Total pages in book: 73
Estimated words: 67675 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 338(@200wpm)___ 271(@250wpm)___ 226(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 67675 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 338(@200wpm)___ 271(@250wpm)___ 226(@300wpm)
“Yes,” he said, raising his head to look at me steadily. “Landon isn’t good for you. He isn’t good enough for you. It’s one thing to have him in Emma’s life, but we – I – had to get you away from him before he ruined yours.”
The unspoken like he did before hovered in the air.
“You were worried about Landon ruining my life?” I gathered my hair up in my hands, like I was going to put it in a ponytail, but I didn’t have a holder. That was fine. I just wanted something to do with my hands other than reaching out to throttle my stepfather. “You terrorized me. Made me think I was running for my daughter’s life, but you’re worried about Landon?”
“I admit that my methods were extreme, but they were necessary. You wouldn’t have left him for anything less than Emma’s safety.”
That was true enough, but it didn’t justify what Robert and my mother had done. Nothing could.
“I’m not a child,” I said, my voice shaking with outrage. “If Landon turns out to be a mistake, it’s my mistake to make. My decision.”
Robert’s voice was filled with love, but there was a patronizing undertone when he said, “But it’s not just your life now. It’s Emma’s.”
I didn’t think it was possible, but my fury became even more incandescent. “Don’t you dare imply that I’m a bad mother. I’d do anything for Emma, and you know it.”
“Of course you would, but that doesn’t mean you’ll always do the right thing.” Robert spread his hands, palm up. “Parents make mistakes. You can see that I made a colossal one. If someone had steered me away from this mistake, I’d have been grateful.” His face was so open, so sincere. He believed every word he was saying. Even if he was covering for my mother, he’d supported her plan. He’d helped facilitate it. And now he’d take the fall for it.
Because he loved her that blindly.
I felt pity soften the edges of my anger. I didn’t love Landon blindly, and I didn’t want to. I always wanted to keep his attributes and flaws in clear view because this was the result of closing your eyes. He was a hard, stubborn man who was too cynical for his own good, but we would balance each other out.
If he would just forgive me.
“I have to go.” I stood abruptly, knocking into Robert’s knobby knees. “Emma and I are leaving.”
Forget booking first class tickets on the most convenient flight home. We would go to the airport now and camp out until the next flight. I didn’t care if we had to fly home in a cargo plane in the middle of the night. I had to get out of here. I had to get away from the man and woman who had so cavalierly manhandled my destiny and then had the nerve to tell me it was for my own good.
“Oh, come now.” Robert rose and followed me out of the office. “Be sensible. I know my methods were extreme, but surely you see how necessary they were.”
“Emma!” I called, then found her in the kitchen with my mother. Mom was tying on an apron, something that looked absurd over her Diane Von Furstenberg wrap dress. Emma was pulling out a bag of flour from the pantry. She looked over her shoulder at me with a grin. “Gram Gram said we could bake cookies.”
If there had been any doubt in my mind before, it was erased. My mother was not the type of grandmother who baked cookies. Not unless she sensed that she needed to make a little girl very, very happy so that it was hard for her mother to yank her away.
She thought I would see how happy Emma was and decide to wait an hour. Let the poor girl make some cookies. She thought she could buy more time for Robert to bring me around. She underestimated me.
“We’re not making cookies, Emma,” I said. “Say goodbye to Gram Gram.”
Emma’s face fell. Shock crossed my mother’s. “Surely we can–” she began.
“No.” My voice cracked like thunder across the kitchen. Emma even clapped her hands over her ears, just like she used to do in the storms that raged over Oahu. “We’re leaving now.”
We hadn’t brought much with us. Only what we’d packed for the week in Croatia. Upstairs, I grabbed my suitcase out and threw both Emma’s and my clothes into it. I made sure she grabbed her Elsa doll, but I didn’t let her take any of the trinkets she’d bought since we arrived. The tinkling sound of the little bells she’d bought from the souk sharpened the edge of my anger. She shouldn’t have been out shopping in Marrakesh. She should have been with her father.
I should have been with her father.