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Right, Dad?
“Where are we going?” I ask Nate once I’m a bit out of my daze. Only a bit, though, because I think those pills I crunched on like candy are starting to take effect.
“I’ll drive you home.”
“Why?”
“Because you’re a few minutes away from collapsing.”
So he did know about my exhaustion. Yikes. Am I that obvious to everyone else?
“I can take a cab. You said you were going back to the firm.”
“Since you were late, I rescheduled my morning meetings, so I don’t have anything until the afternoon.” He unlocks his car and steps to the driver’s side.
I roll my eyes. “Sorry for messing up your morning meetings, husband.”
He pauses with his hand on his door’s handle. “What did you just call me?”
“Husband. You know, when people get married, they become husband and wife.”
“Lose it.”
“Lose what?”
“That word. Lose it.”
“No.” I cross my arms over my chest. “What I call you is up to me. Besides, we need to keep things authentic if we want Susan to believe it. She’s cunning, you know. It’s not by coincidence that Dad has been battling a lifetime of court cases against her.”
“Gwyneth,” he warns.
“You need to start calling me Gwen or something else for this whole thing to work.”
A cold smile paints his lips and I know I won’t like his next words even before he says them. He’s cruel that way, with absolutely no regard for others’ feelings. “How about kiddo?”
“I’m not a kid.”
“If you say so.”
“Is that what you still see me as? A kid?” I storm from my side of the car to stand in front of him. “Would a kid be able to marry you?”
“It’s a fake marriage.”
“Fake is an illusion, but this is real, tangible,touchable.”
I don’t miss the way his jaw clenches at that word. Touchable. One he made so clear that he doesn’t want to be part of this relationship.
“Step back.”
My cheeks must be hot crimson, because it’s only then that I realize I’m close to him. So close that I taste him on my tongue, so close that his warmth is wrapping around me like a blanket. Or, more accurately, a noose, because it’s suffocating me with each passing second.
Ordinarily, I’d give him back his safe space and go hide in mine, because isn’t that the right thing to do?
However, I also thought that the right thing was Dad being safe until he’s old and gray. But he isn’t, and everything I’ve taken for granted is changing, evolving, and spiraling out of control.
So I don’t follow Nate’s order.
I stand there in the path of his hurricane, under the scrutiny of those dark eyes and in the shadow of his body.
