“It doesn’t matter,” I said to Isaac. “We need to leave.” I pointed to the door for emphasis. “Right now, Isaac. I don’t know what Da—whatthat manhas been saying to you, but he’s one wrong word away from having a platform boot up his arse.”
Isaacstilldidn’t move, so I turned the full force of my glare back on Roman.
“Diva,please,” Issac whispered. “Please calm down so we can talk.”
Calm down?
Calm down?
Roman leaned down and kissed my sugar pop on the top of the head. “It’s okay, little lamb. Just let her get it out of her system.”
There was a certain, awful feeling that I always got when someone told me to calm down or to be quiet or that I wastoo much.
Stop making a scene. Don’t park there. Quit talking in the queue.
You can’t accost the salespeople at Harrod’s just for saying nothing cute comes in your size.
It was a high-key burst of anger that would have shattered glass if it had come from Mariah’s mouth, a bright burst of burning rage that made me want to scratch eyeballs out of sockets and pull entire fistfuls of hair out by the roots.Thatwas the monster Daddy Roman had just unleashed. Because yes, the words had come from my boo, but I knew Isaac better than I knew myself, and he never, ever would have uttered such blasphemy ifsomeonehadn’t filled his head with lies and false promises.
And I simply couldn’t,could not, be held responsible for that someone’s well-being any longer.
Roman started moving toward me again, but I was better prepared for his shenanigans this time around.
I crouched, ready to do a flying kick at his bollocks if he tried to throw me over his shoulder again.
Luckily for him, he stopped about a meter in front of me… and held out his hand.
“Come with me, sweetheart.”
What?
No.
We were fighting.
He washorrible.
“Diva,” he said, his voice as firm and steady as the hand he was still holding out to me. “Jules.”
I didn’t know what kind of game he was trying to play, but I wasn’t having it. No ma’am. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice… whatever. It wasn’t going to happen.
“Go to hell,” I rasped, my voice suddenly as scratchy as the morning after I’d deep-throated an entire Olympic-hopeful swim team. “I already told you, we’re leaving.”
Maybe it would actually happen if I said it out loud enough times.
Isaac still hadn’t shown any signs of budging from his spot, though. And Roman was still standing there with his hand out, hounding me like the world’s hottest bill collector. Like if he thought he just waited me out, he’d eventually get his way.
But nuh-uh. Nope. Not happening. Not in this life or the next. Not ever.
“Isaac, tell him we’re leaving,” I said, taking a few steps closer to them, because maybe Isaac simply hadn’t heard me right before.
Daddy still didn’t move.
Roman.Roman, I meant.
I knocked his hand away. Except, somehow, it closed around mine and I forgot how to let go. Forgot it all the way into the suite’s plush living room, and all the way over to the sofa, the same one he’d sat and watched me make out with Isaac on the night before.
“I’ve got you,” he said again, rubbing it in as he sat down right in the middle of the sofa, never letting go of my hand. “Come here now, gorgeous. Let Daddy take care of you.”
