Joel
I spotted blonde curls from the road leading up to the rink.
Took a beat.
Then pulled into the parking lot, determined to be calm.
Determined to have a rational conversation.
Only what I saw happening in that expanse of asphalt instantly sent any semblance of calm poofing away into nothing.
“Fuck,” I muttered, screeching into a spot a couple down from where my Rosie’s little SUV was parked…
I was out of my car in a fucking millisecond.
The door slammed behind me, the metal frame of my car loudly protesting my actions, but neither of the people standing mere inches apart seemed to hear me.
“How dare I?” my Rosie snapped at her father as I moved up behind her. “Not only did you break the fucking law, but you tried to implicate me in your bullshit, and worse, you wanted me to take the fall for you.” She thrust a finger in his direction. “And for what? I still don’t even understand what your end game was. Nobody does. Nobody can figure out why you put your future and freedom at risk. For some money?” She shook her head. “I don’t think so. You had plenty of money. For power?” A shrug. “Maybe. But my guess is that it was for some other reason altogether. Some other purpose I haven’t discovered yet.”
A flicker of something in his expression, there and gone so fast I could barely track it. “You’re out of line,” he growled.
“I’m out of line? Me?” She lifted her hands like she was going to shove him, then clenched them into fists and dropped her arms to her sides.
Control.
Smart.
Even while kicking some fucking ass.
Pride exploded through me.
“Yes,” her dad snapped. “I’m your father, and you owe me the respect—”
She bent at her waist, hands going to her knees, and burst out laughing, handling that statement like the bullshit it was.
But I was still going to fucking kill this motherfucker.
My Rosie owed him respect?
Hell fucking no.
“Anyway,” she said through her laughter, straightening and wiping a finger beneath each eye. “Your reasons don’t really matter. What does it that you preached my whole life about being honorable. You lectured me about never doing the wrong thing over and over and fucking over again. And meanwhile, you were fucking with the town, putting money in your own pocket, taking resources away from people who needed them.” She threw up her hands. “And there’s nothing that can possibly justify you doing that.”
His face was bright fucking red, a huge scowl taking up most of his features. “You dare—”
“Yeah, I dare,” she said fiercely. “Because I didn’t fucking dare for too long.”
His jaw snapped closed, teeth clicking together audibly.
“What’s that?” my Rosie pushed, lifting her hand to her ear like she couldn’t hear. “Because it doesn’t sound like a fucking answer. It doesn’t sound like an explanation for doing every single thing you said I shouldn’t.”
John Donovan opened his mouth.
Closed it.
“In fact,” she pressed. “I suspect I won’t ever hear a goddamned explanation that makes any sense at all.” A beat. “Because there is no justification for what you did, and you’re too fucking stubborn to ever truly be accountable for your actions.”
His eyes flashed, but what response could he have to that?
There was no rationalization that made any of this okay.
She kept going, taking the words right out of my mind. “You spent your whole life drilling morals into me that you don’t believe in—that is, when you and mom bothered to pretend I existed at all. Speaking of which”—she turned slightly, making a show of glancing from side to side—“where is Mom? Running from your shit? Or is she the one who is behind it all? The secret fucking kingpin that nobody expected? The woman who pretended to live in her own world, made a show of making an effort to care about me…then disappeared.”
He narrowed his eyes. “Don’t bring your mother into this.”
My Rosie huffed out a laugh. “Wow, that’s a surprise. Standing up for someone who isn’t you? Since fucking when?”
He leaned forward, gritted out, “You don’t know what she’s been through.”
“I know enough.” A sharp shake of her head, curls bouncing. “And I know that I will never—ever—treat my kids the way that you treated me.”
My heart skipped a beat, that sentence hitting me hard, but it was only there for a second.
Because she was still talking.
“So don’t tell me what to do, don’t tell me what’s right or wrong. Don’t pretend that I was ever anything to you besides a means to an end.”
It was then that I stopped watching.
Then I was moving toward them, moving between them, blocking her dad when he tried to reach for her. “Don’t you fucking dare,” I growled.
John Donovan stared up at me with hate in his eyes.
“I would suggest that you leave before we call the police,” I ground out.
“Fuck you,” he snapped. “I posted bail, so I am allowed to be here.”
“You may be allowed to be here, but we don’t have to be.” I turned, slipped an arm around Rosie’s waist, started to walk away.
“You’re terrible for my daughter,” John called. “Ever since the two of you have been together, she’s lost her fucking mind.”
I glanced over my shoulder and nearly laughed. Because, seriously, that was the best he could come up with? “You mean,” I said, “you lost the ability to manipulate your daughter—who, by the way, would have done anything for you if you hadn’t ruined that. Any fucking thing.” I gathered Rosie against my side, glanced down at her. “Let’s go,” I muttered.
We took all of one step.
Then I was dragged to a halt when her dad grabbed my shoulder, yanking me roughly backward.
“I wouldn’t fucking touch me right now, man,” I ground out, gently releasing Rosie, still keeping her behind me as I turned to face the asshole who’d grabbed me, dislodging his hold on me.
Breathe. Calm.
Because my temper had already been on razor’s edge, and now it was a hairsbreadth away from splintering.
John stepped closer, puffed up his chest like the idiotic peacock he was. “I think I do.”
“Don’t you touch him!” my Rosie yelled, suddenly in front of me, pushing her back into my front, forcing me to take several steps away from her father. “Don’t you come here and do this shit ever again. Don’t you get in his face or interrupt his routine or bother him.” She lifted a hand, jabbed a finger in her father’s direction. “And in case you forgot, I’m done with you too. I’m done with your bullshit standards and I never want to see you or Mom again.”
“Your mother—”
“What, Dad?” she snapped, throwing her arms out to the side. “What about Mom? Are you going to give me some insight into why she disappeared? Or maybe explain why she never loved me as she should?”
“It will kill your mother to lose another child,” John said, the anger seeming to fade from his voice for the first time in this conversation.
“Is that remorse I hear?” she asked dryly. “Because I didn’t think that was actually possible from such a smart, capable man like you who is never wrong or makes mistakes, right?”
“BR—”
“My name is Rosie,” she said coldly. “And this is the last time I’ll ever talk to you. Get out of my sight or I’ll call the police.”
John lurched forward, grabbed my Rosie’s arm, and ripped her from my hold.
Yeah, that wasn’t fucking happening.
I took a step toward them—
“And that’s where I step in,” Fox said smoothly, stepping between us. He glanced over his shoulder, met my eyes. “I think this is where you take your woman inside and away from this bullshit.”
A breath.
Fighting for control.
Then I found it again, nodded.
“Come on, Rosie baby.”
She didn’t fight me, thankfully, letting me draw her away from her dad, letting me bring her into the rink.
Letting me get her safe.
And I don’t know why, but that was the piece that finally sent me over the edge.
Quiescent now?
After nearly getting throttled in the parking lot?
The door shut behind us, and I lost it.
“What were you thinking, confronting him like that?” I snapped. “You didn’t even have your phone.” I pulled it out of my pocket, held it out to her. “He could hurt you and you couldn’t have even called for help or—”
“He came up to me,” she snapped back, shoved it in her pocket. “What was I supposed to do?”
“I don’t know,” I said sarcastically. “Walk away?”
“That man is the reason I was fucking arrested!” she yelled, pushing against my chest. “There was no way I’m just letting him treat me like shit and then walking away.”
“So, you’re just going to put yourself at risk because of your ego and the fact that you wanted to get in a couple of potshots on your dad?”