“I expect very little from you.” He plunged his hands into his pants pockets and said nothing more. “Should I write the check for your tuition and your car payment, or are you dropping out and leaving the BMW here?”
The car I could live without. Though I was told it was a birthday gift, not something he could use to control me. The tuition, however, I needed. College was expensive, and the money Paul gave me to work with Cade wasn’t enough to live on. My job at the rehab center paid, but not well. The only other option would be to move back here. If my options were swallow my pride or endure my dad, well…there wasn’t a choice at all.
“I know.”
“You won’t see him anymore.” Not a question, so I didn’t answer. I waited for him to demand I concede, but oddly, he didn’t. “You’re dismissed.”
I didn’t linger.
At my apartment, a five-minute drive from my dad’s house and seven minutes from school, I went in carrying my mail and the shipping box. Number one item on my to-do list was to quadruple-check I had changed my address everywhere.
I dumped the envelopes on the counter in my kitchen and, box in hand, walked through my clean, tidy third-floor place and into the bedroom of my dreams.
A dove-gray comforter, pale pink throw pillows, and an antique vanity in cream. Even though this was the very furniture from my bedroom when I lived in my father’s oppressive home, here it felt relaxing and soothing.
Sitting on my bed, I reached over and snatched a sharp metal nail file from a pen cup on my nightstand and sliced through the packing tape on the box. Inside I found the three books I’d ordered: Self-Help Plus:Stutter Therapy, A Therapist’s Guide to Better Speech, and Bad Boy Bodyguard.
I smiled down at the shirtless, tattooed, faceless man on the cover of the novel I’d purchased on a whim. Given that my mind was on Cade so often, the cover model’s sculpted muscles and tattoos decorating his arms reminded me of my grouchy patient. And since the image was cut off at the model’s firm, unsmiling mouth, it was easy to picture Cade there as well.
I stroked the cover, thinking of my father’s threats, his demand that I not see Cade any longer, lest Morton Montgomery pull the rug from beneath me. I could stop going to Cade’s. I could stop helping him and focus on school and homework and my job.
But as my eyes made their way to the other books I’d ordered, I felt a surge of determination at how much closer Cade seemed to real change. The kind of change that could produce a miracle—him speaking and going back to college, then law school so he could fulfill his dream of being an attorney. If I walked away from him, then what would he do? Giving up on him felt like giving up on myself—like giving my father his way.
Well. My father didn’t have to know. It wasn’t any of his business what I did. I didn’t live under his roof. As long as Paul didn’t rat me out, there was no way my father would know if I saw Cade again.
I tossed the romance novel onto my bed and picked up one of the other books instead. Then I kicked off my shoes, propped my head up with a pillow, and started learning how, exactly, to make Cade open his mouth and speak to me.