Page 37 of Rough Daddy
Photos. Hundreds of them. Screenshots from my Instagram, my old YouTube videos, images from news articles about my scandal. All organized by date, going back months. Before I ever crashed into his car wash.
My hands shake as I open his browser and check the history.
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There’s even some from this morning, while I was sleeping, my body filled with the sticky release he seemed so intent on keeping inside me.
He's been researching me. Studying me. Learning every detail of my life while I thought I was sharing myself with him for the first time.
"Tina, this isn’t what you think..."
I spin around. Beau fills the doorway, still shirtless, hands in his pockets. His expression is unreadable.
"Tina? Really? You knew." I shake my head, swallowing the stupidity lodged in my throat. "You've known this entire time."
He doesn't deny it. He just stands there, watching me with those summer-sky eyes that have seen every part of my soul.
"Tina—"
"Stop calling me that. You know that’s not my name." I cough on a fake laugh, and it sounds broken even to my own ears. "You know my real name, my real story, my real life. Why didn’t you tell me?"
"I was protecting you." His answer sounds sincere. "You came to me broken, running from that life. I gave you space to heal."
"Space to heal?" I'm on my feet now, backing toward the window. "Or space to play out your fantasies? What's it like having your very own broken influencer to fix?"
"I never lied to you." He closes in. "Not once. I waited. I watched you become yourself again instead of that shell of a girl who crashed into my life."
"But you let me lie to you! You let me think I was sharing myself with you when you already kneweverything." The betrayal cuts deep, but it's nothing compared to the guilt eatingme alive. "And while I was here playing house with my stalker, my brother was suffering. Alone."
"Your brother?" Something shifts in his expression.
"He needed me and I wasn't there, because I was too busy falling in love with a man who's been obsessed with me for... How long? Months? Years? This whole Daddy thing…" I swipe at the tears streaming down my face. "You want to know the truth about me, Beau? I'm selfish. I'm a terrible sister. I abandoned the one person who actually needs me for this.” I wave my hands around, not really pointing at anything but indicating everything. “For some fantasy."
"You didn't abandon him. You saved yourself."
"It's the same thing!" I slap the sides of my head with my hands. "He's just a kid and he's trapped in that house with our toxic parents. Do you know what it’s like in there? My mom’s illness that she refuses to treat properly because having it makes our familymore sympathetic,my dad’s constant teetering on the verge of lashing out and hurting one of us? I’m scared one of these days he’ll break bones instead of breaking possessions. IpromisedEthan I'd always be there. But the first chance I got to be happy, I ran away."
For a moment, he just stares at me. Then he steps forward, and I see something in his eyes I've never seen before.
Insecurity.
"It’s true I fell in love with you months before we met," he says. "But it wasn’t your image, or your scandal, or your brand. I fell in love withyou. The woman who cried over rescue animals in your videos. Who talked about feeling lost and wanting to find herself. Who was brave enough to walk away from everything to protect herself."
"Stop." I press my hands to my ears. "Just stop."
"You think this is about obsession? About having some fantasy girl to play with?" He takes another step closer. "Whenyou crashed into my car wash, broken and running and using a fake name, I knew you needed time to remember who you were without all the noise."
"Well, now I remember." I move toward the door, toward escape. "I'm the girl who abandons her family when they need her most."
"You're the girl who had the strength to save herself." His voice turns gentle, pleading. "And now we'll save him, too."
I stop, hand on the doorframe. "What? We?"
"Your brother. We'll bring him here. It will be the three of us."
For a moment, I let myself imagine it. Ethan safe in this mountain sanctuary. The three of us becoming a family.
But then reality crashes back in.
