Page 283 of Power Play

She was behind me, following now. Finding her voice now. Running after me across her perfect stone driveway now, after standing silent in that study while her father tried to carve me down to foster care, tattoos, bad blood, bad manners, bad odds, and a future too ugly to stand beside hers. No foundation.

I reached the truck and yanked the driver’s door open when Charm grabbed the edge before I could climb in.

“Don’t leave like this.”

I turned on her so fast she flinched.

Maybe she needed to. Maybe she needed to see the part of me her father thought he could name. The part raised by streets, bad houses, locked doors, and people who taught me early that if someone spit in your face and you allowed it, they came back to see what else they could take.

“Move,” I said.

Her throat worked. “No.”

I laughed, dark and ugly. “Now you’ve got a voice?”

Pain flashed across her face. “That’s not fair.”

“Don’t say fair to me.” I stepped into her space, forcing her back against the open truck door while she still gripped the metal like she could hold me there by force. “Don’t you fucking dare stand here after what just happened in that house and talk to me about fair.”

Her eyes filled. “I froze.”

“You failed me.”

The words hit her hard. Her mouth fell open, but nothing came out, and that only made the rage burn hotter.

“You failed me, Charm.” My voice dropped low enough to shake. “Don’t pretty it up. Don’t cry at me like that changes what happened. Don’t hand me your fear and expect me to carry it after you left me standing in that room alone.”

“I didn’t mean to.”

“I don’t give a fuck what you meant.” My voice cracked across the driveway, sharp enough to cut through the quiet. “Intentions don’t mean shit when I’m the one bleeding from what you didn’t say.”

She shook her head fast, tears slipping down her cheeks. “Ryan, please, I wanted to say something. I wanted to defend you. I just didn’t know how.”

“You didn’t know how?” I stared at her, my laugh coming out mean because if I didn’t laugh, I was going to put my fist through the side of my truck. “Your father stood there and called me chaos. Said I didn’t belong with you. Said your future was too good to risk on me. He used your dreams like a leash and wrapped it around my throat, and you want me to understand you didn’t know how to say, ‘He’s mine’?”

She covered her mouth.

“No.” I caught her wrist before her hand could hide her face. Not rough enough to hurt. Hard enough to stop the escape. “Don’t hide from me. Mírame.”

Her eyes snapped to mine, wet and wrecked.

Let her see the fury. Let her see the insult. Let her see the offended disappointment sitting beneath my ribs like a loaded gun. Let her see I wasn’t some wounded boy waiting for her to kiss my scars and call that love. I was a grown man with pride, and tonight she’d let her father put his boot on it.

“Do you have any idea how mad I am at you?” I asked.

Her breath shook.

“No, I don’t think you do. I don’t think you understand what you did because you’re standing here asking me to stop like I’m the one who made this ugly.” I let go of her wrist and pointed back at the house glowing behind her. “Fuck them, Charm. Do you get that? Fuck their opinion. Fuck their money. Fuck their table, their silver, their perfect family pictures, their connections, their country-club bullshit, all of it. I only cared what they thought because you cared.”

Her face crumpled.

“That’s it,” I said. “That’s the only reason I sat there. That’s the only reason I walked into that study instead of telling Lance Harlen to go fuck himself in front of his expensive whiskey. I showed up because you asked me to. I behaved because you mattered to me. I let them look because I thought you were bringing me there as your man, not as some test you weren’t ready to pass.”

“I wasn’t testing you.”

“No, you were letting them test you, and you failed spectacularly.”

She flinched.