a shit. It feels amazing.”
The son of a bitch was cheeky, and as much as I cared about him, I was not doing this here in front of everyone. PDA and shit like it was not for me, and the sooner he figured that out the better off he’d be.
“Shut up, Romero.”
He just laughed at me, but he looked a lot lighter than I’d ever seen him before. Sometimes it was easy to forget that he’d gone through something so horrible himself because he never spoke of it. He and Isobel had that in common, unfortunately.
“Dad,” Ariel said softly, hesitantly. “Can we talk before you go?”
