Chapter 15
FIFTEEN
Hush
“My parents do not hate you.”
I’d like to tell Gracie she’s wrong, but her family means a great deal to her and if she believed they welcomed me with open arms, then that’s what I’ll let her keep thinking. It was easier that way.
The first time her dad met me, there was no doubt, disdain dripped from him like a leaky faucet down his judgmental face.
Here I was, a man dating his daughter, covered in tattoos, and all he thought he saw was a felon.
I’m nowhere near that kind of reputation.
I was a contractor, builder, but for some reason I didn’t match up to his idea of whom his daughter should marry.
They came from money. Lots of it. And I, well, came from shit.
My mother tried her best after my father left.
She worked two jobs just to keep food on the table.
If I wasn’t so goddamned in love with Gracie, I would have told her father to fuck off.
As far as her mother went, she too, was also good at hiding her disappointment from her daughter who was blinded. Loved her family too damn much to think they wouldn’t accept whoever she brought home. Her parents’ dream was for her to marry a doctor, or a surgeon, as Gracie had told me.
As we stood outside facing the gigantic front door to her family’s mansion, I thought about how none of it mattered. How their opinions of me didn’t change a goddamn thing. Gracie was all who mattered to me.
The door swung open, and her mother greeted us with an apprehensive smile. She hugged her daughter, eyeing me over Gracie’s shoulder with a more subtle hatred than her father once had. “Liem. It’s good to see you. Come in, both of you. Hilda almost has dinner ready.”
I tilted my head in a welcoming nod and followed my Gracie inside. The foyer was lined with professionally done portraits of her and her parents. Gracie being the only child, I assumed was another reason they held her so closely.
“How’s work, dear? You’re looking thinner than usual. I hope you haven’t been too busy to eat.” Her mother threw the question over her shoulder as we followed her to the dining room.
“Busy as usual,” Gracie answered in a tired voice.
I snaked an arm around her waist as if she’d fall over from exhaustion. “She’s an amazing nurse.”
Gracie’s cheeks reddened while her mother shot me with a smile that didn’t quite reach her eyes.
“Is that my baby girl?” Gracie’s father walked into the room, then flicked his reading glasses on top of his head.
“Hi, Daddy.” Gracie broke out of my hold and into her father’s outstretched embrace. He too, like her mother, shot me with an unfriendly glare over his daughter’s back.
I shot one back.
“Please. Let’s sit. Can I have Hilda get you two a glass of wine or perhaps a beer, Liem?”
I clenched my jaw and felt Gracie tense beside me as we all sat at the dining room table. “Water is fine. Thanks.”
Her father glared at me from the head of the table, tapping his glasses onto the wood in a silent threat.
Gracie broke the uncomfortable silence. “Liem has been building a home. He’s in charge of… well, everything that goes into it. It’s incredible. It really is beautiful.” She patted my hand and then threw a warm smile at me.
There was a beat of silence. Except for the ticking of an old grandfather clock at the corner of the room.
“That’s lovely, dear.” Her mother reached for the bowl of roasted potatoes and held it up. “Potatoes anyone?”
I smirked at their obvious disinterest in what I did for a living. I wasn’t saving lives so they could give a fuck less.
“What kind of long-term stability is in the… building business, Liem?” Her father eyed me as he set down his wine glass and leaned back into his wooden chair.
“I make decent money if that’s what you’re asking. Sir.” I stressed the sir.
He caught the snark in my tone and his eye flinched in irritation. “Enough to support my daughter and a family?”
“Daddy.”
“It’s a simple question. One that needs to be addressed. Is it enough to support a family, Liem?”
“It’s enough.” I ground my teeth, and Gracie squeezed my thigh under the table.
“Liem makes good money, Daddy. And in case you forgot, I work too.”
“Yes. But one day you shouldn’t have to. You should be at home with the kids raising your family.”
Gracie wanted to say something but instead, clamped her mouth closed, going in for a sip of her wine.
As much as I agreed with her father on that aspect of wanting to take care of her and her not having to work one day, that wasn’t in the cards for Gracie. She loved her job and everything it stood for. She would never dream of giving that up permanently.
“Whatever Gracie decides to do, I’ll support her.”
That earned another loathing glare from both her parents.
Just what I needed.
The rest of dinner went as expected with their hatefulness being anything but subtle.
As we were leaving, Gracie’s father stopped us at the door. “Liem. I’d like to talk to you for a minute.”
I turned to his daughter, my Gracie, and she exchanged looks with her father.
“Daddy,” she warned.
“It won’t take long, sweetie. I love you.
” With a kiss on her father’s cheek, she gave me one quick look of apology before she headed to my truck in the driveway.
Her mother disappeared upstairs while her father basically sized me up, arms crossed over his chest. “My daughter is very special to us. She has a kind heart. She’s spirited.
Talented. And she’ll go far.” He paused.
“However, I believe you will hold her back in more ways than one.”
My blood heated at his words, but as much as the rage ran through me, so does the rejection. I worked hard to get where I am. To find a sustainable life for myself. And for some prick with an expensive suit to tell me I wasn’t worthy of his daughter…
I counted to five before I answered, “I love your daughter. There isn’t anything I wouldn’t do for her.”
“That may be true, but you’re not the… right fit for her. You’d be doing her a favor by ending it now. Before things get too involved.”
“No disrespect, sir. But we are already very much involved.”
His eyes hooded over, and his breathing sharpened. “What would it take for you to walk away, Liem? Hundreds. Thousands.” He pulled out a checkbook from his suit pocket.
This motherfucker.
I took a step forward. “I don’t give a damn what your opinion of me is, and you can take your money and shove it up your ass.”
Fuck this.
I turned on my heel without looking back and aimed for the only person who mattered to me in this god forsaken world.
My Gracie.
Back at home, I finally relaxed a little.
“Are you finally going to tell me what my father said to you?” Gracie took a blanket from the back of the couch and sat down next to me, encasing us both inside of it.
She had asked me twice on the way home what our conversation was about, and both times I’d ignored her.
“He told me how proud of you he was.” I would never tell her what was said. What her father asked me to do. What he bribed me to do. There was going to take a lot more than waving money in front of my face for us not to be together.
She glanced up from the side of me. “Liar. But I’m too tired to fight over it.” She yawned, laid her head down on my shoulder and we both slept.
With a jolt, I’m awake feeling a warm body next to mine. “Gracie?” I whisper, but when the female stirs, I realize it’s not her and only another dream.
A fucking nightmare.
My heart races and I stare down at Danika who’s lying inside the crook of my arm, the blanket still enclosing us. The sun begins rising but the house is still a frigid temperature.
The guilt stings my skin because I wanted her to be Gracie in that moment, wanted to wake up and find out it was all just a nightmare, but I’m left reminded once again that she is in fact gone. The reality of her not being here with me is an agonizing one.
The vanilla scent invades me but it’s not the same scent. It’s not fucking hers and all I want to do is be with her. Why can’t I be with her? My chest burns in despair, igniting me from the inside out.
Danika groans as she wakes, and I freeze. “Hush?” Her morning voice slithers its way into my veins.
This can’t happen. Being here with her like this. It can’t happen again. I move from the couch standing in front of her as she peers up at me from where she still sits on the sofa.
“I should take you home.”
She swallows, looking around, noticing the morning light shining through the windows. “Right. Yeah, of course.”
On the way back to Danika’s apartment, it’s silent. Neither one of us knows what to say.
When I woke and it was her curled up next to me and not Gracie, a piece of my heart shattered all over again.