Page 146 of Tied to You

“Please, just listen to me.” I sigh, wiping the sweat from my head. “Say what you will, but I’m finally happy.”

“On a farm?”

“Yes.” More silence. “I have everything I want.”

“What about what youneed?”

He’s thinking about money. Security. “I have everything I need, Dad.” When he sighs, I have to swipe the tear under my eye. “Can’t you just be happy for me?”

“Who is he?” he throws in.

My lips stretch tensely, my eyes widen in disbelief. I’m grateful he can’t see my expression.

“You’re staying for that boy, aren’t you?”

It’s now or never. Taking a deep breath, I straighten my spine. “I’m staying for the man I’m going to marry.”

I hear his heavy gasp. “B—but. Mollie, I…”

It’s like waiting for an impending explosion. An accident you can see coming. A train wreck you can’t look away from. Except, it doesn’t come. Not in the way I expect it to, anyway.

The line goes dead.

Chapter Thirty

TRAVIS

Coming home, the sound of her sobs echoed through the house. I found her in the bedroom, collapsed on the bed, her pillow wet from all her tears. Scooping her up, I managed to get her to talk about what happened.

I knew she was worried about calling her dad. I just never knew the prick could be so heartless as to hang up after she told him about getting married. I called him back off her phone, but when he heard it was me, not the daughter he seems to push away, he hung up again, turning off his phone. The cunt.

No father should push his child away because she chooses something different to what he had hoped for.

When she walks outside, she’s dressed in baggy jeans, a low-cut top, one of my shirts around her. She’s smoking hot. But also, pale. The stress from talking to her dad has thrown her into a slump. “You okay, baby?”

She smiles at me. “I will be.” Mollie climbs on the back, wrapping her arms around me. Ain’t no feeling like it.

“Maybe we should have bought ourselves a holiday?”

“That would be nice.” Her voice isn’t as convincing as I was expecting.

Turning to look over my shoulder, she lifts her head off my back. “I mean it. We can get away for a bit.”

“With Janette and Mick?”

“Fuck no,” I reply, making her laugh. “I mean just us. No club shit. No anyone.” Her eyes dazzle in the last of the sun’s rays. “Could just get married there, too. Toes in the sand, wind in your hair, all that shit.”

She rests her chin on my shoulder, looking up at me. “Sounds perfect.Could we stay and never come home?”

“If that’s what you wanted.” Drunk on her love, I gently press my lips to her head, leaving them there until I’m satisfied I’ve got my fill and she knows I’ll always be here.

“I need to pee.”

“Again?”

“Give me two minutes.” Hopping down, she goes back inside, and I wait for her, my mind floating to weddings and images of us two together. Jesus. My life really has turned out the exact opposite of how I imagined.

“More wine?”