Epilogue #2
She followed her mother because this house had trained her feet to move before her mouth could argue, and I watched her walk away with her spine straight and her hands folded in front of her like good daughters didn’t bleed where anyone could see.
Lance waited until she disappeared through the doorway before he looked at me.
“Ryan, would you join me in my study for a moment?”
I pushed my chair back and stood. No hesitation. No glance around for permission. No little-boy nerves for him to feed on.
Charm turned from the kitchen doorway, and our eyes caught across the room. Her face had gone pale again, but I mouthed to her, I’m good, mi hada.
Her mouth parted like she wanted to say something.
She didn’t, and her silence followed me down the hall.
Lance’s study was exactly what I expected from a man who wanted every room in his house to remind people he mattered.
Dark wood. Leather chairs. Framed degrees.
Books that looked untouched but expensive.
A bar cart near the window with crystal decanters and amber liquor glowing beneath a brass lamp.
He closed the door behind us.
I didn’t sit and was happy he noticed that.
“Drink?” he asked, already moving toward the bar cart.
“No.”
He poured one for himself anyway, slow and deliberate, giving the moment room to become his.
I let him have the room because I had the power.
He turned with the glass in his hand. “You’re not what I expected.”
“I’m sure I’m exactly what you expected. I’m just less obedient than you hoped.”
The corner of his mouth moved. “Charm has always had a weakness for wounded things.”
My jaw tightened, but my smile came easier this time because he’d finally stopped pretending.
“Call me wounded again,” I said, my voice low, “and this conversation gets less polite.”
His eyes narrowed, but I stood my ground.
The space between us changed. It had been a study a second ago. Leather and money and fatherly concern. Now it felt like what it was—two men standing across from each other with one woman between them and neither one willing to step back first.
Lance took a sip of whiskey. “You think aggression helps your case?”
“I think men like you call it aggression when a man like me doesn’t lower his eyes.”
He set the glass down. “A man like you?”
“You’ve been saying it all night without using the words.”
His expression stayed controlled, but something meaner settled behind his eyes. “Then allow me to be clearer. My daughter has a future that doesn’t need to be complicated by a man still trying to prove he can outrun his past.”
I laughed once, quiet and sharp. “You really practice this shit, don’t you?”
His face hardened.
“You dress control up like concern, toss in a few words about her future, make me the threat, then stand back and pretend you’re just a father protecting his little girl.
” I stepped closer, slow enough that it couldn’t be mistaken for losing control.
“That might work on people who need your money or your approval. I don’t need either. ”
“No,” he said, his voice cooling. “But Charm does.”
That one landed exactly where he meant it to. Not in me. In her.
The room went still, and Lance watched my face like he wanted to see the moment I understood the game.
He wasn’t trying to scare me off. He was telling me he didn’t have to.
Charm was the leash. Her school. Her comfort.
Her family. Her fear of disappointing people who had spent her whole life teaching her that love came with conditions and obedience kept the peace.
I smiled at him, and this time I let the ugly show.
“You’re not a protective father,” I said. “You’re a coward with leverage.”
His glass hit the desk a little too hard.
“Pinche madre. Finally.” I gave a bitter laugh.
“Careful,” he said.
I moved closer, stopping on the other side of his desk. “You don’t scare me, Lance. I broke you faster than your country-club buddies would sneer at you for. You crave control, and you’re powerful when you have it. But you forget some men will never heel.”
“You should consider whether I can make life difficult.”
“For me?” I asked. “Get in line.”
“For her.”
The answer came fast enough to tell me he’d been waiting to use it.
My hands flexed at my sides. I let him see that too. Let him see the leash on me wasn’t fear. It was choice. It was Charm. It was the fact that I’d promised myself I wouldn’t make her regret bringing me here by giving her father the scene he wanted.
“You don’t get to use my love for her as a weapon,” I said.
“I’m asking you to consider what loving her actually requires.”
“No, you’re asking me to leave so she doesn’t have to choose.” My voice dropped lower. “You’re asking me to hurt her for you and call it noble so she won’t resent you.”
His mouth flattened.
I leaned in, hands braced on the edge of his desk now, close enough that he had to look up to hold my stare.
“Listen to me carefully. I’m not some boy you can shame out of your house.
I’m not the foster kid at your table hoping the rich family lets him stay for dessert.
I know exactly what I am. I know what I’ve survived.
I know what I’ve earned. And I know your daughter doesn’t look at me like I’m beneath her until someone in this house reminds her she’s supposed to. ”
Lance’s eyes flashed. “Charm is young.”
“Charm is grown.”
“She’s impressionable.”
“She’s trapped,” I snapped, then pulled myself back before my voice carried beyond the door. “And you like her that way because scared daughters are easier to control than brave ones.”
The study door opened before Lance could answer.
Charm stood in the doorway.
Her face was pale. Her hand gripped the brass knob, and her eyes moved from me to her father, wide and wet and furious in a way I’d never seen on her.
For one second, nobody spoke.
Then Lance straightened like he hadn’t just been carved open in his own study. “Charm, sweetheart, this is a private conversation.”
“No,” she said, but the word shook. “It’s about me, so it isn’t.”
Something hot moved through my chest.
“A la chingada. Sí, mi hada. Defiende a tu hombre.”
Charm’s eyes snapped to mine, and I knew she understood enough.
I laughed darkly, dragging my thumb over my bottom lip, then straightened my collar like I’d suddenly remembered where we were. Folding my hands in front of me, I gave Lance the kind of smile men like him usually paid lawyers to avoid.
“Oops. My Chicano side slipped out.” I looked at Charm. “Sorry. Let me translate. I told her—fuck yes, my fairy. Defend your man.”
Charm’s breath caught, and holy fuck, the way color climbed her throat almost made me forget we were standing in her father’s study with all his polished bullshit still breathing down our necks.
Almost.
Lance’s expression tightened. “That was unnecessary.”
“No,” I said, turning my attention back to Charm because she was the only person in the room who mattered. “What’s unnecessary is using your daughter to threaten me because you don’t have the cojones to threaten me directly.”
Charm sucked in a sharp breath, and Lance went so still the whole room seemed to take one step back with him. He didn’t like that. Men like Lance loved power until someone dragged it into the open and made it ugly where everybody could see.
“You mistake restraint for fear,” he said.
I smiled, slow and mean. “No. I see you for what you are. You’re using your daughter as a weapon against me because you’re a coward.”
Charm made a small sound.
I didn’t look at her. Not yet. If I looked at her, I’d soften, and there wasn’t a soft place left in me for this man.
Lance stepped closer to his desk, one hand resting against the polished edge. “You’re very bold for someone standing in my home.”
“I’ve stood in worse places than this.”
He looked me up and down. “I don’t doubt that.”
The insult slid clean under the words. I felt Charm flinch from across the room, but I didn’t give Lance the satisfaction of reacting to it.
“That’s your problem,” I said. “You think where I come from is the worst thing about me.”
His eyes cooled. “I think where you come from taught you to confuse aggression for strength.”
I laughed beneath my breath because, holy fuck, men like him always found the same words.
They heard a man’s voice drop and called it aggression.
They felt him refuse to lower his eyes and called it disrespect.
They put a leash in their hand, then acted shocked when something with teeth didn’t heel.
“You don’t know a damn thing about what made me strong,” I said.
“I know enough.”
“No, Lance. You know what men like you always know. Enough to sound informed at dinner. Enough to make cruelty feel educated. Enough to ask about my past without getting your hands dirty touching it.”
Charm whispered my name, but I kept going because if this man wanted ugly, I could give him ugly without ever raising my voice.
“You asked about my family at that table like I lost them in a grocery store. You asked about hockey like it was a phase. You looked at my hands like ink was contagious. Then you pulled me in here and dressed up your threat with words like future and focus and stability because you don’t have the guts to say what you mean in front of your daughter. ”
Lance’s jaw flexed. “You don’t belong with her.”
There was his truth, dressed ugly enough to respect.
Charm went pale in the doorway.
I smiled wider. “Was that so hard?”
Her mother whispered, “Lance.”
He ignored her. His gaze stayed fixed on mine, sharp and cold, the real man standing fully in the room now.
“My daughter is talented. She has a future in design that people would kill for. Internships. Connections. A name that opens doors before she ever touches a sketchbook. You think I’m going to watch her risk all of that for a hockey player with a reputation and no foundation? ”
I stepped closer to the desk, slow enough that he had time to feel each inch of it.