Page 37 of The Ruthless and the Strong

Lizzie

I tappedmy fingers against the table as my legs moved up and down in restlessness.

I wasn’t even sure if this was a good idea or not, but I was here now, and it wasn’t like I could just get up and leave.

Hunter was in school, which was good, because I didn’t want to bring him here until I got everything settled.

I was at my parents’ house. Mom had left work early when I told her I was stopping by the house for lunch, and I hated how I was in my mid-twenties, but my mother still had the power to make me nervous, especially when she asked, “Why didn’t you tell us you were back until now?” in that voice of hers that dripped with disappointment.

I probably should have told them I was back, but I had been enjoying the time I had away from them. The only good thing about my move to California was that it gave me the chance to grow up without my mom’s interference. It gave me a chance to find myself, when I had always identified first as Akari O’Connor’s daughter, then as Lizzie O’Connor.

I had been living in her shadow my entire life.

I could hear my parents’ hushed chatter in the kitchen while Dad fixed up a quick meal. They were talking about me, I knew it. I had a better relationship with my dad now than I did with my mom, but they were still a unit.

The best thing they had ever done for me and my little brother, Henry, was to show us what a loving home and a good marriage looked like. After thirty some odd years of marriage, they still loved each other very much.

Like me, my mom had grown up trying to live up to her own mother’s expectations, but she had defied her twice that I knew of. The first was to major in mechanical engineering in college. They didn’t think being in such a male-dominated field had suited my mom, and my grandma was pretty old-fashioned in her belief. She was afraid it would create a scandal. Obviously, they got over that, since my mom was thriving in her career.

The second thing she had defied my grandma on was her marriage to my dad.

It wasn’t a race thing—or, at least, I didn’t think so. It was a class thing. My dad grew up poor in Ireland. My dad’s dad left when my dad was six, and his mom died when he was ten. Unlike my mom’s side of the family, where I’d lost count of all the cousins and aunts and uncles I had here in the United States and in Japan, my dad had one distant cousin in Ireland with whom he exchanged Christmas cards with every year.

My dad grew up in an orphanage in Ireland, and when he came to the United States at eighteen, he barely had ten cents to his name. It took him years to save up enough to open his own restaurant.

That first year, the year when his business struggled most to take off, was the year he met my mom. She was on her first date with a boy she’d met in her Principles of Design class, freshman year of college.

My dad liked to say it was love at first sight, and though my mom was much less emotional than him and didn’t believe in love at first sight, she never went on a second date with the other boy, but she had come back to my dad’s restaurant twice a week until he worked up the courage to ask her for her number.

They had been together ever since.

Their marriage had been a happy one, even during all the struggles and ups and downs. Even in the news of my pregnancy. For the longest time, a marriage like theirs was what I had strived for. And in my little-girl fantasy, I had believed Max was the man to give it to me.

He had always been a steady presence. I had always felt safe being near him.

I had felt like nothing bad could ever happen to me as long as he was around.

Until that fantasy was shattered, and I agreed to go on a date with Sam.

I straightened up when my parents walked in the dining room, Dad carrying a large tray in hand while my mom carried in a stack of napkins and three pairs of chopsticks. We always made such a big production out of every meal.

Sometimes, I wished it would be acceptable to have a fast-food kind of lunch and call it good. I stood up and helped them set the table. We didn’t say anything for a while, though I did catch them looking at each other when they thought I wasn’t paying attention, their gaze heavy with meaning.

This was ridiculous.

I had a kid of my own. I had been married and was going through a divorce.

I shouldn’t be intimidated by my five-foot-nothing mother.

If only that was true.

We all sat down, with Dad at the head of the table and Mom to his right while I sat to his left.

He smiled at me, his green eyes soft when they caught my gaze, and I couldn’t help but smile back. My dad was a gentle giant. At six-foot-two, he was as wide as he was tall, though most of his bulk was muscle. My dad still stayed pretty fit even when in his mid-fifties.

I took after him, with my red hair and pale freckled skin, and bright green eyes. The same green eyes my son had.

“Let’s eat, yeah?” he said.

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