She wasn’t sure why he’d popped up to see her the way he had, didn’t particularly want to know either.But for Trip to have warned her meant that the Jeb she’d met and the Jeb Ryan had told her about were one and the same.
Another enemy, she thought on a sigh, then blanked her mind and headed back to the torture that was being in the same house as her new mother-in-law.
Chapter 5
The moment Joseph Forsythe-Drew took a seat behind his desk, Ryan relaxed into the club chair opposite him.
El was too nervous to sit, and he watched her from the corner of his eye as she stood beside the window in front of her father’s desk, peering out onto the rolling lawns up ahead.
The minute they’d driven onto her parents’ land, she’d sunken into herself, something he’d noticed had only worsened with each feet that was swallowed up by the SUV that took them to the house.
Then, when she entered the property, it got worse.
This place sucked at her spirit, and after what Shawn had told him about her background, Ryan couldn’t exactly blame her.Even before they’d learned about a part of El’s heritage, her parents hadn’t exactly been the best examples.But hell, whose parents were?
He loved his mother, and yet she was the one driving him insane these past two weeks because she couldn’t seem to get over the fact he’d claimed a Pantera.
Trip’s dad had gone to jail more times than they could count, and Marc’s mother had been a duke’s mistress…
Nobody was perfect.Parents were just people, after all.
Still, Joseph Forsythe-Drew had that air about him that Ryan recognized.Well, his beast did.
It was a smarmy, sleazy kind of aura.Like the man was a born politician, which made no sense as Joseph had never actually gone into politics unlike his brothers or his sons.Still, he had that whole snake oil salesman shit down to pat.
The smile he shot at Ryan was just as greasy, then he turned his chair, swiveling it around until he was looking at El.
“What’s going on, sweetheart?”
She didn’t flinch, didn’t move by so much as an inch, but he felt her hatred of the endearment.
He wondered if it was the word itself or if it was simply because her father was the one who’d used it.
Then, he thought back to the times he’d used it himself, or his other brothers, and realized she hadn’t emanated that same distress then.
So, it was definitely because her father had used the word.
“I learned something recently, Dad.”Her jaw tightened, but she kept her gaze averted, staring out onto the garden beyond.
Her posture wasn’t defeatist.She stood tall and straight, her shoulders back.But there was a vulnerability about her that had his Lion on edge.
His beast didn’t think she was safe in this room; and that his Lion picked up on that told him loud and clear how shitty a father Joseph had been.
Shawn had told him about the man’s predilection for sleeping with his sons’ girlfriends—had even said that he’d caught Joseph coming onto a daughter-in-law.
The man was a grade A creep.
“What kind of situation, El?”He rocked back in his chair, managing to look concerned.Maybe he was.As disconcerting as it was, Shawn also said that Joseph cared for El more than her adoptive mother, Annabel, did.That Joseph cared, just not in a way that most would recognize as paternal.
The contradiction didn’t put him at ease exactly.
The chair squeaked as Joseph sat upright, then turned to look Ryan who simply shrugged.
This was down to El, not him.He would have gotten this over and done with faster, but she wanted to handle this herself.
Who was he to question that?
He wanted to protect her, not smother her.
