Chapter 46
KATE
The trip to upstate New York felt like a march to our execution this time. My parents met us at the airstrip again, but the warmth and enthusiasm of just a few days ago were long gone, replaced by cold glares and snide remarks.
When I’d called Abram to ask for this meeting, I hadn’t realized he would tell my parents. Or that they would be waiting for us, but as soon as we’d landed, I’d seen my dad’s car and I’d known we were in for it.
Nate had had all of about two minutes to prepare himself for the onslaught, but he was doing okay so far.
The tires hummed steadily against the road, my father driving like he had a vendetta against the speed limit.
His jaw and shoulders were set so tight I really thought something might crack if he didn’t ease up soon.
The silence that had fallen in the car didn’t last, my dad starting in on Nate again with his knuckles white on the steering wheel.
“I trusted you, Westwood. I vouched for you. Do you understand that? My name is tied to yours now. You’ve not only humiliated my daughter and broken her heart, but you’ve also wrecked my reputation. ”
Nate didn’t answer. Smart man.
“I put my rep on the line, a reputation I’ve worked for my entire goddamn life, because I thought you were honorable. Dependable. Not the kind of man who drags scandal in behind him like a fucking parade.”
Nate had been relegated to the back seat, with my mother acting like a prison guard beside him. Obviously, my father had decided that he deserved to be physically demoted and monitored. He took everything my dad was saying without defending himself, arguing, or even bringing the truth into it.
“I don’t know what kind of mess you’ve gotten yourself into, but dragging my daughter into it—”
“I was already in it,” I snapped, deciding to step in. “Nate didn’t drag me into anything.”
Dad barely paused before he scoffed. “Stop defending him, Katie. A man who’s done this once will do it again. I don’t care what he told you or what pretty flowers or jewelry he bought to make up for it.”
“Enough.” I stared out the window, my hands clenched in my lap, but I finally managed to tune him out. We needed to stay focused.
Fields blurred past in long streaks, so wide open and pretty that I suddenly wondered if we should just move out here.
Or perhaps to Nate’s place near the border.
I could so happily spend my days running through meadows and forests, fishing on the lake, far away from the press and all this familial nonsense.
Dad smacked his hand against the steering wheel, the sound snapping me back out of my head. “And this Emma person. Don’t even get me started on her.”
“Oh my God,” I muttered.
Dad shot me quick glare. “What? He needs to break it off with her, Katie. Today. Yesterday. Fuck, he should’ve done it before he ever put a ring on your finger. It’s unacceptable. I don’t care if it’s an arranged marriage. It’s still a vow to—”
“Pull over,” I said suddenly, the words coming out sharp enough to cut glass. “I said, pull over.”
“Excuse me?” Dad sniffed. “We’re not there yet. Abram is expecting us. Although he thought it would only be you. We’re ready to support you, Katie. No matter what.”
“Pull. Over. Now.”
He didn’t do it at first, but that was a mistake. Nate might be able to take an entire half-hour drive being railed on for something he wasn’t even doing, but I was done. Even if we hadn’t come here to talk to my dad, I wasn’t going to let him keep talking to Nate like that.
I’d been trying to follow my husband’s example until now, just shutting up until we got there, focusing on what we’d come here to do. But Dad was going too far and I’d had enough.
“Daddy,” I said, turning toward him fully now, my voice rising whether I meant for it to or not. “If you do not pull this car over right now, I swear I will grab the wheel and do it for you.”
Finally, he huffed out an angry breath but flicked on the indicator anyway, jerking the car onto the shoulder. We hadn’t even fully stopped before I was twisting in my seat to face him.
“This is ridiculous,” I said. “You need to stop.”
“This is serious,” he retorted.
“I know it’s serious.” My hands flew up in frustration. “I’m the one living it!”
“Well, then maybe he should have thought about that before he—”
“I love him.” The words came out firm and sure.
My dad blinked hard before his expression softened. “Oh, honey. I’m so sorry. I didn’t realize, but it’s going to be okay. You’re going to move home and we’re going to—”
“No,” I said immediately.
From the back seat, Nate was watching me with a careful expression on his face, but he still didn’t interrupt. I twisted slightly to look at him. He gave the subtlest of nods, and I sighed.
“I’ve loved him for years, Daddy.” My voice shook, so I drew in a deep breath that didn’t help at all. “Since long before any of this. Before the contract. Before the wedding. Before you and Abram came along and sold me for a lucrative business deal.”
Dad drew his shoulders back. “That’s not what happened.”
“You two made decisions for us just because it was what was best for you, without giving us a chance to voice our opinions. If you had listened you might have learned something.”
Dad blinked at me like he’d never seen me before. “What are you talking about?”
I swallowed past the growing lump in my throat. This part had always been mine. Just mine. My secret world. My safe place. The one thing that belonged entirely to me.
“Nate and I met online years ago,” I explained.
“We’ve been talking every single day for over half a decade.
At least once a day. Sometimes for hours.
Sometimes only a couple of quick texts. But we told each other everything.
I am Emma, Daddy. Nate didn’t know my real name until a couple weeks ago and we had never met in person. ”
Well, we told each other almost everything, but I wasn’t about to tell him about all that right now.
“I didn’t tell you because it was mine. It was my thing.
My special thing, and I didn’t want anyone touching it.
” I stared straight ahead as I said it, unable to look at either of them.
“I didn’t want opinions, advice, or questions.
I just wanted it to be mine. And I knew people wouldn’t take me seriously if they knew I was in love with a man I’d never met. I had to protect myself.”
“With your attitude in business I doubt anyone would not take you seriously,” Nate mumbled dryly from the back seat.
I twisted around so fast, I nearly gave myself whiplash. “Oh my God, shut up, Nate.”
He held up both hands in surrender, looking entirely unapologetic. “I’m just saying—”
“No,” I snapped. “You’ve said enough. It was your big mouth that got us into this asinine mess in the first place. And for the record,” I said, turning fully in my seat so I could look at both of my parents at the same time. “You have absolutely no business being upset with Nate or with me.”
My mother blinked at me. My father looked like he might actually combust, but my pulse was thundering in my ears and I wasn’t backing off now. No matter how uncomfortable this was for him to hear.
“You forced our hands. You put us here. Did you ask if we wanted this? No. Did you ask if we were with other people? No. Did you even give us time to sort out our own lives and whatever might’ve been going on with them before you insisted on a marriage? Also no.”
Dad opened his mouth, but I pointed a finger at him.
“Not. Another. Word. All of you were pushing so hard for the deal that you forgot to even consider that we might have lives or stuff going on, and we went along with it anyway. You don’t get to be upset with us just because it’s turned out that we did, in fact, have lives before all this. ”
He froze so completely, it was almost impressive, but for a long moment, no one said anything. The engine idled, a low vibration humming through the car, and the wind rattled faintly against the windows, but there was no sound outside of that.
Finally, Dad leaned back in his seat with a long, controlled breath, like a man forcibly stepping away from the edge of a cliff. Excellent. Kate: 1. Pete: 0.
Satisfied that he was going to keep his trap shut, I glanced back at Nate. He was watching me with an expression that hovered somewhere between impressed and deeply entertained, and while it was unacceptable, I supposed it wasn’t unwarranted.
I turned back to my father. “You owe him an apology.”
Dad’s head snapped toward me. “Katie—”
“You. Owe. Him. An apology.”
My mother made a small noise of agreement that she probably thought was subtle, but it wasn’t. Dad looked like he’d rather eat gravel, but after a long moment, he shifted in his seat and looked in the rearview mirror.
“Nate,” he said gruffly. “I may have spoken out of turn and I apologize.”
May have. I narrowed my eyes, but he hadn’t been talking to me, so I left it to my dearest amused husband to deal with.
There was a pause, but then Nate, who apparently had a death wish, gently spoke up. “Thank you, sir.”
Sir. Oh, he’s enjoying this way too freaking much. I twisted around to glare at him, but he just batted his lashes at me, feigning innocence.
Shaking my head, I turned back around and nodded at the road. “Good. Now drive.”
Dad frowned. “Drive?”
“Yes, drive,” I said. “Because we have a company to save and Nate’s reputation to repair, and sitting on the side of the road is not accomplishing either of those things.”
He hesitated for only another second before pulling back onto the road.
The rest of the drive passed in a much quieter sort of tension.
My mother kept sneaking glances at me like she wasn’t entirely sure who I’d become in the last ten minutes while my father drove with rigid focus, not looking away from the road at all.
Meanwhile, I stared straight ahead, trying to prepare myself for the moment we’d get to my godfather’s house.
We would have a hell of a fight ahead of us once we arrived, trying to convince him that the truth was, in fact, the truth, but for now, there was only one thing that I kept turning over in my head.
I love Nate Westwood.
I believed him, too. That he would’ve chosen me, but I wasn’t naive enough to think it would be blue skies and roses from here on out. Ultimately, what I’d learned from all this was that we still had a ton of shit to work through.
Knots of feelings and emotions to untangle. Heaps of questions that had to be asked before they broke us apart later on.
In a way, the bomb that had exploded on Sunday had only been the beginning, the sign that it was time for us to actually sit down and talk, no matter how many meetings we had to reschedule to do it.
When Abram’s long driveway finally came into view, winding through tall trees toward the estate, I exhaled slowly.
Showtime.
This was what we’d come here for, but when my gaze drifted to the rearview mirror to meet Nate’s gaze, I found him and my father locked in silent conversation. They were looking at each other, but not talking, scowling, or moving.
Just some quiet, almost knowing conversation passing between them like they’d formed some kind of alliance in the last thirty seconds. Absolutely not.
Nate had the audacity to look amused when he caught me watching them. Dad looked suspiciously calm. Traitors.
The car rolled to a stop in front of the house and I unbuckled my seatbelt with sharp, efficient movements, snarling at them before I opened my door.
“Shut up. Both of you. I wasn’t being dramatic.
I was simply setting the record straight in a way that brooked no argument. Now, are you coming or what?”
Then I shoved the door open and stepped out, fully prepared to march inside and fix the disaster all three of them had been part of creating.