Total pages in book: 135
Estimated words: 135536 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 678(@200wpm)___ 542(@250wpm)___ 452(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 135536 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 678(@200wpm)___ 542(@250wpm)___ 452(@300wpm)
Shepherd Townsend stood before me.
He hovered by the doorway, hat in hand, shifting his weight from one foot to the other.
He wore that suit I liked the most. Black with yellow stripes. A hilarious combo that earned him the nickname Bubba Bee.
Those days seemed eons ago.
I wasn’t laughing now.
“Dallas. You haven’t been taking my calls.”
I pushed the chocolate aside. “Yes, I am aware.”
“I was hoping we could talk.” He lifted a shoulder, unsure of himself for once.
It tugged at my heartstrings, if not completely knotted them together in a tangled heap. Despite his actions, I couldn’t hate him all the way.
I gestured to the dessert-laden table in front of me. “Clearly, I’m busy.”
Thorny anger climbed up my throat. It went beyond the act of promising me to Romeo without my consent. Daddy had done that before with Madison, too.
What charred me inside-out was the eye-opening moment my now-husband hauled me from my childhood home, barefoot and in my sleeping gown.
In that instant, with the clarity of a newly polished mirror, I knew my father would not save me.
Fathers were supposed to protect their children. Not their family’s reputation.
Shepherd Townsend operated in a man’s world. Where women were a novelty. Simple, ditzy creatures to be quieted by the drop of a credit card.
He believed I’d find happiness with Madison, just as he’d wagered I’d grow accustomed to Romeo. After all, they were both easy on the eyes and filthy rich.
What more could a woman want?
What, indeed?
Perhaps a voice. Agency. Respect.
My father was a chauvinist. Just like the rest of Chapel Falls. Now that I no longer lived under his roof, I could show him exactly what I thought about his worldview.
A wave of surprise drenched Daddy’s face. “Surely, you could spare me a few minutes.”
While Hettie and Vernon scurried away, giving us undesired privacy, I gallivanted around the island, gathering the ingredients for homemade whipped cream.
“What makes you so sure? Because I don’t have any children to raise? Any floors to sweep? Luncheons to organize? Because I’m a woman, Daddy?”
At this rate, he would need a forklift to return his jaw to its upright position.
On the bright side, perhaps he could apologize to society for his chauvinism by donating his eyes to science. I didn’t even know those puppies could grow that big. Or be that empty. Like two deserted planets.
“Where is this coming from? You used to be so sweet.” Daddy’s hat slipped from his fingers, feathering to the floor. “What happened to you?”
“What happens to every girl who escapes Chapel Falls.” A sad smile hovered at my mouth. “I grew up and realized there is life beyond the ivy-laced walls of Chapel Falls. That in this life, women are allowed to make mistakes, to be human, to experience life as fully and as wholly as men, without paying a horrible price.”
“You knew what would happen if you got caught with a man before marriage. I didn’t make the rules. Society did.”
“Two thousand years ago. Most of American society doesn’t live like us anymore.”
“You’ve been mad at me since before you moved to Maryland.”
Somehow, he looked smaller. Older. Far less powerful than I remembered.
Time apart had extinguished that supreme glow that once radiated from him. The one every girl saw from her daddy before reality scrubbed it raw.
“Yes.” I rinsed my hands, wiping them on a rag, along with every illusion regarding my father’s concern for me. “I realized, after you gave me to Romeo, that I’d never chosen Madison, either. At the time, I agreed to avoid upsetting you. You’ve never given me a voice. How ironic that I found mine, anyway, and in the gilded cage you sent me to, no less.”
Daddy observed our surroundings.
The beauty. The lavishness. The wealth.
“I thought he’d be good to you. Costa’s reputation is unimpeachable. Is it really so bad here?”
No. Not at all.
But it wasn’t my choice, either.
Just as I readied to give him a piece of my mind, swift footsteps echoed down the corridor. The pace. The quiet confidence.
It could only be my husband.
Two things happened at once. First, my heart somersaulted, eager to see him again, though only three hours had passed since he’d feasted on me for breakfast.
Second, my nerves—already strained so taut I feared they’d snap my skin like rubber bands—jumped to attention.
Romeo strode in, larger and more forbidding than my father.
Than the kitchen.
Than his mansion.
How had I not noticed it before? That my husband—dressed to the nines with his too-sharp jaw and ashen eyes—was a weapon of war himself.
He shouldered past my father, caught my expression, and swung his glare on Shep Townsend.
A chill zigzagged between us.
“Have you an invitation to be here?”
Ego puffed up Daddy’s chest.
Earlier, wrinkles had pleated his forehead, betraying his frustration with me. At Romeo’s words, they ironed out. Shepherd Townsend refused to be schooled by a man half his age.