“Whatever you want to say to me,” Polly pushed, “you can say in front of Joel.”
“Fine.” His father pulled an envelope from his suit pocket and dropped it onto the coffee table. “We had a proposition for you.”
“Wehavea proposition for you,” his mother corrected, lifting the envelope and holding it out for Polly.
Right in front of him. They were offering her money to leave right in fucking front of him.
Polly shook her head. “Whatever it is, I don’t want it.”
“Don’t be foolish,” his mother scoffed.
“I’m not.” Her voice was calm. A hell of a lot calmer than he felt. “I assume it’s money. But I can’t be bribed to leave Joel.”
Joel snatched the envelope.
“Joel—” his mother started, but he’d already opened it.
Yep. A check. “Honestly, it’s lower than I would have assumed.”
His mother huffed and looked at Polly. “It’s plenty. She could retire from that little shop?—”
“Iownthat shop,” she corrected.
“It’s life-changing money for someone like you,” his father pressed.
“In exchange for her leaving me.” It wasn’t a question from Joel.
His mother looked back at him, not a scrap of remorse on her face. “Bronte told us you wouldn’t marry her because you’d met some woman who works in a coffee shop. We all know it won’t last more than a couple of months. So your father and I are just trying to speed things along to lessen the damage this is causing with the Simmonses.”
“Except I’m not taking that money,” Polly repeated. “I’m not leaving Joel.”
His father slammed his glass onto the bar table. “Of course you are.”
“You donotspeak to her like that!” Joel shouted, taking a step in front of her, toward his father. “You can wave your money around all you want, but it’s useless here. It can’t buy Polly. And it sure as hell can’t buyme.”
His father crossed the distance between them. He was the same height as Joel but lacked his son’s breadth.
“You listen here, boy, we have given you everything?—”
“Everything but what I needed.”
“What on earth does that mean?” his mother asked.
“It means, I didn’t need the fancy schools or the expensive cars. I neededfamily. I needed parents who showed up at my enlistment ceremony and BUD/S graduation. I needed family who called to check in rather than just to remind me of myduty.”
“Youwillmarry Bronte,” his father growled.
“No. I won’t.”
His father’s chest heaved, and for a moment, Joel thought his dad might hit him. He almost welcomed it, just so he could show his father that he was weaker than Joel in every way.
But Grant Dawson was a man of numbers, and he knew this wasn’t a fight he could win.
“We’re done here,” Joel finally said through gritted teeth.
“Sit down,” his father growled.
“No.”
