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Ridge took a step toward him, but I placed a hand on his chest. “It’s okay,” I said, looking at Anne’s father as I lowered my voice so only he could hear. “You think you’d be more concerned about your daughter’s well-being and happiness instead of a decade-old grudge against a sixteen-year-old. You have no idea who I am anymore. I don’t even think you know who your daughter is.”
“And you do?”
“Yeah,” I said. “I do.”
“It’s sad,” he said. “How highly you hold yourself. Do you honestly think you’re worthy of a daughter like mine?”
“I love her—”
“Love her,” he cut me off. “Love her? You said the same thing all those years ago and where did that get you? Where did you two end up?” He glanced around the waiting area. “Look at where weare. Do you think you’re giving her some grand life?”
Where did we end up? Where did that get us?Jesus, this man. He would never approve of me, never stop fighting me at every fucking turn. If it wasn’t for him, we would’ve stayed together. I knew that in my bones. If he hadn’t pulled us apart, Anne’s life would look a hell of a lot different, we’d proven that over these last few weeks. Proven what life could’ve been, but he wanted to shame me? He wanted to keep me from her again?
I curled my hand into a fist, seeing nothing but red—
“Easy,” Ridge’s voice said into my ear as he pulled me back.
I was shaking as he continued to walk me back toward the stairs. Farther away from Anne, farther away from assurance that she really was all right.
And as her father watched me with that same hatred in his eyes, it all compounded inside of me—ten years of not being good enough, of not living up to an impossible standard. No wonder Anne had lived the way she did. Nothing was ever good enough for him.
It never would be.
That truth clanged through me like the ringing of a bell.
Nothing would ever change.
And I was an idiot for thinking it would.
“Come on,” Ridge said, guiding me through the stairwell door. “We’ll get answers,” he said as we descended. “Just, when you’ve cooled down.”
I nodded, letting him lead me back to the main floor lobby, where Lyla was waiting for us, waters in hand.
I chugged mine then shook my head. “I’m going home,” I said, utterly defeated. “As long as he’s here, he won’t let me near her.”
My entire world felt like it was crashing down around me, the love of my life lying in a hospital bed with no way for me to get to her while her father was standing guard like a deranged protection detail.
As ifIwas a threat to her.
As if I didn’t love her more than he could even fathom.
As if I didn’t have a ring in my pocket right this very second, begging to slide onto her finger and claim her as mine forever.
CHAPTER17
Anne
“Jim?” My mouth was so dry it made it hard to say his name.
Memories come rushing back to me as I opened my eyes, the action like trying to lift a damn car. The smell of sanitizer hit my nose right before I registered where I was.
A hospital room.
I was hooked up to an IV, solution dripping slowly down the tube. I blinked a few times, remembering the events at Lyla’s. I felt exhausted, then the pain…then nothing.
I glanced around the room, expecting to find Jim asleep in a chair next to my bed, but it was empty.
“Hi, Andromeda,” a pleasant female voice said as she walked into my room. “I’m Jillian, your nurse.”
