The words may have been ground out through clenched teeth, but he was willing to accept them. “Good girl. That is your punishment for sneaking out of the house and taking Daddy’s car. By the time we leave in the morning, I expect you will have a much clearer picture of your place in this relationship.”
To his shock, tears filled her eyes, washing away the anger burning in the golden brown. “We don’t have a relationship!”
“The hell we don’t.” Wrapping her ponytail around his fist, he used it to drag her head back, the slender column of her throat working for each breath. “You are mine, Julia, and it’s about time you accepted it.”
“You don’t want me.” Her protest was a hoarse whisper, but he could hear the pain in every syllable clear as day.
“Oh, babygirl.” Loosening his hold on her hair, he allowed her to stand straight. “How could you even say that?”
“Because…look at me!” Desperation tinged her tone as she flung her arms out wide. “I’m a disaster, Owen. I can’t give you what you want in a submissive. You deserve so much better than me.”
It hit him then, like a bolt of lightning, that she really had no idea how he saw her. Moving his grip from her hair to her arm, he all but dragged her over to the desk along the far wall and forced her into the chair. Trusting that Derek would have anticipated the desk being used for this exact purpose, he pulled open the top drawer and grinned at the neat stack of notebooks and pens tucked away there.
“What are you doing?” Julia demanded, her tone more annoyed than curious as he pulled a notebook from the stack and picked up a pen.
Without bothering to answer her, he carefully printed three sentences at the top of the page.
“Read these out loud.” Placing the open notebook in front of her, he tapped the page to indicate what he’d written.
After shooting him a withering glare, she lowered her gaze to the page. She let out a small, strangled gasp before jerking her head back up, her eyes filled with shock and doubt. “You don’t mean that. You can’t mean that.”
“I do. Read it, Julia Lynne.”
“But it’s not possible.”
“It is.” Crouching beside the desk so they were eye to eye, he poured every ounce of conviction he held into his words. “It is possible, and it is true. I know it may not feel like it right now, babygirl, but I promise you it is. I’d like the chance to prove it to you. Will you give me that chance?”
His knees were cramping by the time she nodded her agreement, but it seemed like a small price to pay, all things considered. Shifting her attention back to the notebook on the table, she read the sentences out loud.
“I am perfect exactly as I am. I am worthy of love. My Da —” Her voice caught, thickening with tears. “My Daddy loves me.”
Still squatting beside her chair, he raised a hand to her cheek, gently turning her head to face him. “I do, babygirl. I could spend the rest of the day listing out all the reasons I love you and still never be finished. I know you feel broken, and I know you feel as though you don’t deserve it. But I love you, Julia, and I will do everything in my power to help you see what an amazing person you really are. If you’ll let me.”
Julia
How the hell was she supposed to walk away from him after a speech like that?
Maybe you don’t have to.
But she did. Right? She wasn’t a Little, and eventually he would realize he’d settled for less than he deserved. It wasn’t fair to him for her to play along, knowing in the end they would just end up breaking each other's hearts.
“I don’t know,” she confessed in a whisper.
“What don’t you know, babygirl?”
“I don’t know if I can do this. What happens in a month, six months, a year, however long it takes when you realize what an awful mistake you’ve made?” Tears blurred her vision, obscuring his features, but she could still make out the curve of his smile.
“That will never happen. I can’t promise we won’t hurt each other from time to time and I can’t promise it won’t be hard work. But I can promise you that for however long I get to have you in my life, not a single second of it will be a mistake.”
A sob burst out of her before she threw her arms around his neck, weeping against his shoulder. Shifting their positions, he settled on the chair with her on his lap, gently rocking her as she cried.
“Poor little girl,” he murmured, pressing a kiss to the top of her head. “Daddy’s here. Daddy’s got you.”
By the time her sobs had slowed to the occasional sniffle, she was exhausted. Hollow, as if someone had simply scooped out all her emotions like a jack-o-lantern.
“Feel better?” he asked when she blew out a deep, shaky breath.
“A little.” Forcing her head up, though it felt like it weighed a hundred pounds, she searched his gaze for any hint of doubt. But in those pale pools of blue, she found only the love he’d spoken of and nothing more. “You really want me?”