Page 48 of Flame
If this had happened yesterday, before Foxx and I had our little blowout, this might feel very different. But I’m not sure now, having endured our conversation last night, that Foxx isn’t taking pity on me. Or, maybe even worse, that he’s not volunteering to marry me in another show of loyalty to Jason.
While marrying him doesn’t feel like a terrible option for me, it’s a completely different thing if being married to him will amount to more arguments like the one we just had.
I can’t do that. And considering the details he shared only hours ago, I can’t see it going any other way.
“Regardless of what you choose,” Ford says, “I dohighly suggestthat we increase your security until this all shakes out. I would imagine the Downings are waiting with bated breath for your birthday to come and go, and I would also imagine your father is scrambling from the pressure.”
“Hey, B? Are you okay?” Gannon asks.
I lift my face slowly and look into the monitor. My brothers sit shoulder to shoulder, waiting for my reply.
I sit up straight and shake off the shock of the past few minutes.This is business, Bianca. This is bigger than just you. Think.
There’s no way I can let our father get one over on us. He has hurt our family so deeply and cost us so much in every way. His antics have been a cancer that has infected every part of our life, and I’ll be damned if his sneakiness is going to steal anything else from us.
Not on my watch.
I suck in a breath.
“Can I have a minute alone with Bianca?” Foxx asks.
Jason nods. “Sure. Absolutely. Take your time.”
He clicks a few buttons. The screen goes black, and a red line crosses the speaker icon.
The room shrinks as he turns to me. The air gets hotter. I can barely breathe as he begins to speak.
“I want to make something clear,” he says.
“What’s that?”
His Adam’s apple bobs in his throat. “I’m not doing this for Jason. I’m doing thisfor you.”
I sink against my chair. The fuzziness cocooning me to protect me from the shock starts to wear off, and tears gather in my eyes.
My father has fucked me over.Me. Specificallyme. This wasn’t a generalized hit on our family but a manipulation of his only daughter. The one man who was supposed to love and protect me from the world is the one person I’m scrambling to protect myself against.
“I’m sorry for last night,” Foxx says. “I should’ve handled things differently.”
I smile at him. “I didn’t exactly give you a lot of room to figure it out.”
He smiles back.
“Are you serious?” I ask him, holding my breath. “Are you really willing to marry me?”
His gaze softens. “I’d do anything in the world to help you and protect you.”
“But you’dmarry me? Even if it wasn’t real? You’d do that?”
“You shouldn’t have come down here with nothing under my shirt.”
I tilt my head, giving him a look to be serious. “I love that you chose this situation to try to be funny.”
“I’m not joking.” He smirks, sitting back and stretching his legs out in front of him. “What are you going to do? Tie this up in the court system for years?”
The thought of that makes me want to die.
“I don’t want to take it to court,” I say. “And I don’t want my dad to win.”
