“Stop justifying your actions,” I said.
“Stop fighting your fate. You’re not doing your father any favors. Even he wants you to submit.”
“How do you know that?”
“One of his Magnificent Mile properties caught fire this morning. Fifty kilograms of cocaine straight from Europe—poof! Gone. He can’t contact the insurance until he cleans up the evidence, and by then, they’ll figure out he tampered with the scene. He just lost millions.”
“You did that,” I accused, narrowing my eyes at him. He shrugged.
“Drugs kill.”
“You did that so they’d tell me off,” I said.
He laughed. “Sweetheart, you’re a nuisance at best and entirely not worth the risk.”
Before I slapped him—or worse—I stormed outside, my anger following me like a shadow. I couldn’t leave the house since I didn’t have a car or anywhere to go, but I wanted to disappear. I ran out to the pavilion, where I broke down, falling to my knees and bawling my eyes out.
I couldn’t take it anymore. The combination of my father being a tyrant and Wolfe trying to ruin my family’s and my life was too much. I rested my head against the cool white wood of the bench, wailing softly as I felt the fight leaving my body.
A calming hand caressing my back. I was afraid to turn around even though I knew in my gut that Wolfe would never seek me out and try to make things better.
“Do you need your gloves?” It was Ms. Sterling, her voice soft like cotton. I shook my head between my arms.
“You know, he is just as confused and disoriented by your situation. Only difference is he’s had years of perfecting how to hide his emotions.”
I appreciated her trying to humanize my fiancé in my eyes, but it hardly worked.
“I had the pleasure of raising Wolfe. He was always a clever boy. He always wore his anger on his sleeve.” Her voice rang like bells as she drew lazy circles on my back, like my mom used to do when I was young. I kept quiet. I didn’t care that Wolfe had his own baggage. I’d done nothing to deserve his treatment.
“You need to weather the storm, my dear. I think you’ll find, after your adjustment period, that you two are so explosive together because you finally met your challenges in one another.” She sat on the bench above me, removing traces of my hair from my face. I looked up and blinked at her.
“I don’t think anything can scare Senator Keaton.”
“Oh, you’d be surprised. I think you give him a healthy dose of things to worry about. He did not expect you to be so…you.”
“What does that mean?”
Her face wrinkled as she considered her next words. Seeing as Wolfe had obviously hired her because he felt attached to her after raising him, I at least had the hope in believing that one day, he’d warm up to me, too.
She offered me her hands, and when I took them, she surprised me by pulling me up and standing up at the same time, drawing me in for a hug. We were both the same height—tiny—and she was even scrawnier than me. She spoke against my hair.
“I think your love story started off on the wrong foot, but it will be magnificent precisely because of that. Wolfe Keaton has walls, but you’re already starting to break them. He is fighting it, and you. Would you like the secret to disarming Wolfe Keaton, my dear girl?”
I wasn’t sure how to answer that. Because a part of me sincerely feared that I would tear him to shreds given the opportunity. And I wouldn’t be able to live with myself knowing I’d hurt someone so profoundly.
“Yes,” I heard myself say.
“Love him. He will be defenseless against your love.”
With that, I felt her body disconnecting from mine, and she retreated to the glass doors, the vast mansion swallowing her figure. I took a deep breath.
The man had just destroyed a building in which my father processed drugs. And half-admitted it to me. That was more information than my father ever offered or admitted to. He also let me go to school. He also allowed me to leave whenever I pleased.
I glanced at my wrist watch. It was two in the morning. Somehow, I’d spent two hours in the garden. Two hours Wolfe must’ve spent reading through every message I’d ever received.
The late-night chill was seeping into my bones. Dejected, I turned to head back into the house. When I’d made my way back inside, I spotted Wolfe standing on the threshold of the open door. He had one arm propped against its frame, blocking me from getting in. I took measured steps toward him.
I stopped when I was a foot away.
“Give me my phone back,” I said. To my surprise, he reached into his back pocket and tossed it into my hands. I clutched it in my fist, still reeling from our latest fight but also oddly touched by the fact he stayed awake and waited for me. He started his days at five in the morning, after all.