Chapter 21
TWENTY-ONE
Logan
Shit, Elizabeth was right. Her father is here after all.
When she first mentioned it, I blew her off. Why would the owner of the New York Sliders be in Texas at a charity party organized by the Austin Aces? It doesn’t make any sense.
Then again, I guess if your daughter is dating one of the players for the Austin Aces, and you’re trying to ruin the relationship for her, you’ll make sure to pull some strings and attend said party.
“Elizabeth,” the man in question now says. He looks imposing as he looms over us, and he sounds even more intimidating than he looks.
I stand up a little straighter when his eyes move to assessing me. He nods at me but doesn’t acknowledge me otherwise. The act is defiant, and it rubs me the wrong way. I take a step closer to Elizabeth, wrapping a protective arm around her waist.
“Daddy,” Elizabeth says again, almost causing me to roll my eyes toward the sky. I’m assuming that wouldn’t go well with her father. “I didn’t expect you to be here…”
“I was invited,” her father replies. “And I thought it would give me an opportunity to talk to you. Ten months is a long time.”
I quickly do the math in my head. Has it really been that long since I was moved to the Aces?
When someone bumps into him from behind, he lets out a noise of annoyance.
“Maybe we can take us somewhere more private.”
He doesn’t ask if we’re good with it. Instead, he turns around and walks away from where we’re standing, leaving us with no choice but to follow.
For a split second, I hold Elizabeth back. She’s been a ball of nerves, and I wonder what this conversation with her father would do to her. I do have to consider that it might help her, too.
“I’m scared,” she whispers to me, like she could read my mind. “Please don’t leave me alone with him.”
I squeeze her hand in support, then we follow her father out of the room. When we reach the lobby, I notice him standing in the doorway of some conference room. As soon as he sees that we’re walking that way, he turns around and disappears inside.
I have mixed emotions about this man. I respect him for the incredible job he’s doing with the Sliders.
Over there, he is a force to be reckoned with.
I also respect him for being Elizabeth’s father.
With that said, I will never understand his decision to get me off the team only because I was seeing his daughter.
He never gave us a chance, and I can only imagine how furious he had to have been when he realized that she followed me here.
It must’ve been his nightmare come to life.
Walking in, I prepare myself for a good fight. The fact that we find him sitting calmly at the head of the table is a bit of a letdown.
Elizabeth, in her little bubbly and awkward way, walks around the table and stops in front of him before bending down to give him a quick hug, which he does return, albeit not as affectionately as she was probably hoping.
I pull out two of the chairs closer to him and wait for her to walk over to me, then wait until she sits down before taking my own seat. When I glance her father’s way, I notice a weird look on his face that almost resembles approval.
“You should’ve told me that you were coming, daddy,” Elizabeth chuckles awkwardly.
“I would’ve loved to,” he nods. “But it’s a little hard to do so when you haven’t been talking to me in months.”
I place a hand on her thigh under the table and give it a gentle squeeze of support, just reminding her that I am here with her, I got her back. Her entire body tenses under my touch.
She clears her throat, and when she speaks, she sounds a lot stronger than before.
“The last time we talked, you made it clear that you were not interested in talking to me unless it was to apologize about my relationship with Logan.”
I sit up straighter when her father’s eyes connect with my own at hearing my name. He squints his eyes at me as he takes me in, leaving me no choice but to prepare for a possible attack from him.
“My goal was to help you not make a mistake,” he tells Elizabeth. “But I do have to admit that I underestimated you both. I hadn’t expected you to follow him here, or for him to continue jeopardizing his career just to have you.”
My ears perk up at hearing that. “With all due respect, sir,” I intervene. “I am not a member of the New York Sliders anymore, and I am not breaking any rules by being with Elizabeth.”
It’s on the tip of my tongue to say that I did not break any rules while playing for his team either, but I figure that particular can of worms should remain closed.
A smirk forms in the corner of his mouth, making him look condescending and like he actually has something on me.
“You are no one in the league,” he reminds him. “Just because you don’t play for my team anymore, it doesn’t mean that I have no power over you. The professional league is a tight group, despite the very healthy competition in between teams.”
“Daddy!” Elizabeth’s gasp fills the room. “I can’t believe you’re doing this again…”
“Is that at threat?” I ask, even though he made it very obvious that it is.
He shrugs, uncaring of his daughter’s feelings or how his actions could destroy my life.
“It’s only a threat if you want it to be,” he says. “I warned you before to stay away from my daughter.” His tone is made of steel. “I thought sending you to Austin was far enough from her.”
My heart about stops in my chest. He actually had to approve my transfer to Texas. He had the power to send me back to the minors no matter what. He controlled my career, and, by proxy, my entire life.
“Daddy, I am an adult,” Elizabeth chimes in from next to me. “And I love…”
Her father turns cold eyes on her. “I hear you got fired from your job.”
She digs her fingernails into my hand, piercing the skin with the sharp tips. I’m pretty sure she’s drawn blood.
“I know you had some money,” he continues, “but you’ll be out pretty quick when you don’t have an income. For how long you think you can stretch it?”
His words anger me to the point where I could fly over this table and punch him in the face. In fact, I want to beat him into a pulp and not stop until they need to use his dental records to identify him.
“Elizabeth is doing just fine on her own.” My voice comes out as a growl, sounding threatening even to my own ears, but Mr. Brown doesn’t look impressed, quite the opposite.
“Yes,” he chuckles sarcastically. “I hear that she had to move in with you. That’s how well she does on her own. What will happen when you lose your job and run out of money? You two plan on being bums together, or what?”
“Daddy,” Elizabeth whispers in shock.
“With all due respect, Mr. Bown, what we do or don’t do is none of your business.”
His entire demeanor changes. All amusement is gone from his face when he sits up straight to stare me down.
“It most definitely is my business when you fuck around with my daughter’s future!” He slams a hand against the table.
“Your daughter is twenty-five years old,” I yell back. “You never gave her the chance to grow up and know how to be an adult!”
Elizabeth grabs me by the arm. “Logan…”
“My entire life has revolved around my daughter’s wellbeing,” he retorted, just as angry. “She would’ve never had any of the opportunities she got if it wasn’t for me!”
“Daddy…” Elizabeth tries to intervene.
We both ignore her while I point a finger at him. “You coddled her to the point of incapacitating her. You never showed her what it meant to live in the real world where no one gives you anything just because of who your father is.”
“Logan,” she cries out again, this time more desperate. I want to give her my attention, but at the same time, I don’t want to lose my momentum with her father.
“Yeah, she lost her job with the Aces,” I nod in confirmation. “It’s not because she wasn’t any good at it, but sometimes shit happens. It happens to all of us, and I’d bet money that it happened to you, too, back at the beginning of your career.”
I am so worked up, my chest hurts from the effort not to grab Elizabeth and walk out of here, right after telling her father to fuck off.
“Yeah, she lives with me now,” I continue. “I jumped at the opportunity to help her. I love her, and I am blown away by everything she left behind just to be with me. No one has ever done that for me in my entire life!”
I am breathing hard now, like I just ran a marathon.
In fact, I may even be close to a damn heart attack.
I need to pause my rant so I can recover.
Elizabeth still has her hand clenched onto my arm, but she suddenly lets go and stands up.
The force of it pushes her chair back, bringing our attention on her.
“I can’t believe how the two of you talk about me like I am not even in the room,” she cries.
I feel bad when I hear her tone that’s full of heartbreak. In my quest to tell her father off, I completely ignored her presence.
“I’m sorry, baby…”
“No,” she stops me. “I am done here. Can we go?”
I stand up right away. “We sure can.”
We both stare at her father who continues sitting in his chair, perfect poker face in place.
“I’ve always wanted you to be proud of me, daddy,” Elizabeth tells him. “But now that I’ve been away for a while, I realize how I never tried to do anything on my own. I depended on you for everything…”
“Just like you now depend on your boyfriend for everything,” he snaps at her. “What will happen when you two are over? Who is going to take care of you then, Elizabeth?”
A soft sob escapes the back of her throat. “Why are you assuming that we will not work out? Why can’t you be happy that I have someone in my life who loves and appreciates me? More importantly, someone who wants to be in my life.”
Mr. Brown shakes his head at her in disappointment. “You forced yourself into his life, Elizabeth. You didn’t give him the choice.”
She turns her head to look at me, devastation marring her features. This is something she mentioned before herself, something she’s been so worried that I felt as well. The fact that her father digs into her deepest fears brings her further down.
I cup her face and keep her still, not allowing her to look away when she wants to.
“Don’t let him get into your head like this, baby. I love you. I would’ve never asked you to move into my house if I didn’t want you there.” This is something I’ve been repeating to her for the last three weeks. “Please believe that.”
Her eyes are full of tears that are now flowing freely down her cheeks, messing up the makeup she was so proud of earlier.
“Can we leave now?” she asks. “I want to go home.”
Without letting go of her, I run my thumbs under her beautiful eyes that are now so sad looking.
Tonight was supposed to be a fun time. We would come and eat and dance, and have a good ol’ time.
Instead, we are stuck in a conference room with her father who is dead set on destroying our life together.
I kiss her gently on the lips, allowing for the kiss to linger. I can only assume that her father would shoot me dead if he had a gun on him at the sight of me kissing his daughter.
“Let’s go, Lizzie.”
I let go of her head and grab her hand, holding it tightly. We both turn to face her father, ready to say our goodbyes to him. As far as I’m concerned, I hope to never see him again for the rest of my life.
“You are going to regret this, Elizabeth,” he speaks as he addresses his daughter. “He is not going to make you happy, not like you deserve it.”
Elizabeth takes a shaky breath in before she lets it all out.
“Don’t you think I deserve to find that out on my own, daddy?”
His eyebrows go up in surprise.
“If this is a mistake,” she continues, “shouldn’t I be allowed to make it? I don’t want to live the rest of my life with regret… Alone… Like you?”
He is offended by that, no doubt. “I’m not alone,” he protests, maybe a little too quickly.
Elizabeth lets go of my hand and walks over to where her father is sitting. She touches his face with tenderness, her love and affection for him obvious.
“I love you, daddy, but you’ve always been alone since mom died.
Or you always refused to bring anyone around, most likely for my benefit.
” She smiles with sadness. “You enclosed us both in a bubble that I was dying to burst out of. Logan made me happy when we first met, and he still makes me happy now. I hope it works out between us. I think we owe it to each other to try, don’t you? ”
Mr. Brown stares at her for the longest time. I am convinced that she got through to him, but then he proves me wrong.
“You are making a mistake,” he repeats his words from earlier. “You are going to regret it, and you are going to come back to me to help you out,” he predicts.
At this point, I had enough of this. I walk to where he is at the head of the table and once again grab Elizabeth’s hand.
“We are going to go now,” I tell him. “Call us when you are ready to actually have a decent relationship with your daughter.”
His face goes blank, and I worry for a second that maybe I went too far. But then I remember all the spiteful things he threw at both if us, and all the pain he inflicted on his own daughter in doing so.
I walk us out, heading straight for the door where I hand the valet my ticket for my truck. As we wait, neither I nor Elizabeth say a word. Instead, we replay in our own heads the events from the last twenty minutes.
Longest twenty minutes of my life.