I followed behind him in a fog, feeling like I’d just woken up in a twilight zone.
When had my life become so complicated?
“They’ve doubled in numbers.” I turned at the sound of my waitress Megan’s voice. “And one of them even tried to come in and sit down like he was going to order something, but when Becky got to his table all he asked about was you and Ethan, so she told him to get his hairy ass out, we didn’t need his money.”
“Did he listen?” Chloe asked from the other side of the kitchen where she was working with her pastry team.
Megan giggled. “Not at first, but when she held a hot cup of coffee over his crotch, he got the idea that she wasn’t playing around and bolted out the door.”
“Good grief,” I groaned, the happy little cloud I’d been floating on all morning suddenly disintegrating. “That’s the third one. And it’s barely passed lunch!”
Megan headed back out to the front and Chloe looked at me with a sympathetic smile. “You know what you’re going to have to do, sweetie.” I did. But I really didn’t want to do it, so I groaned again. “Just get it over with, like ripping off a band aid. Quick and painless.”
I glared at her. “If you think this is going to be painless, you’re sadly mistaken.” That earned me another sympathetic look. I ignored it and pulled my cell from my back pocket and dialed a number I so did not want to dial.
“Hey baby girl. To what do I owe the pleasure?” God, my dad sounded so happy, it really was a shame that I was about to burst that bubble.
“Hi, Daddy.”
“How’s work? The café busy today?”
“Always,” I answered with a grin. “But I actually need to ask you a favor. I have a little bit of a problem.”
“What problem?” he snapped, automatically going into protective-dad mode.
“Well…” I hesitated, fiddling with a pieces of hair that had fallen from my bun while Chloe mouthed, “like a band aid,” at me. “You see… there are a bunch of reporters hanging around the restaurant. There’s kind of harassing the customers and just being general pains in the ass. I was kind of hoping you could come down here and… I don’t know… be all Sheriff and get them to go away?”
“Reporters?” he barked. “The fuck are reporters doing at the café?”
And now came the hard part. Well…”
“Swear to Christ, Eliza, if you don’t spit it out, my head’s liable to explode. Stop dragging ass and say what you need to say.”
So I did. In one really long breath. “Someone took pictures of me and Ethan at the football game and sold them to the trash magazines saying we were dating, then again at The Moose when he’d had a little too much to drink, saying that we were a couple. We weren’t… at least not then, not that I’m a hundred percent sure what we are now, but the magazines didn’t seem to care about the truth so they started calling me about doing an interview. Ethan’s agent is supposed to be fixing this, but we only found out about the photos yesterday, and now they’re all outside the café wanting an exclusive on Ethan Prewitt’s new girlfriend, and I’d really appreciate if you could just make them go away. You know how much I like my privacy, and they’re totally messing with it!”
I sucked in a massive breath once I was finished and waited for my father’s reaction… and waited… and waited some more. “Daddy? You there?”
“You telling me my little girl is dating a professional football player?” he asked in a not very nice tone.
“Daddy—”
“A goddamned football player who’s known just as well for the number of women he’s slept around with as he is for his number of rushing yards?”
“Dad—”
“And I’m just now hearing about it because some goddamned reporters want a story about him dating my daughter? Is that what your telling me?”
“Well…”
“Goddamn it, Eliza!” he boomed.
“Don’t yell at me!” I boomed back. “I didn’t say anything because I’m not really sure what we are right now. It’s very… new.”
“Jesus Christ, baby girl! The man’s a total player!”
“He’s Ethan, Daddy!” I argued back, the need to defend him outweighing everything else. “He’s Ethan, not some football player who screws around. You know him. Stop acting like this is some guy you’ve never met. You’ve always loved Ethan.”
“That was before he put his hands on my fucking daughter,” he seethed through the line.
“Dad, just—”
He cut me off. “I’ll be there in five minutes.”
“What?”
“Five minutes, Eliza. I’ll handle the reporters, but then you and I are going to talk.”
That sounded like the very last thing I wanted to do, but before I could argue, he’d hung up.
“So…” Chloe came up, throwing her hand over my shoulder. “How’d it go?”
I shot her a killing look before dropping my head against her shoulder. “It’s a toss-up which one of us he’s going to kill first.”
I felt her shoulders shake with silent laughter. “Oh, sweetie, he’s not going to kill either one of you. You know how your dad is. He’s just protective. Once he’s had a chance to process everything, he’ll come around.”
“You sound surprisingly optimistic. You didn’t hear how he sounded just now. Last time I heard him this pissed, I was thirteen years old and crying because my mother was a raging bitch.”
Both her arms came around me in a maternal gesture that I greatly appreciated just then. “You’ll talk him around, honey. If this is what you want, he’ll eventually see that. He’d never take away any of his girls’ happiness. That’s not his way.”
“But,” I started in a small voice, “what if I’m not totally sure this is what I want?”
She pulled back and studied me, a serious expression plastered across her face. “Then we’ve got bigger problems than your father’s head exploding.”
My head cocked to the side in confusion. “Why do you say that?”
“Because it would mean those walls you keep up around yourself are more reinforced than I thought.” The fact that she sounded so sad when she said that sent a sharp, uncomfortable pang through my chest.
“Chlo—”
“Uh, Eliza?” My head spun around to see Megan peeking through the swinging double door that led into the dining area.
“Yeah?”
“Ethan Prewitt’s here. And he looks pissed.”
My eyes grew wide and I turned to look back at Chloe. She was wearing a similar expression that screamed oh shit.
“Batten down the hatches, honey. The shit’s about the hit the fan.”
Something told me she wasn’t wrong about that.
28
Ethan
I’d been in such a good mood. I woke up with the woman I loved in my arms, followed by some world-class sex. Except for the fact that I had to leave her after our shower to make my rehab with Fletch, it had been the best morning of my life.
Then it all went to complete shit when I got a call from my agent while I was on my way to see Eliza. He’d made quick work of getting the name of the person who’s sold those photos to the rags. I wasn’t sure why I was so surprised when he told me, I’d known for a long time that Shannon was the lowest form of scum I’d ever met, but realization she’d actually snuck around to take photos of me and Eliza for her own monetary gain had me itching to put my fist through a wall since I couldn’t actually put my hands on her.
And things only got worse as I pulled my truck up in front of Sinful Sweets and saw reporters camped out in from of her café. Goddamned vultures. I pushed through the crowd, my jaw ticking and fists clenched in an effort not to go off on the assholes for invading Eliza’s privacy. All eyes in the dining room landed on my when I shoved through the glass door.
“Where is she?” I snapped at one of the poor servers.
“Uh… just a second,” she mumbled before scurrying off. As I looked out the
windows of the restaurant, watching the photographers snapping pictures through the glass, I felt like a caged lion ready to pounce on the next person who was stupid enough to cross my path.
“Ethan?” The sound of Eliza’s melodic voice put a stop to my aggravated pacing.
I closed the distance between us and cupped her cheeks in my hands, scanning her face for any signs of distress. “You okay?” I asked in a quiet voice.
Her tiny fingers came up and wrapped around my wrists, and I breathed a sigh of relief when she didn’t pull them away. Her face warmed with the most beautiful smile at the same time her fingers tightened. “I’m fine.” Her hazel eyes flashed as they skittered throughout the room, landing on the audience of customers who were too interested in what was playing out before them to pretend they weren’t eavesdropping. I sensed her discomfort, but didn’t give a fuck about nosy people. I needed to make sure she was okay. “What are you doing here? I thought you had therapy.”
“Finished early. I got a call from my agent, and I was coming to tell you he found out who sold those pictures when I saw the reporters. “Christ, baby. I’m so sorry. Are you all right?”
“Are you serious?” she asked, wide-eyed. “Who?”
My teeth clenched at just the thought of her name. God, I regretted ever getting involved with that bitch. “Shannon.”
Eliza’s head jerked back. “Are you kidding?!” she squeaked. “Why? How? What a bitch!”
I couldn’t help but chuckle at her outrage. It just made her look so damn cute. “I’m going to fix this, baby. I swear.”
She still hadn’t let go of her anger when she asked, “What the hell did I ever do to her to make her hate me so much?”
My fingers on her face clenched. “Nothing,” I answered in a low growl. “Not one damn thing. She’s a conniving bitch who’s jealous that she’ll never be even half as amazing as you are, so she tries to make you feel bad because she can’t handle her own pathetic, miserable life.”
Eliza’s mouth dropped open slightly in surprise at the fierceness in my tone. My gaze darted to her mouth and there was no stopping myself, I leaned down to press a kiss to those addictive, plump lips just as the piercing sound of a siren broke through my Eliza fog, followed seconds later by a voice that hit me like a cold bucket of ice water.
Eliza’s dad.
“I’m going to have to ask all of you to leave the premises!” Derrick called as he stood in the open doorway of the restaurant. “The owner doesn’t want any of you loitering around, and seeing as the owner’s my wife, I’m inclined to give her what she wants. Now get gone before I arrest every one of you for disturbing the peace.”
I slung my arm over Eliza’s rigid shoulders and watched as one not-so-smart reporter decided it was a good idea to go head to head with Derrick Anderson. I almost felt bad for the guy. “We’re perfectly within our rights to be here. We aren’t doing anything wrong or disturbing anybody.”
Derrick paused before leaning into the café and asking in a loud, booming voice, “Anyone here feeling disturbed?”
Hands went up everywhere. Even Eliza cautiously lifted one up in the air. Derrick turned back to the mouthy paparazzi. “Perks of being in a small town,” he said. “I win, you lose. Now get out of here.”
They grumbled and bitched, but they all dispersed under the threatening glare of Derrick. Even if the man wasn’t the Sheriff, he’d still be intimidating as hell. Within seconds they were gone and the legitimate customers went back to their food and conversation.
But Eliza’s body hadn’t loosened in my hold, and Derrick looked about two seconds away from committing murder as he stormed over to us. “He knows about us, doesn’t he?” I whispered through the side of my mouth.
“Yep,” she confirmed, not sounding the least bit happy about whatever was about to go down. Derrick was two feet away when Eliza spoke again. “Daddy—”
“Kitchen. Now,” he growled, stomping past us and through a set of swinging double doors.
“Fuck,” I muttered at the same time Eliza hissed, “Shit.”
Well, no time like the present to face the firing squad.
Eliza
For a day that had started out so promising, it really was going to shit much faster than I would have thought possible. As I walked beside Ethan, using the arm he had wrapped around my shoulders as a comforting support, I wracked my brain with ways to try and convince my father to act like a rational adult. Unfortunately, I couldn’t come up with a single argument that wouldn’t cause his head to explode.
If I had been smarter, I would have disengaged from Ethan’s hold since seeing it would only make my father more upset, but as we pushed through the swinging doors into the kitchen, I needed all the strength I could get.
The rest of the kitchen staff, having obviously read the feel of the room correctly seemed to have disbursed for the time being. It wasn’t ideal, considering we had a restaurant to run, but I couldn’t blame them. That left me, Ethan, Dad, and Chloe alone for the blowup that was about to happen.
I opened my mouth to start, unfortunately Ethan got there before me. “Sir, I just want to say thank you for handling those reporters. If I’d known they were camped out in front of the café, I would have—”
My father cut him off. “You wanna tell me why the hell you’re holding on to my daughter like you’re more than just friends?”
Oh no. “Dad—”
This time it was Chloe who interrupted. “Good grief, Derrick. Will you take a breath for two seconds and give them a chance to explain?”
My father whirled around. “You knew about this?”
To her credit, Chloe didn’t seem the least bit affected by my dad’s temper. Ethan, however, had tightened his arm around me like he fully intended on throwing me behind him and out of the line of fire if need be.
“I suspected something’s been building between them for a while now, yes. And if you’d have pulled your head out of your ass instead of trying to keep your grown daughter a little girl forever, you would have seen it too, and you would have realized it’s a good thing!”
“Woman! You knew about this, and didn’t say a word about it to me?”
“Man! If you don’t want to spend the next several nights getting up close and personal with our sofa, I suggest you put a lid on it!”
I could tell my father wanted to say something else, but having been married to Chloe so long, and obviously being smart, he kept his mouth shut and turned back to me and Ethan.
I started to speak, only to be cut off again. “Derrick,” Ethan started. “I know this wasn’t the most ideal way of finding out about our relationship—”
“Son, there’s no such thing as an ‘ideal way’ for me to find out you’re dating my daughter. I’ve always respected the friendship you had with Eliza, but you can’t fault me for knowing my daughter deserves better than a man with your kind of reputation with the ladies.”
Red flooded my vision at the same time Ethan’s body grew completely stiff at my father’s insult. “Dad! Stop it!” I stepped away from Ethan’s hold and moved closer to my father.
“Baby girl, I’m just looking out for you.”
“No, you’re not!” I argued. “You’re trying to control my life. That’s what you’re doing. I’m not a child anymore, Dad. I’m twenty-two years old. I’m an adult and I get to make my own choices about who I want in my life. You have no say anymore, and that’s driving you crazy!”
“Now, that’s not fair—”
He started, but I cut him off. “No. What’s not fair is you coming in here dead set on ripping into Ethan for daring to touch your precious baby girl. What’s not fair is you not having faith in me to make smart decisions regarding my life and who I allow in it.”
“All I know is that my daughter, who’d already experienced enough pain in her life, was annihilated when her best friend up and disappeared for six goddamned years without a word. She walked around like a zombie, pretending that everything was fine,
and putting on a mask whenever I was around so she wouldn’t worry me with whatever was eating at her.”
I sucked in a harsh breath at the pain laced in his words. I had no idea that he’d seen threw the facade I’d put on in front of everyone, and it killed to know I’d hurt him by not talking to him about it. Unfortunately, he wasn’t finished, and what he said next flayed me right opened.
“Knowing your child is hurting and won’t confide in you is a pain I pray to God you never have to experience, baby girl. But I did. And I might not know the full story, but I know damn good and well that whatever caused that hurt you had behind your eyes had everything to do with him, and I’ll be damned if I’m going to let him come back and do it all over again. I could deal with you two picking up your friendship where you left off, but this? This relationship? I just can’t stand behind that. I know you’re an adult, sweetheart, believe me. But as long as I have breath in my body, I’ll do anything and everything in my power to protect you.”
I had absolutely no idea what to say. The realization that I’d been making my father suffer right along with me because I wouldn’t tell him what was going on caused my chest to tighten to the point it hurt the breathe.
“Daddy…” my voice trailed off because, for the life of me, I had no clue what to say. Tears fell down my cheeks as something inside of me felt like it as being ripped in two, between Ethan and my father.
“I’m in love with her.” At Ethan’s sudden exclamation the air in the room grew thicker. We all turned to look at him and what I saw shining in those golden eyes of his, sent an entirely different pain through me. “I’m in love with her, and I know I hurt her, but you have to believe that as long as I have breath in my body, I’ll do whatever it takes to make it up to her so she never has to struggle with that again.”
“Those are good words, son. But that’s just what they are… words. A real man is judged by his actions, so you’ll have to forgive me, but based on your past actions, I’m not carrying much faith in what you’re telling me.”
Welcome to Pembrooke: The Complete Pembrooke Series Page 38