Dare to Love by user (read dune TXT) 📗

“He’s not at all the type of man for you. He’s beneath you…beneath us. You could do much better.”

Disdain dripped off her father’s words. And prejudice. Maybe she’d avoided seeing

it all these years, but there it was, plain as day.

“You’re a snob, Daddy. You don’t even know Jake. You haven’t even given him a chance.”

Her father lifted his chin. “Nor do I intend to. It would be a waste of my time. Just as

he’s a waste of yours.”

Tears threatened, and she hated that. Having any further conversation with her father

would be useless. She knew she needed to leave before she said something irreparable,

something that would tear the fabric of her relationship with her father. She turned and

fled from the room and went to her own wing, shutting and locking the door. She threw

herself on her bed, feeling like the princess locked in the tower.

Okay, maybe she was being melodramatic, but her father’s interference had to stop.

Jake had been right when he’d told her she was too old to be living with her father. She

hadn’t counted on him manipulating her life to this extent.

She had to talk to Jake, to set things straight between them, let him know that her father had been wrong about her and Alex. It was time to change a few things about her

living situation, about her life with her father.

It was time to stand on her own.

The next day she knew better than to try and see Jake at the construction site. No way was she going to risk having the door slammed in her face again. She could only

imagine what must be going through his head, what he must have thought after his

conversation with her father last night.

She’d avoided her father the entire day at work. Fortunately, spending the morning in

court helped. After she went to lunch, she spent the remainder of the day locked up in

meetings with a few of the junior attorneys going over pending casework. By the time the

day ended, she had managed to successfully dodge her father. She raced home, changed

clothes and was out the door before her father came home from the office.

Now she just had to convince Jake to see her. She pulled in his driveway, relieved to

see his truck parked there and his garage door open. She heard the sound of mowing in

the backyard and went through the gate, petting Rascal who bounded up to greet her.

Rascal led her to Jake, who was just finishing up his lawn work. He turned when he saw

her, and frowned.

Shirtless, covered in grass, sweat and dirt, he looked magnificent.

“What are you doing here?” He brushed past her to push the lawn mower toward the

front of the house.

She followed, watching as a grabbed a towel and wiped his face. Yeah, still grimy.

Still gorgeous. “I…I came to talk to you about last night.” Ignoring her, he turned on the hose and began to wash down the mower.

“There’s

nothing more to talk about. Your father set things straight.” Undaunted, she stepped closer so he could hear her over the powerful noise of the

water stream. “And who are you going to believe, Jake? Me or my father?”

“I saw you at the restaurant with Alex.”

How nice of her father to tell Jake where she and Alex had been having dinner.

“Yes,

I went out to dinner with Alex.”

Jake turned off the faucet and turned to her, then looked around the neighborhood.

Other homeowners were washing cars or doing their own lawn work. “Let’s take this

inside.”

She nodded and followed him through the garage and into the house. Jake stopped in

the kitchen to grab two beers, opened both and handed her one. He leaned against the

counter while she took a seat at the kitchen table.

“I went to dinner with Alex. He was at the house when I got home last night. I was…admittedly a bit hurt about lunch yesterday.”

“So you decided to dump me and go back to Alex just because I couldn’t have lunch

with you?”

“No.” She sighed, feeling like neither of them were seeing things clearly. “My father,

and Alex, can be rather insistent.”

“I hardly see you as a pushover, Lucy.”

“You’re right. It was stupid. I feel nothing for Alex and should have said no. I felt manipulated and cornered and I shouldn’t have gone with him. But I did. And I had a

miserable time. Alex droned on and on about himself and his life and I couldn’t wait for

dinner to be over.”

“I saw him kiss your hand.”

“I almost lost my dinner over it. I was so shocked when he did that it took me a full

minute to register what he was doing. I jerked my hand away as soon as I could recover.”

“Uh huh.”

Really, the man’s jealousy was exasperating. And kind of thrilling, too. “I made him

take me home right after that. And when my father told me you had come by, and what

he’d told you, I was furious with him.”

“Yeah, I’ll bet that hurt his feelings.”

She rolled her eyes. “Look, Jake. I can’t keep apologizing for my father. Only for myself. I’m sorry for barging in on you at lunch yesterday. I’m sorry I went out to dinner

with Alex. Both were bad moves on my part. But I can’t apologize anymore for my father. He’s part of me. He’s part of my life and my career. If you and I are going to have

a relationship—”

“Is that what you think we have, Lucy? A relationship?” Stunned, she didn’t know how to answer that. “I don’t know. I thought we were starting one. Was I wrong?”

He stared at her for so long she shifted in her chair, growing uncomfortable. She laid

the beer on the table and stood. “Maybe I shouldn’t have come.”

“Wait.”

He moved toward her, his chest still glistening with perspiration. She sucked in a breath and held it as he stopped in front of her.

She didn’t want to lose him. She didn’t want to hear him say goodbye to her.

“I’m sorry, Lucy. I’m a bad tempered sonofabitch sometimes.