“She’ll do?” Oliver repeats.
“It’s cleaner when the companies stay in the family. Now, we’ll need to have a discussion about why you let her kidnap you?—”
“Oh my god, what the fuck is wrong with you?” I yelp.
Yeah.
Me.
Turns out, fear morphs into rage pretty quickly when my father’s forcing himself back into my life.
“She didnotkidnap me,” Oliver says, low and tight. “We’re both here because we want to be.”
“Youwantto be here,” my father repeats.
“Said that, didn’t I?”
“Withher.”
I tense.
Oliver snorts, but this snort—it’s dangerous. “WithDaphne. Yes. That’s her name. And Ilikebeing with Daphne.”
“Youlikethis? That’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever?—”
And that’s the last thing he says before Oliver’s fist connects with my father’s face.
Acrunchechoes over the parking lot, even over the sounds of karaoke rolling out of the bar, and then Oliver has my father shoved back against the car. “You don’t deserve her, you worthless piece of shit.”
My father’s security guys grab at him, but Oliver shakes my father again. “You’re going to get in this car and go back where you came from and you’re going to—let go of me.Fucking let go of me.”
I grab at one of the security guys trying to pull Oliver off my father. “Let go of him.”
He shoves me away.
So I leap on his back. “I said let go of him.”
Oliver’s fighting with my father’s other security guy.
I’m being thrust back against our SUV.
No idea what my father’s doing.
Probably cowering and hiding like the pampered asshole that he is.
I vaguely register that people are starting to spill out of the bar to watch, because I’m struggling to catch my breath.
This isn’t the answer.
I know brawling isn’t the answer.
But hell if I’ll let them do anything bad to Oliver.
“I don’t want to hurt you, Daphne,” the security guy I’m trying to strangle says.
“Thenlet us go.”
Oliver lands a punch on the other security agent. “Leave us the fuck alone,” he barks.
