What, and fucking him without telling her wasn’t? a hateful voice screams inside of me.
“I’ll make us some pancakes soon,” Roman says. “That is if you can stomach them.”
“Hey, your cooking isn’t that bad.”
Millie smiles, but then it falters as her eyes flit between us. Even the arrangement is suspicious, with me and Roman on one side of the table and Millie on the other.
We sit near the dining room window, looking out upon the water, with so much radiance and light blooming across the landscape. But in here it feels harsh, on-edge.
“What’s going on?” she says, a quiver in her voice. “You need to start talking. You’re both acting weird. I’ve never seen you act like this before, either of you.”
I open my mouth to speak, but words desert me.
Instead, I make a strangled sighing noise, something between a croak and a sob. I paw at my cheeks, anger whelming in me when I think about how unfair it is of me to cry.
“Hey, hey.” Millie reaches across the table and takes my hand. “What is it, Rayla? Can somebody please talk to me?”
“Millie, we have something to tell you,” Roman says, his voice gruff, as though he’s holding back a torrent of his own. “You’re going to be confused. Maybe angry. But please give us a chance to explain.”
“Save me the preamble,” she says, a fierce note in her voice as she lets my hand go. “Dad, just tell me what’s going on.”
He takes a deep breath. “Rayla and I are together.”
“Yeah, duh.” She laughs, nodding at us. “Is this some kind of a joke? I can see that you’re together…”
She slowly trails off as the realization visibly shows on her face, as her cheeks drop and her eyebrows shoot up to her forehead. Her mouth falls open and she stares at us for a long time, as though waiting for us to speak.
“You mean together, as in together,” she whispers.
“Yes,” I say, struggling to force the word out. “It all happened so fast and—”
“As in you’re in a relationship?” she says. “You’re – what – boyfriend and girlfriend?”
I look across at Roman with a question in my eye, confident he’ll be able to read me. He’s shown an impressive ability to read me ever since we met, and it’s only gotten stronger and more significant since we made love.
It’s like our souls have fused as much as our bodies.
“Yes,” he says. “We’re boyfriend and girlfriend.”
“But when?” Millie says, shaking her head as her gaze moves between us. “I don’t understand. You two have never met.”
Roman laughs gruffly, his deep voice making it seem like the whole room is trembling. Shivers move through me, even now, even when I should be completely focused on the disbelief flaring in Millie’s eyes.
I don’t see any judgment though, any pain, any sign that she hates us like I was convinced she would. She stares as though she’s trying to make sense of it, rather than wanting to tear the whole thing down.
“We met when she arrived here,” Roman says softly. “I know it’ll probably make no sense to you, but I fell for her the second I saw her. I looked at her and… and everything clicked, Millie. Hell, it makes no sense to me. If I didn’t feel it, I wouldn’t believe it. But I—”
He cuts himself off, causing my gaze to snap to him as my mind flows with what he was possibly going to say, as the word love flurries into my mind. Is that what he was going to say, that he loves me?
“What, Dad?” Millie asks.
“I want to be with her forever,” he says, his voice passionate and intense. “It’s all I can think about and I’m sorry, Millie. I’m so sorry that this started without your knowledge. I’m so sorry we didn’t tell you about it.”
“Wait.” Millie holds her hand up, turning to me. “Rayla, do you feel the same? Because I have to say, this is a lot to try and take on board. I feel like I’m going freaking crazy or something.”
“I feel the same,” I tell her with confidence bursting in my voice.
But it’s the confidence I have in us, in me and Roman, not confident that Millie is going to be okay with it all. I can’t pretend to be sure about that, not when her expression is so difficult to read.
“I felt the same the second I saw him. I’m so sorry for not telling you right away when we spoke on the phone. I should have. But it was so… So quick. I thought we could get over it. No, no, that’s not true. I’m sorry. I can’t lie to you. I knew there was no way we were going to get over it.”
“It all happened in the past few days?” she murmurs.
“Yes,” Roman and I say at the same time, and then glance over at each other, emotion searing between us.
For a second I think we’re going to lean in and kiss.
The pull is so strong, the intense look in his eyes so captivating. He stares at me as though the world didn’t make sense before I came along, and now that we have each other he never has to question anything else again.
“You’ve fallen for each other this hard in a few days?”
I have to force myself to look at Millie. The pull of my man is almost overpowering, drumming through me, making me want to do wild things when I should be thinking about anything else.
“Yes,” I tell her. “I know it sounds crazy, but it’s the truth.”
“I’ve written, Millie.”
She gasps. “What? How?”
Roman nods at me, causing a flutter in my chest. “I know it’s crazy, but there was something about Rayla sitting in the room with me. She just sat there and when I looked over at her, I didn’t have to think about that empty feeling inside of me anymore. I didn’t have to worry. I could just be.”
Millie stares at us both, her mouth hanging open, her gaze slowly moving from me to her father and then back again.
Then she stands up, laughing with a low tone of voice, as though she doesn’t want to laugh at all.
“Okay, this is just insane. I’m going to run into town and… And get some food. Or a drink. Or something. I need to think.”
Before we have a chance to stop her, she turns away, striding out of the room.
I stand up, a feeling of profound powerlessness drumming through me.
Roman leans forward and softly touches my hand, shaking his head.
“Give her time,” he says. “She’ll be back when she’s ready.”
Chapter Twenty-Two
Roman
I sit on the deck as the sun glistens over the world, making it look entirely different from when it was rain-streaked, to when the sky was clashing with thunder. It’s difficult to believe everything was so dark and stormy as I look over the lake, the water shining, the sky blue for miles around.
Rayla walks along the lake’s shore, Tanker padding at her feet, her arms wrapped across her middle. She said she didn’t want to wait in the house with me for Millie to return.
“We both know what will happen if I do.”
I nodded, the force of her words barreling into me like a gunshot. Of course, I knew what would happen.
I’d leap at her, smooth my hands down her body and squeeze onto those luscious hips. I’d claim her like the beast I am, the same way I’ve claimed her since the first time she gave herself to me.
Millie has been gone for almost three hours, the way she often does when we visit, disappearing into Summerdrop to visit the library or sit at the diner and read.
But somehow I doubt she’s spending her time engrossed in a book this time. I imagine her sitting in the park, fists clenched, staring dead-eyed at the passersby as she tries to make sense of what we told her.
Sitting up, I narrow my eyes when I see Rayla stiffen. My thoughts suddenly hone down to this moment, and this moment alone. Protective impulses gripping me.
Something moves in the trees, off to the side.
Tanker starts to bark immediately.
I leap to my feet and race over to the lake, barefoot over the grass and the stones, but not f
eeling a damn thing even as the stones jab into the soles of my feet.
“Are you okay?” I ask Rayla.
My woman stares into the woods, a picture with the sunlight shining behind her, in a summer dress that would draw the eye no matter where she goes. Tanker stands, head tilted, his back legs trembling as he tries to restrain all his terrier energy.
“I’m fine,” she replies quietly.
For a moment I think something is going to leap at us. I’m ready, every part of me honed down to the possible violence, honed down to the primal need to protect my woman.
But then a deer steps out of the woods followed by a little fawn.
We watch silently for a time until they disappear into the foliage again, and then I turn to Rayla, wrapping my arms around her and squeezing her close.
“Are you okay?”
“I’m more than fine. Did you see them, they just looked so beautiful, ” she says, says in a sweet voice. “I’m not sure what I was expecting to come out of the tree. I thought you were going to kill whatever it was. You looked so freaking animalistic.”
“I felt it,” I growl. “Nobody and nothing messes with my woman. Ever. I’ll protect you always.”
Our lips brush against each other, tingling, the first kiss we’ve shared since we told Millie the truth. All the pent-up pressure inside of me fires through my body, awakening my primal beastly nature.
My manhood stiffens and I snarl through the kiss.
“Wait.” Her voice is breathy as she lays her hand against my chest. “We can’t. Not until Millie says she’s okay with this.”
“And if she isn’t?”
Rayla looks at me but doesn’t have an answer.
And neither do I.
All we can do is hope.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Rayla
My heart hammers heavily when Tanker hops down from my lap and stands completely still, the same way he did when he heard Millie’s car earlier in the day. It’s been several hours since she left – about two since that crazy moment at the lake – and I’ve been driving myself crazy with thoughts of where she’s gone, of what she’s going to say.
I leap to my feet and walk over to the window. Roman has already beat me there, standing silhouetted by the deep orange sunlight.
I can’t help but remember the way he looked when he was ready to face off whatever came out of the woods, without a hint of fear in him, without a hint of anything but primal rage and protectiveness.
Now we look out at the front of the cabin together as Millie’s car pulls up outside. She steps out and glances over to the front window. It’s too far away for me to make out her expression, but the thought slams into me that she’s frowning.
She hates me, hates us. And she’s here to tell us we have to stop.
My throat feels like it’s closing up as she walks toward the house, out of view as she heads for the door. Tanker sprints through the cabin, making happy yapping noises, oblivious to the tension coursing through us, through the room, through the whole house.
Roman and I stare at each other.
His eyes are wide and bleak, as though he can sense how close this is to coming to an end as well. He can sense that it’s only a matter of minutes before we’re forced to make the most difficult decision of our lives.
Millie walks into the living room with Tanker in her arms. Her blonde hair is tied up in a ponytail, making her facial expression seem larger, more imposing. I barely dare to look at her, so fear-filled is my heart, dark and pulsing with a thousand unspoken things, all of them filled with the possibility of this going wrong.
“Okay,” she says, walking over to the armchair and sitting down, running her hand softly over Tanker’s fur. “I’m ready to discuss this now.”
I swallow as Roman and I walk over to the couch, sitting down opposite her. There’s something wrong about this arrangement, with how much space there is between us, but I know it’d feel even worse if I were to sit on Millie’s side of the coffee table, as though it was me and her against Roman.
I feel trapped in the middle, being pulled at from all directions, with no idea what I’m going to do when she drops the bomb – when she tells us we have to stop.
Will Roman even accept a decision like that?
He almost turned feral at the lake, staring down whatever was in the woods, the tendons in his neck tight like he was about to erupt with all the animalistic tension working its way through him.
But surely he’d have to side with his daughter. He’s an incredible father. Millie has told me many times how supportive he is of her, how loyal.
“Well?” I say, unable to hold back my eagerness to know our fate. “Don’t keep us in suspense, Millie.”
“Where have you been?” Roman asks.
“I was at the library,” she says, a musing tone to her voice. “In the poetry section. You know how poetry has always helped me to disappear or to feel like I’m disappearing. I can fade into the words where I don’t have to think about everything else… but then I went to the park, you know because not thinking about this problem is hardly going to solve it.”
A hammer blow slams into me when she describes what Roman and I have as a problem when truthfully it’s the solution I’ve been waiting my whole life for.
It’s the solution that was born in a storm, shattering in the lightning and the rain, the solution that made the storm bearable when it was anything but in the years before that.
Roman made the rain and the thunder and the memories drift away, replaced by the beautiful endless potential of the now, but Millie is describing it as a problem.
I feel like I might be sick, but then Millie smiles.
She smiles, and my whole world begins to reshape.
“Am I seeing things?” I can’t help but giggle. “Are you smiling, Millie?”
She laughs along with me, a sound I never thought I’d get to hear again. “Yes, yes, yes, I know it’s crazy. But I can’t help it. I mean… heck, look at you two.”
“What about us?” Roman asks.
Millie tilts her head in a come on gesture. “Are you kidding me? It’s like you can barely stop yourselves from looking at each other every second. I can see the effort. And both of you seem different, way more confident, way more comfortable in your own skin than you’ve ever been before.”
I nod, the truth of her words undeniable as I contemplate them. I’ve never felt comfortable in my own skin.
But when I feel Roman’s hungry hands all over my body, moving up and down my legs, over my hips, my breasts, there’s no denying that I must be beautiful. I must be attractive.
At least to him, and that’s all that matters.
“I’d say that’s pretty much a fact,” I murmur, not daring to let myself hope.
“Yeah,” Roman says. “She’s changed me more than I ever thought a person could. I didn’t know I was capable of changing at my age. I thought I was always going to have this feeling inside of me, this hole, this emptiness, but Rayla has filled it.”
“He’s done the same for me,” I whisper, blinking away tears. “You know how I’ve always had this dorky fear of storms?”
Millie sighs, shaking her head. “I know you’ve had a fear of storms, yes, and you know how much I hate when you devalue it by making light of it.”
“The whole time the storm was raging,” I go on, “I didn’t think about it. I didn’t think about the past and I didn’t let the silly fears…”
She glares and I giggle.
“Okay, not silly, just the fears… I didn’t let them take me over. I didn’t let them cripple me. Somehow, I was able to just be with Roman and Tanker. It was like the rest of the world didn’t exist.”
“That’s amazing.”
Millie’s voice flutters with disbelief and something else… acceptance, happiness? Can I really let myself hope and dream?
“Honestly,” she goes on, “the fact that you’re writing again, Dad, and that you didn’t freak out at the
storm, Rayla… it’s incredible. I won’t pretend to understand it. But surely it’s proof something is happening here.”
She pauses, stroking her chin. I fight the urge to tease her about it, the way I often do when she does this.
Normally I’d lightly banter with her, telling her she knows there isn’t a beard there, right?
But I don’t think it would be the most appropriate timing right now.
Millie smiles at me, reading my expression, and then lets her hand drop. “Oops.”
I giggle, shaking my head. “I wasn’t going to say anything.”
“You didn’t have to.” She sighs. “Did this really only start a few days ago?”
“Yes,” I say firmly.
“Yes,” Roman replies quickly.
“And this is a long-term thing? You’re not going to get all lovey-dovey and then suddenly break it off, are you? Because think about how awkward that would be if I ever invited Rayla over for Thanksgiving.”
I blink back another wave of hot tears. “You mean there’s a chance you’d still want to do that?”
“Of course.” Millie looks at me, her eyes a mirror of mine, shimmering with the onset of tears. “I waited my whole life to find a best friend like you, Rayla. And this must’ve been so crazy, so fast, I can hardly blame you for not immediately telling me. It’s not like you waited very long when I got here.”
“We’re in this for the long haul, Millie,” Roman says with conviction.
Then he does something dangerous. He reaches across and squeezes onto my hand, wrapping his finger firmly around mine, his touch sending comforting signals through my body even as an alarm screeches through me.
This is going to be too much for Millie. We’re flaunting it.
But when I return my gaze to her, I see a slight smile touching her lips.
“We’re going to be a family together,” Roman goes on. “Give you little brothers and sisters. You’ve always said you wanted me to settle down and be happy. I used to think it was impossible. But now I’ve found her – the only woman who will ever be able to make me feel like a proper person.”
Trapped with My Best Friend's Dad: A Steamy Standalone Instalove Romance (A Man Who Knows What He Wants Book 258) Page 11