Page 23 of Their Romantic Chalet

I stare at him. I’m always pleased to see him, but he’s the spark in the powder keg at this moment. “Hawk, I told you to leave. You can’t be here right now.”

My mother sees my beau, and is taken aback. “This? Is this what you’re defying us for?”

“No, Mother. I want to be here for more than just a boy.”

“Hi?” Hawk says as she approaches.

“You’re the lowlife seducing my daughter, aren’t you? Filling her head with rebellion and thoughts that being a baker is a worthy place for a woman of her status?”

“No? She wanted to do that before I even met her.”

“Sure she did. My sweet, innocent angel just randomly decides to come to the middle of nowhere and start working at your bakery on a whim. I see exactly what’s happening.”

“I... I don’t own a bakery?”

“You don’t even own your own business? This is worse than I could have ever imagined.”

“Mom, no. Hawk has nothing to do with why I’m here. I came up here before I even met him.”

“Don’t you lie to me, Lavender. You met this disgraceful piece of white trash on the internet. He whispered sweet nothings in your ear, and you spent our money to come up here to see him. I bet you aren’t even using protection!” She shudders. “Imagining a waste of flesh like you in my family tree. It’s a travesty!”

“I swear on my family’s honor I’ve done no such thing.”

“Your family has no honor to swear on!”

“Mom, shut up!” I scream, having enough of this. “I didn’t come up here for him. I came up here because I heard the views were beautiful. I took a job at a bakery because I wanted to learn how to be a baker, and you’d never let me enroll in a proper baking school. I did all this for me, Mom. All for me. Don’t you dare insult Hawk over this. Me finding him was by happenstance, and it’s the best happenstance to ever happen to me.”

My mother is seething. She stomps over to me and tries to stare me down. We’re about the same height now, my natural growth finally catching up to me, so she can’t try to intimidate me like that anymore. “You are a child.”

“I’m twenty-one. An adult. I can make my own decisions. My own mistakes.”

“Not as long as we are funding your life, Lavender. We’re taking care of you. You’re a child. You can’t do anything without us.”

She’s right about that. I have nothing without them. No money. No connections.

“If you want to be so adult, I want you to think this through, then, little girl. Your father and I? We’re leaving. If we don’t see you back home by the first of next month? I’m writing you out of the will. I’m freezing your bank account. I’m canceling all of your credit cards. You won’t even have a phone plan without me, Lavender. If you want to be an adult so bad, you go be an adult. No more of the love and care we’ve shown you. You can have the freedom to go die naked in the streets for all I care.”

I stare at her. I’m trying to stay strong, even though I know she has the nerve to do those things. Which is why it’s so terrifying.

“The only reason I’m not setting this ultimatum at this moment? I want you to think this through, Lavender. I don’t want you to make a foolish, passionate decision. We are the reason you exist, Lavender, and I expect you to respect that.”

My fists are clenched, and my eyes are closed. I’m trying to think of some word to convince her that all of this is so unfair. But nothing comes to mind.

“Brad! We’re leaving! Let’s go!”

“Right,” my father says. He follows her as they head for the door, power-walking the whole way.

I stand strong and hear their BMW’s engine start, and they are soon driving away.

Potentially out of my life for good.

With them gone, I don’t have to pretend to be strong anymore. I drop to my knees and let the tears start to flow.

Hawk rushes to my side.

“Why’d you come back?” I ask him.

“Because I thought maybe you were ashamed of me. And I didn’t want to keep being a secret.”

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