Sweet Rome (Sweet Home) (26 page)

Sighing, I answered, “One guess.”

“Parents?”

“Bingo.”

“What now?” I caught the worry in her voice.

“They want to meet you. They’ve invited us to dinner tomorrow night. They’re notching up their tactics.”

She actually reared back in shock. “Really? I never thought they’d want to meet me… ever.”

“Me either.” Her shock waned at that comment and hurt took its place.

Pulling her closer, I said, “Hey, I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings, but they’re not happy about us, Mol. They’ve made no secret about that.”

“I know. It just sucks.”

“I’m telling them no,” I said, finally making up my mind. Mol was far too important to me to put in jeopardy.

Sitting up, determination on her face, she said, “No. Screw it, let’s go. Show them how good we are together. By seeing us, it might help them understand.”

“They won’t understand and I won’t have them attack you. I’ve coped with it for years; I’m not watching you take the same treatment. You’ve seen my daddy in action. He doesn’t tolerate disobedience. My momma’s vindictive and cruel. Why do you want to officially meet people like that?”

Smiling at me, her inner strength shining through, she pressed, “I want to bridge the gap for your sake.”

* * *

And after much more persuasion and a couple of hours buried deep in her soft depths, we’d accepted the invitation and right now, in this truck, all I could think was that I’d completely fucked up.

I hadn’t realized how long I’d been sat in my truck, just staring out of the window, when the sorority house’s main door opened and out walked Molly, immediately stealing my damn breath.

Opening the truck door, I got out and when she was a few steps away, reached out and pulled her into my arms. “Baby…” I croaked, my anxiety showing in my voice.

Wrapping her arms around my waist, she gripped onto me tight. “Hey, Rome. You okay?”

Pulling back, I pressed my lips to hers and nodded, “Yeah, no, maybe. I don’t know…”

Scrunching up her nose playfully, she tilted her head, asking, “Mm? You look kind of uncomfortable. Then again, I’ve never seen you in anything other than a T-shirt, jeans, and those damn cowboy boots you never take off, unless it’s to put on your cleats. Is it the fact you’re all suited and booted in your Sunday best that has you scowling and sitting outside my sorority like a creepy stalker?”

Unable to hold in a laugh, I put my arm around her shoulders and led her to the truck. “Get in, sexy, before I shut that mouth of yours for you.” Lifting her into the high cabin, I couldn’t resist skirting my hand up her bare leg and running my fingers along her panty-covered folds. Yelping at the touch, she scowled at me as she belted up.

God, I loved this girl so damn much. As I stared at her, I felt the familiar sense of dread that had been plaguing me since I’d accepted this bastard invitation. I couldn’t lose her. I was non-negotiable on that, and no matter what my folks were up to, they would have to learn that too.

Jumping into the driver’s seat and pulling out onto the road, I looked over at Mol, who was fiddling with radio, head nodding along to Blake Shelton telling the world they could
kiss his country ass
, singing every line, her out-of-place English accent sounding completely wrong against his southern Oklahoma drawl. Snorting through my nose, I shook my head, earning a scowl from the wannabe Dolly Parton beside me.

“What?” she asked, eyes narrowed.

“Nothing. You just look all beautiful tonight and I’m having a real hard time focusing on the road.” It was true, maybe not what I was thinking right then, but she wouldn’t appreciate me ripping on her for her terrible singing.

She ran her hands down her dress, no longer singing, and began worrying her lip. “It’s so not me. Ally dressed me up like a bloody Barbie doll in all this designer stuff to make me look appropriate for your fancy parents—I look like I’m trying too hard. They’ll see right through me.” She let out a sigh and shook her head. “I guess I’m just worried they’ll hate me.” Flicking her eyes up at me nervously, she added, “Well, hate me more than they already do.”

That sentence alone just sliced through my heart. It was so friggin’ clear she didn’t want to go tonight, and it became more than apparent she was doing all this for me, sacrificing her pride for me.

I’d never felt more like a selfish ass.

For the next fifteen minutes, we didn’t speak.

I couldn’t.

Sensing my strange turn in mood, Mol scooted over to me, pressing in close, her leg hitching over mine. A wave of protectiveness took hold and I instructed, “I want you to listen to me, okay?” We needed to be prepared, make a plan in case this so-called “olive branch” was a huge load of crap.

Sitting up, those golden-brown eyes looked at me intently.

“They will probably pick on anything they can tonight, viciously. Whatever they say, don’t let it get to you. I’ll protect you. If you need to leave at any time, for whatever reason, we go—no ifs or buts. But promise me you won’t let them hurt you.”

Swallowing hard, she whispered, “I promise.”

Gripping her thigh, using the skin-on-skin contact to gain strength, I said, “Then why do I have a feeling I’m about to lose you?”

Without missing a beat, my girl made me pull over, and no sooner than I had parked on the graveled hard shoulder, she straddled my lap, saying sternly, “You will not lose me.”

I wanted to believe her so bad. But if this was all a setup, if my parents somehow got to her, she’d bail on me the first chance she got. Why would she stick around? Panic swelled at that thought.

Looking her dead in the eyes, I tried to tell her how much I loved her, but the anxiety was making me lose all sense. “I can’t, Mol. You mean so much to me. Do you know that? Do you realize how I feel about you? How much I need you? Because I do. I know I don’t say much about my feelings, but… but… I… I…”
I love you. I fucking love you…
But the words wouldn’t come, stuck in my throat, along with intense fear.

“Shh… you don’t need to do this. Romeo, you’ve given me a reason to be happy. I haven’t been okay for such a long time. You’ve brought me back to life. Do you know that?”

Calming slightly, I confided, “They’re not good people, baby. I know you don’t believe me, but there is no way tonight is about anything other than asserting their power over me. It’s always about that.” I pressed my head into her neck. “They’re never going to let me go, never going to just let me be happy with you. They’ll do something; they always do something to ruin my life.”

That was true. Hindsight taught me that they had never, and I mean
never,
done anything but make my life hell. Tonight had to be bullshit; it had to be a setup. I quickly asked myself what was more important: repairing a fucked-up relationship with my folks or being good with my girl?

There was no contest.

“We’re going home. We’re not doing this shit,” I stated, moving to unseat Molly from my lap.

“Yes, we are,” she insisted, refusal etched in her every muscle. I knew that was my girl putting her foot down and I knew she wouldn’t change her mind.

Fuck.

We were actually going to do this.

22

Two hours later…

Red-hot rage. That’s all I felt, all that was driving me, keeping me going, not oxygen or blood, just boiling hot rage.

My foot pressed on the gas and driving like a NASCAR pro, I headed for the cabin. I wouldn’t make it all the way home.

Focusing on the road, I had to drown out the sound of Molly whimpering beside me, or I was going to go back. For the first time in my life, I knew I wouldn’t be able to stop myself… I’d kill them, fucking kill them both for what they’d done. Everyone had a breaking point—I’d just found mine.

The gravel crunched under the weight of the truck, the tires jerking from left to right as I wrestled the steering wheel for control down the old, bumpy driveway.

“Romeo…” Molly whispered from beside me and I couldn’t look at her, I couldn’t see the expression that would accompany that desperate and grief-stricken voice.

“Not now.
God!
Just… be quiet…” I snapped, wincing at what she must be thinking of me. A pained cry ripped from her throat and she curled her body away from me, the crystal clip from her hair falling to the floor.

I was right to have been suspicious of the invite and my parents’ intentions in meeting my girl. The fucking vultures had circled us, lured us in, and then pounced. Hell, not pounced—ripped us apart until there was nothing left, shredding our dignity and stomping all over my girl’s already broken heart.

Spotting the cabin, I practically jumped out of the truck while it was still moving. The cramped space of the seats, too small, claustrophobia fucking choking me.

Barging through the cabin, my childhood place of salvation, I began kicking and lashing out at anything in sight, thinking back over every detail of tonight…

“Mother. Always a pleasure,” I said as she opened the door and immediately started on the fact that we were late.

“Shame the same can’t be said for you,” she’d bit back.

Gripping an old lamp, I lifted it off the floor and launched it against the wall, enjoying the sound of it smashing to smithereens.

“You kept us waiting on our invitation for dinner tonight, boy. Not acceptable!” my daddy had snarled the minute he saw us. I couldn’t fucking believe it. Where was the man who was telling me he wanted to build bridges? Where was the bastard olive branch? His smirk at my obvious shock said everything. He’d planned the whole thing to make me look like a fool; he’d lied to me yesterday in his study. They were going to tear Molly to pieces right in front of me. They were going to make her leave me.

The side table was next, and gripping one of the thin, fragile legs, I picked it up and slammed it to the floor.

“So, Molly, I suppose you’re aware of Romeo’s plans after college?” my momma asked Molly as we sat on the couch, my daddy glaring at me, smiling in victory when my eyes met his.

“With football?” Molly had asked, pulling my focus back on my momma. My parents’ laughter echoed around the huge room.

“Absolutely not! We’re talking about his duty to take over the family business,” my daddy said, moving closer from his place against the fire.

“Daddy,” I threatened, my voice low and harsh. Molly’s frightened eyes darted around the three of us, her hand gripping mine so tight it almost cut off the circulation in my fingers.

“She needs to know, Rome,” my daddy went on. “She needs to know that you won’t have time to continue your player lifestyle.” Molly stilled.

“Leave it!” I shouted. “I won’t do this with you tonight.”

As I stood in the quiet cabin, I tried to put myself in my folks’ shoes. Had I been that much of a letdown over the years? Enough to deserve such blatant cruelty? And Mol, Molly’s only crime was in being with me—the first person I’d truly let in and they were trying to rip her from me. Hell, for all I knew, she could’ve already decided she’d had enough. She hadn’t bothered coming in here after me. Then again, she was probably scared out of her mind. I was acting insane.

Expelling a loud scream that had been building in my throat, I pounded to the wall and began punching it again and again and again at what had happened next…

Then, all of a sudden, there was Shelly, striding in like she owned the place, kissing my momma and being treated like the daughter they’d never had—hell, the
child
they’d never had.

The grand plan was finally revealed. They’d wanted to get it through to Mol that Shelly was what they wanted, and like my daddy and momma always said, they always get what they want!

I flew toward my parents and snapped, “How dare you do this to us!”

“Shelly is family and Molly needed to be informed of a few things that may affect your little… relationship,” my daddy said in his usual condescending tone.

“Don’t start this shit again, and while you’re at it, treat Molly with some fuckin’ respect!”

And then the fucker bowed, ridiculing my girl. “Your Majesty, how is the queen?”

My hands began to shake with fury. Molly was friggin’ mute beside me, her golden eyes huge with fear. “You invited us here for dinner, to meet her, why? Was it all bullshit? Was your plan to rip on her the minute she walked through the damn door?”

My daddy looked at Molly like she was a piece of shit on the bottom of his shoe. “Why the hell would we want to meet a gold-digging whore, let alone entertain her at dinner? She probably struggles to even use cutlery she’s so poor. Shel’s told us a lot about your girlfriend.”

And then he put the final nail in the coffin. “Tonight was an intervention. We had to get you to bring your new titbit before us somehow. A dinner invite seemed best. So now you’re here and we have your attention. You’ll do as instructed and end this charade. Immediately. Send your little British slut on her way… preferably back across the Atlantic.”

I couldn’t believe the level of viciousness coming from his mouth. He had always been a cruel bastard, but his treatment of my girl was like nothing I’d ever seen before.

“You invited us here to break us up? Christ, this is extreme, even for you!” I remarked, rubbing my hand across my head, feeling the constant control I had on my anger beginning to slip.

I wrenched the old shitty curtains from the windows, and tore them in two in my hands, dropping the faded red shreds of material to the floor. Back across the Atlantic…
the fucking Atlantic! Agh!
I hated him… HATED him! I swear the man’s evil.

Still too pissed to calm down, I snapped the frail curtain rail in half, throwing the fractured pieces across the room.