Page 24 of The Bargain (Dalton Family #2)

Chapter Twenty-Four

Ethan

T o my surprise, rather than leaning away from me in withdrawal, she leans in closer and meets my stare.

“I have thoughts about this. I’m self-analytical to the extreme sometimes, which translates to I overthink and drive people crazy.

So be ready for that, but to answer the question, different worlds and bank accounts might not bother me as much if you didn’t hold my career in your hands.

” I open my mouth to object, but she holds up a hand.

“I know I’m the one who holds my world in my hands, but your belief in me has helped, and it’s hard to separate that.

And before you protest, you know you took a risk getting involved with me when you sit on Moore’s board. ”

“Is there anyone else I would chase across the country? No. That’s true. My mother died when I was young. I think I told you that, right?”

“Yes. When you were ten.”

“Yes. When I was ten. But she kept a series of journals of all the things she wanted me to know, and when I turned twenty-one, they were released to me. She started writing them even before I was born. I’ve read all of them a thousand times, it seems.”

“How many are there?”

“Ten.”

“Ten? That’s a lot.”

“It’s almost as if she expected to die young, but she didn’t mention that idea in her musings.”

“I think maybe she did.”

“I’m glad to have them. It’s the only way I really know her.

Ten was a long time ago. In some ways I feel I know her more than many kids know their mother.

She wrote opinions about everything and anything.

And to that point, one thing she wrote in numerous places was her desire for me to find my perfect rose and never let money or power stop me from tending it, or I’d burn in a flower bed of ashes.

We’re new, I know, but I think maybe you’re that rose, Sofia. ”

Her cheeks heat and her lashes lower, dark against her pale skin, before her eyes meet mine. “You really are so…”

“I am so what?”

“Overwhelming in all the right ways. I wish I would have met your mother.”

“You would have liked her. She loved fashion. She did a lot of charity work and hosted a fashion gala for the children’s hospital the year before she died.”

“That’s incredible.” Her brows dip. “She seems different from your father. You seem different when you talk about her versus him. Were your parents close?”

“They were. She called him a tiger, and he said she defanged him. From what she’s written, he was a different man when she was alive. I try to remember him through her eyes, but he’s not been that person in two decades.”

“Loss is difficult. We both know that.”

“He can’t use that as an excuse this many years later,” I say, sliding my hand under the table to steady my knee as my foot taps with the agitation only my father can draw from me.

“You’re clearly not close to him. Is your brother?”

“He pushes me. He coddles my brother.”

“Ah. I see.”

“You see what?”

“He’s the weak member of your pack. You can protect yourself. He cannot, therefore, he’s the one your father fears he’ll lose. Maybe he felt he didn’t protect your mother enough, and now he’s the one who’s the most vulnerable.”

She’s right. She’s one hundred percent right. That’s exactly what’s happening, to the point of my father being irrational and jeopardizing us all. Letting my brother do whatever he wants is not protecting him. In fact, under the present scenario it might be hurting us all.

“I read a lot about grief these past few years,” Sofia adds.

“The fear you will experience another loss can be debilitating. I’m so ridiculously afraid of losing my father that I almost talked myself out of Paris and blamed you.

Ironically, some of the things you said to me in Hawaii helped me find logic.

Your father seems like a man shaped by heartache and hardened to the point of being unbreakable. Let me guess. He never remarried.”

“He did but it was a short marriage, though long enough to produce Grant. He’s considerably younger than me. As for the relationship with my stepmom, my father was never all in. His fixation was always my mother.”

“Where’s Grant’s mother?”

“Remarried and in another state.”

“Seems to me that your father’s broken inside and armored up on the outside, but your brother came after your mother died. He’s the one person who won’t let him seal himself off. It might actually be good that he’s like he is with him. It might be all that keeps him human.”

“This is one hundred percent a reaction to him losing my mother, but that’s why they make therapists. I went to one. He never did, and now that he didn’t get one, Grant needs one.”

“Therapy helps. We bury things that find a way to the surface. If we have the right tools on board, we know how to handle defeating behaviors.”

“Right. You’re right.” I was always made to believe I was strong.

I was the leader. Grant was taught he had to try to catch up.

That was never going anyplace good for us or him.

My mind races, replaying the past behaviors that have torn us apart as a family, and I’m not sure how long I’m silent, but I can feel Sofia watching me.

“You want coffee?” she finally says softly, as if not to break my thought process, but clearly also not wanting to just walk away.

I blink her back into view, and she’s so damn beautiful and smart.

In that moment, I know now why I wanted to marry Anna.

I was a coward, running from real emotions.

Anna would never have made me love on a deep enough level to allow her the power to hurt me.

Sofia broke that barrier with me the minute I laid eyes on her in that bar in Hawaii.

I just didn’t know it yet. But I know now.

She’s different from Anna or any other woman I’ve ever known.

In every way.

“Coffee would be great,” I finally say.

She pushes to her feet, her lips curved in a tiny smile, and when she walks by me, I can’t seem to let her pass me by. I stand and catch her to me. “You make me think about things on a different level, Sofia. And I like it.”

“My mother used to say that a hundred people can say ‘hello,’ and you never give them a second look or thought, but then there is someone who shows up and just speaks your language. Then you stop and see them. You hear what they say. If I make you think, it’s because you’re listening.

I don’t know why I’m that person for you right now, Ethan, but I’m honored to be that, even for a small slip of time.

But maybe you need to find a way to be that person for your dad, and I don’t think that happens by you talking.

I think it happens by you getting him to talk while you listen.

If that means shouting at each other first, then shout.

If that means drinking a bottle of whiskey together, drink the bottle.

Just get him to open up.” She pushes to her toes and kisses my cheek. “I’ll be right back.”

I let her slip away from me, the scent of her floral perfume lingering with me, the way everything about her lingered with me when she left New York this last time.

It’s then that I replay what she’d said to me a few moments before: I’m honored to be that, even for a small slip of time.

Everything between us is temporary to her, and I don’t know how to fix that, but it’s damn sure not by going to a hotel room.

It’s being here and present. It’s keeping her close.

I decide she might need help with that coffee and head to the kitchen.

But as I round the corner and bring the kitchen and Sofia into view, I find her facing the counter, her hands pressed to the hard surface, her chin dipped low, her torment cutting.

“Sofia,” I say, stepping toward her.

She whirls to face me and points, holding me back. “Wait. I need to say something to you.”

I don’t want to stop. I want to pull her close. I want to hold her, but I stop walking. I give her just enough space to satisfy her demand. “Talk to me. Am I pushing too fast?”

“No. No. But you do know I’m the worst possible match for you, right?”

“And why is that, baby? Because you don’t feel like the wrong match at all. You feel really damn right.”

“And you know why? They say we’re creatures of habit. People who are abused by parents marry people who abuse them the same way. We radiate to what we know. Your father is screwed up in the head over your mother. I’m screwed up in the head.”

“You are not like my father.”

“In more ways than you realize, Ethan. I’m afraid of caring for you and losing you. If I don’t care, I can’t lose you. And while I can say this right now and know I need to fix it, I don’t fix it, Ethan. And you might be, too. Maybe you drove away Anna because you have commitment issues.”

“Funny you say that, because I was just comparing you to her.”

Her arms fold in front of her, a barrier I reject.

I step closer and settle my hands on her shoulders.

“I chose her because she was easy to keep at a distance. I couldn’t do that with you the night I met you, let alone now.

You are not her. And I’m clearly fucked up, too, but as you said, you make me want to do more than talk.

I want to listen. I want to know you. We can heal together. ”

“What if we destroy each other instead, Ethan?”

“What if we don’t? How are we going to know if we don’t try?” I cup her face and tilt her gaze to me. “There has been no one but you I wanted to try with, but it takes us both to do this, Sofia. Try with me. I want you to try with me.”

Her arms untangle, and her hands settle on my chest, a small win in tearing down her walls. “I’m going to try to run again. I won’t mean to, but in the moment, it will feel necessary. It’ll push you away.”

“No. I’ll run right after you.”

“Promise?”

“Yeah, baby. I promise. Now let’s make that coffee and talk about Paris.”

“I’d like that.”

I kiss her forehead and wonder how anyone can feel this necessary this fast, when no one else but Sofia has felt necessary at all.