Chapter Forty-Six Building a Fortress
HADLEY
By the time the sun rises the next morning, casting a pale, cold gray light through the apartment windows, I’m still curled up on the living room couch.
I’m buried beneath a thick, navy knit blanket I don't even remember grabbing, my body shivering despite the warmth of the room. My chest aches so much with every inhalation that it feels like my lungs are lined with broken glass. Every single time I close my eyes, the loop restarts. I see Julian’s devastated expression.
I hear his voice cracking as he tells me he loves me.
I feel the brush of his lips against my forehead right before he turns his back and walks away from me.
I flinch, my heart doing a painful spike against my ribs.
I called Lainey in a hysterical panic at three in the morning when I finally made my way home.
She didn’t answer, because obviously it was the middle of the night.
I left her a voicemail, then turned my phone off and crawled into bed, sobbing.
Who could be at my door now? Did Lainey somehow get a hold of Stacey or any of the other girls?
I force myself to sit up. My hair is a tangled, messy nest around my face.
My eyes are swollen nearly shut from hours of crying.
I drag the blanket around my shoulders and trudge over to the front door, pulling it open.
The breath catches in my throat.
It isn't the girls.
My father is standing in the hallway. We haven’t spoken or seen each other since our fight.
He’s wearing a navy designer suit, his silk tie loosened slightly at his collar, his coat slung over his arm. There are dark shadows under his sharp eyes, and his posture is uncharacteristically slumped. He looks just as spent and beaten as I feel.
For a long, agonizing moment, neither of us says a word.
Then, his voice lower and softer than I have heard it since I was a kid, my dad asks, “Hadley…can I come in?”
The lack of his usual authoritarian bite catches me off guard.
The last of my emotional reserves dissolves.
Before I can stop myself, I break down into a breathless sob again.
My shoulders shake as I step aside without answering, leaving the door open behind me.
Without a word, Dad moves toward me, wraps his arms around me, and pulls me into a hug.
I don’t resist, burying my face into his chest and crying softly for several moments.
Eventually, I get a hold of myself and pull away from him.
“Sorry,” I murmur.
“Don’t be,” he replies gently before moving past me.
Dad walks into the living room and sets his coat on the back of a chair. He looks around the small, modest apartment for a brief second, taking in the pile of textbooks on the table and the crumpled couch cushions, before his focus locks back onto me.
He clears his throat. His jaw tightens as he looks at my tear-stained face.
“I’m sorry, Hadley,” he murmurs.
I blink, wiping a tear from my cheek with the edge of the blanket. “What?”
“I’m apologizing,” he repeats, his voice steady.
“For our fight at the arena. For the things I said to you, and the things I said about Julian.” He lets out a tired sigh, pinching the bridge of his nose.
“Your grandfather heard everything between you and Julian at the arena yesterday.” I flinch, feeling terrible for my grandfather having to find out about Julian and me this way.
My dad doesn’t notice and keeps speaking, “The moment he got home, he called me and spent forty-five minutes tearing into me like he used to do when I was a teenager.”
That surprises me. Is Grandpa on our side? I fold my arms tighter across my chest. “Are you apologizing because Grandpa made you, or because you suddenly care about what I want? Or is it just because it’s easy now that Julian is leaving anyway?”
My dad sighs again, the sound old and full of a weariness that matches my own. He steps over to the armchair across from the couch and sits down, leaning forward with his elbows on his knees, and stares down at the carpet.
“Seeing the two of you together last week caught me off guard, Hadley,” he admits.
“Somewhere in my head, despite the fact that you’re twenty-one and a junior in college, you’re still the little girl who used to follow me around the firm.
Asking for snacks while I reviewed briefs.
I didn't think you were old enough to be living in some stranger’s spare apartment.
I certainly didn't think you were old enough to be falling in love.”
His expression shifts, his sharp eyes lifting to meet mine. “But after what Julian said to me in that hallway. After the call I got from your grandfather last night. I can’t pretend you’re still that little girl who needs me to protect her.”
The words break something open in my chest. A fresh wave of tears spills over my lashes, a choked sob escaping my throat as I lean toward him, letting him pull me into his arms again to hug me against his chest.
“He was staying,” I whimper, my voice trembling. “He turned Chicago down, Dad. He chose Denver. He chose me. Now he’s giving up his entire career, his entire life, and flying out tonight because he thinks protecting everyone else matters more than his happiness.”
Dad doesn’t say anything, and I carefully push out of his arms to look up at him.
“He's such a good guy, Dad,” I tell him, needing him to know. He's selfless and hard-working and so kind. He sees me in a way no one has before. Gives me the strength to be my own person. And I love you, Dad, I do, but I love him too."
For the first time in my twenty-one years of life, the pristine, untouchable facade of Liam Sullivan shatters.
“I am so, so sorry, Hadley,” he replies, his voice a raspy whisper. “I didn't hear you. I didn't listen to what you wanted. I was wrong.”
He looks down at his hands, his fingers flexing and unflexing together as he appears to struggle with what to say next.
“After your mother left and I got full custody,” he continues at last, “I convinced myself that the only way to keep you safe, the only way to fulfill my duty as a father, was to control every single possible outcome of your future. I thought if I built a fortress around you, nothing could hurt you. Somewhere along the way, I stopped paying attention to who you actually are.”
The raw honesty of the admission softens something inside me, even through the crushing pain still radiating from my heart. I pull the blanket tighter around my shoulders, my breathing slowing down as I listen to him.
“I was wrong about Julian, Hadley. I still hate the age gap, if I’m being entirely honest, and I still think professional hockey players are, by definition, reckless idiots who destroy their bodies for entertainment.”
I let out a short laugh, rolling my eyes through my tears.
“But,” Dad continues, “after learning about everything he’s willing to put himself through.
Just to ensure your reputation stays clean and your grandfather’s team stays out of the press?
I can’t deny what kind of man he is. A good one with more integrity than a lot of the people I work with every day. ”
This should be a relief. At last, he’s acknowledging that he’s been wrong and accepting a choice I’ve made for myself. However, his words only make the pain sharper.
“None of it matters, Dad,” I choke out, my shoulders slumping as the hopelessness takes over again. “It doesn't matter what kind of man he is. He’s still leaving, probably already has. He’s going to sit at that press conference later today and sign the paper, and then he’s gone.”
Dad pushes to his feet, his whole demeanor shifting back into the take-charge lawyer I know. He reaches into his pocket and pulls out his phone.
I blink, looking up at him in confusion. “Who are you calling?”
He looks down at me, his sharp eyes flashing with the same stubborn fire that I sometimes see in the mirror. A determined expression settles over his face.
“I’m calling your grandfather,” Dad declares, his thumb already scrolling through his contacts. “And then I’m calling my legal team. We’re going to fix this before that giant idiot blows up his entire life for no reason.”
He walks toward the kitchen counter, pressing the phone to his ear as the line begins to ring.
I stare after him, my jaw dropped, and for the first time since Julian walked out of the dark arena last night, the smallest flicker of hope catches in my chest. I hurry to grab my phone, only then realizing I never turned it back on.
Powering it up, it instantly starts going off with tons of messages from the girls.
Turns out, Lainey did get a hold of them when I didn’t answer…
and as my phone pings, an idea starts to form in my head.