Because the man I love is staring at me with devastation in his eyes, and the daughter I'd die for is one courtroom away from being taken, and I have absolutely no idea how to fix any of it.
Chapter 26
Asher:Will be there in thirty. I better see your pretty face when I get there. I deserve it after all the shit your dad has put me through.
I toss my phone on the desk and let out a humorless laugh.
Put him through?
What an overdramatic asshole. A few nonconsequential threats from my father and he's acting like he's actually suffered.
He should see the shit my father’s put me through. The shit he's put Tiff through.
No. Thatcher Hastings wouldn't last a day living with the consequences of his actions.
I run a hand through my hair, annoyed that I'm even thinking these things about my best friend, and the only person in my oldlife actually helping me in this mess instead of trying to convince me to leave them behind.
Lying down on my bed, I stare at the peeling wallpaper in my hotel room, studying the same crack in the ceiling that I’ve been memorizing since I got here.
It does nothing to ease the tension.
What the hell am I supposed to do now?
I have a vague plan to go and confront my father, but that's about it. He's playing dirty, and I don't have the reach or means to match him.
The longer I lie there, the clearer it starts to get—I’m in too deep.
I'm stuck in a cage. A gilded, suffocating cage I thought I'd escaped.
I was wrong.
My father's reach is longer than I expected. Even from miles away, he knows exactly where to cut, and how to make me bleed.
And serving Tiff those papers was the final blow. He's lost his patience since cutting me off and stifling my job opportunities did nothing to bring me back, so now he's gone for the jugular.
My heart. My soul.My family.
My phone dings with a notification that my driver has arrived, so I slowly roll out of bed and take my bag from the floor.
I grab my phone and head out of the hotel room, but not before looking back and taking in the space that's now devoid of all my belongings.
I'll be back to Hope, but not here.
When I'm in the car, I pull my phone out, finally sifting through all of the messages I haven’t bothered replying to since this morning.
I didn’t want to tell Tiff where I was going, but I equally couldn’t lie to her, so I decided the best course of action was to just not look.
If she knew what I was doing—where I was going, I doubt she'd believe I was coming back to her.
But this is the only way I'm going to be able to prove to her that I'm all in. I will fight for her…more than Zach ever could.
Tiff's messages are the first to show up.
Tiff:Zach’s been on the phone to our lawyers all afternoon.
Tiff:We’ll figure this out together. We want you here.
Of course Zach has his shit together. The guy I tormented in high school. The guy who stepped up and raised my daughter while I was busy destroying my own life. And now he's cleaning up another one of my messes.