Love Arranged (#1)

Chapter Sixty-Three

The stinging memory of it all hurt like no other, it pierced through me and made my chest ache along with every part of my body, but the one brewing inside of my rib cage was the most unbearable out of them all.

The utter boldness of this man was incomparable, it shocked me the most because I was certain the day he left me and my mother was the last time we would ever see him. But it seems as though we were wrong.

With how he just waltzes in here demanding me not to proceed with the commitments I've made as if he had more say in what goes in my life than I did, despite barely being there for me, was what crossed the goddamn line for me. He has no right to come back and act as if he gives a damn. Like he cared about me, his family, at all.

The silence that stretched across the room was so painstakingly long I'm sure people were still doing their best to recollect themselves, but after a while, I felt familiar callous fingers grazing the skin of my wrist and I turned around to see Evan tugging me back against his chest.

"Baby, calm down," he whispered as I felt my inhibitions falter, staring at his worried gaze.

But it soon vanished when I sensed the burning eyes of my father as he glared at Evan and the way he was touching me "Get your hands off my daughter,"

Without expecting it, I was wretched out of Evan's gentle hold and into the cold and merciless hands of my father, eliciting a surprised gasp out of me.

It felt as if I was pulled out of a warm place of passion and comfort that I grew accustomed to the second my father snatched me from Evan's embrace, one that felt like a daydream too good to be true, only to wind up being sucked into the same harsh reality I had actually lived in.

The harsh reality I was so sure I had finally run away from, only to come back sprinting after me like a shadow that's just never going to disappear and will always follow suit.

But I tried, I tried to reject his advances and once more shoved his chest with closed fists as I glared so fiercely back at him, retracting from his grasp like his touch alone burned me.

"Don't you dare touch me," I hissed, emphasizing every word of disdain like my life depended on it "Don't you dare lay a hand on me and act as if you aren't the only person here I want to be as further away from as much as possible, don't you dare act as if I wanted you here."

Throughout the times I've known my father, he was never one to show his emotions and to make them visible, he concealed it better than anyone I know, better than my mother even.

But there was no doubt the scorned look that clouded over his eyes was there and wasn't just something that I was imagining, almost as if my words actually struck a nerve.

For a moment, I felt a slither of remorse course through me, just a fraction, but as soon as it tried to sneak into my system, I instantly tried to suppress it, refusing to be swayed by his wounded facade, knowing his brief pain would not amount to my life's worth of suffering.

This is the same man who's gone and left more times than he's ever been there for me, and has hurt the ones I've loved without as much as thinking about it, so who am I to give him the benefit of a doubt now? To sympathize with him when he deserves nothing of the sort.

But that pretense went away and just as I had expected, he attempted to assert his control over me by taking a step forward and looking down on not only me but Evan as well.

All the while as he spoke in a grave tone "I am not gonna stand idly by watching my daughter get auctioned off like some sort of prostitute," my eyes widened at his revolting implication as he continued "And if you try to fight me one more time it won't be long before I shut this whole place down and get everyone here arrested for witnessing the marriage of two minors that is illegal due to my lack of involvement as a father."