Page 104 of Hold Me Until Morning

Air wheezed from my lungs.

“What I do is none of your concern. I know you think you know what’s best for me, but I’m a grown woman, and I don’t need you or anyone else to tell me what I need.”

It wasn’t like Cody and I were anything. But that didn’t mean I was going to allow my father to debase Cody’s name when he didn’t know anything about him.

“Now, I need to get back to work.” I wrenched my arm free of his hold and started down the path.

“Hailey.” In an instant, my father’s voice had changed, my name becoming a plea when he realized how offensive he was being. “Hailey, I’m sorry, I just…don’t want you making mistakes you can’t take back.”

“I think this conversation is over.”

He vacillated behind me, clearly wanting to continue, to apologize, to mold.

And how could I really blame him that he would never truly get it, but I’d chosen that. I’d chosen to keep him in the dark.

But I could blame him for judging. Judging a man like Cody when he was so much better than the garbage dressed as prestige that was Pruitt Russel.

Soon I might have to shed light on the secrets that I’d been keeping like a festering wound. A weight that made me sick to carry, guilt eating away at my conscience.

Soon, my father might really see.

“I love you, Hailey,” my father murmured before he finally relented and strode back up the pathway to where he would have parked his truck on the other side of the stables.

He might have tried to hide it, but there was no missing the storm that raged around him.

Unease twisted my stomach when Cody caught the action, his giant body rigid as he watched my father leave.

And this mess I’d dragged him into? I was sure it’d just gotten dirtier.

TWENTY-THREE

CODY

“What all do we need?” I asked as I pushed the cart through the double sliding doors and into the grocery store. In an instant, the heat of the summer was squashed by the cold air that pumped from the AC in the small store in Hendrickson.

I’d felt like I’d been being burned alive the entire day, and the temperature outside didn’t have a thing to do with it.

It was this woman ambling along at my side that made me feel like I was getting singed.

“I just need to grab a couple things for dinner and some milk for breakfast in the morning.” She walked ahead of me, guiding me into the produce section.

“And what are we having?” I asked.

It was a wonder I didn’t knock into the displays around me considering I couldn’t look away from her ass. That lush, ripe peach swaying with each step that she took.

Hailey sent me a playful scowl. “What, you think I’m going to feed you, too?”

“If you have a problem with it, I’ll be happy to cook for you.”

Her brows arched, mischief playing on her face. How she managed it after dealing with that prick last night and whatever bullshit her father had clearly been spewing at her this morning, I didn’t know.

But I somehow got that she’d spent enough time being dejected and she wasn’t going to allow it any longer. She was going to rise above her circumstances, enjoy the good of each day.

“You cook?” Her question rang with speculation.

“I am a bachelor. How else do you think I survive?”

“Pizza?”

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