Page 19 of Claiming His Prize

“Allison?”

The absolute fury in her eyes when she opened them turned them almost golden. Heat rose in her cheeks as she stared at her newly-minted fiancé, who was starting to look a little wary. Good! He should!

“You went and talked to my parents?” she asked quietly.

“Your dad, yes. A couple days ago,” Todd said, giving a small sigh of exasperation. “This rift between you has gone on for too long, and it’s completely unnecessary. The whole reason I went away last year was so I could put myself in a position where your parents would approve of me.”

“That’s not the point!” Allison snapped. Hurtling into movement, she opened her drawer and pulled out her underwear. If it was possible to put underwear on angrily, she personified the maneuver. “I don’t care if they approve of you!”

“Well, I care,” Todd snapped back. “How would you like it if my mom didn’t approve of you?”

“It’s not the same.” She tugged a shirt over her head so hard, she almost ripped it.“She wouldn’t cut you off from her life just because she didn’t approve. My parents care more about giving their approval than they care about whether or not I’m happy. How am I supposed to know if they really love me if they’re only talking to me again because I’m with a man they approve of?”

“Of course, they love you!” Todd threw his hands in the air as he got up from the bed, gloriously naked and angry.For once, she found herself less than appreciative of the view, mostly because she had no desire to be distracted from her justifiable fury.

“Well, they don’t act like it!” Tears sparked in her eyes as the rejection and hurt she’d managed to keep clamped down deep inside surged, and she angrily turned her head away as she pulled on her jeans.“The whole point of not talking to them was I wanted to know they loved me enough to accept my decisions, to let me live my life by my choices because that’s what made me happy. Now, you’ve gone and underminedallof that.” To both of their horror, tears started to spill down her cheeks. Todd looked stricken as he moved toward her, holding out his hands pleadingly.

Deep down, she realized, given the chance, she probably would have called her parents. If not today, then probably sometime this weekend. But that didn’t excuse completely taking the choice away from her.

“Allison, Princess, please... it’s not a bad thing, they know the truth. Someone had to speak up first, and I thought it would be easiest for everyone if it was me. They love you, they just didn’t know how to approach you, and I didn’t mind approaching them.”

“Well, learning might have been good for them!” She slapped his hands away and headed for the door.

“Where are you going?” Todd’s voice got a little higher, a measure of his desperation to fix things. “Allison, I did this to make things right, for all of us, not to make them worse!”

“Too bad. I’m going to Diana’s.” Allison whirled around when she heard him moving toward her again, glaring at him through her tears. “Don’t follow me.” Turning back around, she hurried out the door in a whirl of self-righteous anger and betrayal.

Todd vented his own feelings by kicking the dresser.

* * *

By two p.m., Todd was Chad’s, pacing the floorboards as Allison’s step-cousin watched him sympathetically. When Allison had first left the house, Todd’s instinct had been to chase her down and ignore the order not to follow her.It was in his general make-up to fix things immediately and not let them fester, but he’d learned Allison wasn’t the kind of girl who played games. She said what she wanted, and if she said she didn’t want him to follow her, it wasn’t girl code for “follow me and change my mind,” unlike some women he’d had relationships with in the past.So, he had to respect that right now she wanted space—even if it was driving him up the wall.

“That entire side of the family is crazy, you know. I still can’t understand why my dad married into it.” Chad shook his head with a dramatic sigh. “Just give her time to calm down. She’s much more reasonable when she calms down.”

“And do you think talking to Diana will calm her down or just rile her up even more?” Todd asked with a sardonic look, which made Chad hesitate. While he didn’t hold anything against Diana after their run of dating ended, he knew the little Asian was a bit of a spit-fire, and Todd wasn’t always her favorite person. On the other hand, if Allison wouldn’t be swayed by her parents, why would she be swayed by her friend? Todd paced, rubbing his hand through his hair over and over again in his agitation.

“It’s as if she wants them toprovethey love her enough to do what she wants. And they’re on the other side, waiting for her to prove she loves them enough to do what they want.”

“I’m a little more sympathetic to Allison’s side on that,” admitted Chad.

“Well, of course. Her parents were completely unreasonable, but they don’t think they were.The best solution would seem to be, she chooses a guy she wants to be with, then he makes him into someone they would approve of.” Stopping, he stood in front of Chad, throwing his arms out to either side in complete exasperation. “Hello, that would be me!” Growling, he tossed his hands up and resumed wearing a path in the floor of Chad’s apartment.

Although they’d been frat brothers, he actually hadn’t been particularly close to Chad until Allison. They’d gotten along okay, but it was her entrance into Todd’s life that had really cinched their friendship.Especially since Allison had become much closer to Chad as a result.While Chad couldn’t really be termed Todd’s closest male friend, he was a friend Todd trusted and would have insight none of Todd’s other friends would into the situation. Which is how he’d ended up over here after pacing his own house for three hours, waiting for Allison to come home. Other than replying to his query about whether she’d made it safely to Diana’s, Allison hadn’t responded to a single one of his text messages or picked up any of his calls.

Eventually, he hadn’t been able to stand waiting around the house for her with no support of his own, so he’d called Chad.Thankfully, the other man hadn’t had any plans for the afternoon and been more than willing to be a sounding board.He liked Allison and Todd, thought they were a great couple, and wanted them to work things out. Even better would be if Allison could work things out with her family because it would make the family dinners and gatherings a lot less fraught with tension.For whatever reason, his step-mother kept prodding delightedly at Allison’s absence, which made Allison’s parents extremely defensive, and everyone ended up miserable. He’d skip out on the dinners, but his father begged him to be there, so he would have someone to talk to. Bringing Allison back into the family fold, especially if she brought Todd along with her, would make that aspect of Chad’s life considerably easier.

“The problem is, we’re both right,” Todd said, finally collapsing on the couch with a sigh.His legs were tired from pacing, and his energy seemed to have deserted him. The image of Allison’s face, hazel eyes large with betrayal, kept looming in his mind. That wasn’t how he’d wanted to make her feel. Yes, he’d known she’d be upset about him talking to her parents, but he hadn’t realized she’d be quitethisupset, or he never would have done it… probably… maybe.

Okay, he wasn’t sure if that was true. Part of his make-up was he wanted to fix things. He’d seen how depressed Allison had been, the past few weeks, although she didn’t say it was because of her parents. She talked a lot about graduation, and he’d quickly realized how much it bothered her to think she might reach that major milestone, still estranged from her parents.

On top of that, he didn’t want to marry Allison with this separation between her parents hanging over his head. He had worked too hard and hated knowing how bereft she was about their estrangement.That wasn’t the way to start a new life together.Maybe he should have waited, but he’d wanted to ask her to marry him when they’d moved in together.Several months later, he’d realized she was no closer to making up with her parents than she had been at that point—further away, actually.

So, he had done what came naturally to him and decided to fix things to make Allison happy. It was pretty much his number one goal in life.Even if she wasn’t particularly happy with him right now, he wasn’t convinced he’d done the wrong thing.

“She’ll forgive you,” Chad reassured him, patting his shoulder and handing him a beer. “Eventually.”

Todd grunted.Eventuallybeing the operative word. If he needed any proof of how long Allison could hold a grudge, he only had to look at the detente between her and her family.

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