“No, Lance. You know what men like you always know. Enough to sound informed at dinner. Enough to make cruelty feel educated. Enough to ask about my past without getting your hands dirty touching it.”
Charm whispered my name, but I kept going because if this man wanted ugly, I could give him ugly without ever raising my voice.
“You asked about my family at that table like I lost them in a grocery store. You asked about hockey like it was a phase. You looked at my hands like ink was contagious. Then you pulled me in here and dressed up your threat with words like future and focus and stability because you don’t have the guts to say what you mean in front of your daughter.”
Lance’s jaw flexed. “You don’t belong with her.”
There was his truth, dressed ugly enough to respect.
Charm went pale in the doorway.
I smiled wider. “Was that so hard?”
Her mother whispered, “Lance.”
He ignored her. His gaze stayed fixed on mine, sharp and cold, the real man standing fully in the room now. “My daughter is talented. She has a future in design that people would kill for. Internships. Connections. A name that opens doors before she ever touches a sketchbook. You think I’m going to watch her risk all of that for a hockey player with a reputation and no foundation?”
I stepped closer to the desk, slow enough that he had time to feel each inch of it.
“I built myself out of nothing,” I said. “No father with a checkbook. No mother smoothing my path. No family name. No safety net. No one opening doors unless I kicked hard enough to make them unlock.”
Lance’s mouth tightened. “You have no foundation.”
Something in me snapped hot and ugly.
“No foundation?¡Yo soy la puta base!” I roared. “I am the fucking foundation.”
Charm’s breath shook.
Lance stared at me for a long second, and something close to hate moved behind his eyes. I could work with hate. Hate told the truth faster than manners ever did.
“You’re proving my point,” he said.
“No.” I pushed off the desk and straightened, rolling my shoulders once to keep the worst of my temper from climbing my throat. “I’m refusing to prove yours.”
Lance turned his attention to Charm then, and the shift pissed me off more than anything he’d said to me.
Because he didn’t look at her like she was a person. He looked at her like she was territory he needed to reclaim.
“Charm,” he said, his voice softening into something patient and poisonous. “Sweetheart, you need to think very carefully about what you’re allowing into your life.”
She stared at him.
Her fingers still gripped the door. Her face was too pale. Her eyes were wet, furious, scared, torn so wide open I could see every invisible string this house had tied around her ribs.
I waited.
That was the worst part.
I waited like an idiot. Not because I needed her to throw herself between us. Not because I needed her to scream or burn down her family or choose me in some dramatic speech that fixed everything. I just needed one sentence. One honest sentence in a room where her father had just stripped me down to everything he thought made me unworthy.
“Dile que importo. Dile que soy algo para ti.” I said the words softly, to her but also to myself.
Tell him I matter. Tell him I’m something to you. Tell him I’m yours. Tell him he doesn’t get to talk about me like that. Tell him anything, mi hada.
Charm’s mouth opened as Lance’s gaze sharpened on her.
Her mother reached for her arm from the hallway. “Darling, let’s not make this worse.”
