Filed to story: Submitting to My Bestie’s Daddy Read Online >>
I could almost picture her sitting on her sofa looking over her nails as she sipped on a Bloody Mary, preparing for another long day of running errands and sorting through job offerings. The last thing she wanted to do was worry about this.
“You’re right. I’m sorry. I just don’t know why he didn’t tell me anything about it. I mean, he must have known when he left an hour ago.”
“Oh, he definitely knew,” Allegra laughed. “Maybe he didn’t want you to worry.”
Rolling my eyes, my lips met, forming a thin white line. I was beyond pissed off, but I had to learn to control the inner hormonal urges I had. If I wanted a solution to something or needed to speak to James about something, I had to do so like an adult.
Not some irritated, naïve woman who didn’t know how to handle a situation like this.
“I will just wait until he lands and message him then. Maybe you’re right about him not wanting me to worry. For now, I will just hang out at my new place and work on getting it sorted.” Pushing a smile to my face, I looked around the room and saw much to do.
“I can’t wait to see your place,” Allegra said with an exaggerated sigh. “I bet it looks absolutely darling. Did you call your dad yet to tell him you’re back up there?”
At the mention of my father, I started thinking about his reaction to the news, and for some reason, my thoughts drifted to Allison. “Oh, shit…”
“What’s wrong? Did something happen?” she asked quickly, with a sense of urgency in her tone.
“I just realized that with the news being this big, it means that Allison and Tally would have seen this by now—”
A loud groan came from the other side of the phone line, and I knew without a doubt that whatever Allegra was about to say, I wasn’t going to like it.
“When are you going to stop worrying about that dreadful woman and her pathetic daughter? I mean come on…. Who cares if she knows?”
Allegra was right, but I cared if she knew because she threatened to ruin my life, and with how crazy that woman was, I didn’t doubt that she would do it. She would ruin me at any given moment if it meant that she could get me away from James.
“I know, I know.” I moved from the sofa towards the kitchen. “I get what you mean, but at the same time, you can’t blame me for worrying. The bitch literally threatened to get me kicked out of school.”
The memory of that conversation caused me to grimace. She was a hounding bitch and got on my nerves, and I wished nothing more than for her to find something else to preoccupy her time with.
At least if she had something else to do, James and I could be somewhat normal, and I wouldn’t have to constantly look over my shoulder.
“Becca, it’s a simple photo. It doesn’t even look like you guys were doing anything.”
Looking over my shoulder at the photo on TV, I sighed. She was right. It wasn’t a photo of us kissing or anything like that. It was simply the two of us standing next to each other, and Neal was actually there to the side, as well as two other people.
“True, maybe she won’t think anything of it then.”
“See. You’re worrying for nothing, but I have to get going. I have a salon appointment in an hour, and I still have to get ready,” Allegra said, as we quickly bid each other goodbye.
Having spoken to Allegra, I felt better about the situation, but I still questioned why James had not messaged me about it.
Taking my phone, I texted James.
‘Call me when you can. I just saw the news, and I’m concerned.’
I wasn’t sure when he was going to be able to reach out to me, considering he had a long flight and probably other things he had to tend to. It would go figure once I thought that things were getting better, other complications would arise.
My life wasn’t capable of being conflict free. My life was full of twists and turns.
All of which were pieces to a larger puzzle I was trying to figure out.
Hopefully, with school starting soon, and things getting on the right path, my life would become clearer. For now, though, I would have to settle with what I have been given.
As my phone chimed, I was quick to pick it up. All my troubled thoughts cleared with the excitement of hearing from James. I had thought that it would take longer for him to get to Miami, but I was pleased nonetheless.
That was, until I read the message and all but almost dropped my phone.
The text was from an unknown number, and its message was clear.
‘I warned you before to stay away from him. I suppose I will have to keep to my threats and show you how dangerous I can be.’
Fu*k. It was from Allison, and what I was hoping wouldn’t happen was going to happen.
James.
The moment I landed in Miami, I was bombarded with messages from Allison, Tally, and even Becca. Even others messaged me, questioning me about a mystery woman I had been seen with.
Of course, Alison pointed out that it was clearly Becca.
I was confused about what they were talking about, but as soon as I opened my phone, I saw the picture of Becca and I at the Convention in New York. We weren’t alone, of course, we were with Neal and two other people that were in the background.
The photo wasn’t intimate, but we were very close, and we were talking. The photo must have been taken right after I had kissed her, but it was still enough to make people question who she was and if we were more.
That wasn’t what mattered, though.
Allison had assumed that Becca had not heeded her warning, and it didn’t matter how many times that I told her to back off and leave Becca alone. She refused.
This was the last thing I needed right now while I was trying to fix my relationship with the girl. She was everything to me, and slowly, I realized I had fallen in love with her. But how was I supposed to be able to make this work if I couldn’t control my own problems?
Letting a sigh of irritation escape me, I quickly climbed into the back of the black sedan and told the driver to take me home.
I had no doubt Tally would be there, waiting to scold me over everything that was going on. However, she was going to learn tonight that her place was not to interfere with my personal relationships.
I was her father, and the last thing that I was going to allow her to do was dictate to me who I could and could not see. I didn’t allow my parents to do that to me when I was younger.
So it wasn’t going to happen now with my own daughter.
As the car sped down the breezeway, I called Becca, finding her phone going straight to voicemail. It had been an hour and a half since she had tried to call me, more or less.
I’d hoped that she had preoccupied her time with setting up her apartment, so I quickly sent a text to her, letting her know I would call her once I got situated at home.
I had to constantly remind myself, even though I didn’t like the idea of long distance, this was going to be important because if we could survive this, it meant that we could survive anything being thrown at us.
Even if the thought of her being alone on campus surrounded by tons of very eligible young bachelors was constant competition. I had to know that she would do nothing to betray my trust.
At least I hoped she wouldn’t.
When I got home, I noticed Talley’s car parked in the driveway and was mentally preparing myself for the situation I was about to walk into with Tally.
I had been gone a week, and during that week that I had been gone, I had knowledge that she had had that boy Chad in my house, a boy that I specifically told her before I left I did not want to see anywhere around the property, let alone her.
Tally felt she was able to dictate what she wanted for her own future. She may have been an adult, but no way was she mature enough to decide what it is that she wanted. She even tried to explain to me she was going to drop out of school.
Which was not going to happen. She had been there this long, so I wouldn’t allow her to throw her future away, no matter how meaningless she found it.
I loved her to death, and she was beautiful as hell, but when it came to common sense, that was something that my daughter lacked, a trait that she had procured from her mother.
As I was stepping out of the car, the front door flew open, and Tally stood on the other side with an angry scowl across her face and her hands upon her hips, as if she was a housewife irritated because her husband had come home late from work.
“Where have you been, and why did it take so long? I can’t believe that you were up there with that whore after I told you I didn’t want you to see her because of how uncomfortable it made me.”
Stopping in my tracks, I tried to control my anger. My fists clenched at my sides as I stared at her. “Get your ass in the house, and we will talk about this in a moment.”
I wouldn’t allow my neighbors to hear the conversation I was about to have with Tally. She had no idea how much more she pissed me off by acting the way that she did. Confronting me while I was walking inside my home, out in the open for anybody who was going by to see… who the f*ck did she think she was?
What pissed me off the most was that she knew that, but yet she did what she wanted. Just like her f*cking piece of shit mother.
I was already pissed that she was with that ignorant f*ck and pregnant by him, to say the least. But to sit here and act the way she was, trying to contradict everything that I had ever taught her while raising her, after everything I’d done to make sure she had a better life…. This is how she decided she was going to repay me?
As soon as the door closed, I made my way to the kitchen, setting down my stuff on the dining table before grabbing the bottle of whiskey at my bar and pouring myself a drink. “Well, are you going to say anything?” she snapped from behind me.
Tight-lipped and incredibly pissed off, I turned to face her. With narrowed brows, I stared at her with absolute disgust at her behavior. “We are going to have a very serious conversation, Tally, because you seem to think that you are able to dictate to me what it is that I do, and that’s not going to fly.”
Shock crossed her face before it quickly filled with anger. “You were screwing my best friend, and then, on top of that, you’ve made me look like a complete fool by your actions.”
“Fool?!” I scoffed. “You made yourself look like a fool, and how dare you sit there and make such a big fuss about me being with Becca, when for over a year, you were sleeping with her boyfriend behind her back, and now you’re knocked up by him.”
Her mouth parted as her eyes went wide. “He is going to be your future son-in-law. How dare you say something like that about him? I’m your daughter. Don’t you care how I feel? Won’t you take my own desires into consideration?”
I had had enough of her shit. Slamming my fist upon the counter, I had to rein my anger back in. This girl had absolutely lost her mind, thinking that she could speak to me the way she was, and I would be damned if I was going to tolerate it any longer.
“You need to learn your place, Taliana. I am sick and tired of you thinking that you can do whatever it is you want to do. You get that trait from your mother, and there is a reason why I left her. Now ,you are pregnant, and you still have to finish school. You’re in your last year. What are you going to do? How are you going to support this child? Because I will never give that boy permission to marry you.”
“You don’t have a right to dictate to me what I can do! I’m an adult!” she screamed at me as she clenched her fist in anger, her face turning red and her brows narrowed.
“An adult? Since when the f*ck did you ever start acting like an adult? All you do is blow through money. All you do is want, want, want, and you do nothing to earn anything that you have. Everything you have is because I have sponsored your way of living.”
“That’s not true,” she snapped, rolling her eyes. “I am quite capable of taking care of myself. I can work, I can take care of children, and I will make a great wife for Chad.”
“A great wife, Tally? You have no idea how to take care of yourself. You don’t clean up after yourself; you don’t cook. You don’t even wash your own laundry. So how in the hell are you going to take care of yourself, let alone someone else?” I asked her in absolute shock that she believed she was mature enough to raise a child.
“Stop it! Just stop it!” she cried out.
I could tell that the conversation was weighing on her because she knew full well that what I was saying was the truth. How was she ever going to be able to raise this child and be a housewife or whatever else she thought she was going to be if she couldn’t do simple tasks by herself?
“Stop what, Tally? Explaining to you the truth, a truth that you refuse to see.”
“No!” She screamed. “I want you to stop thinking that you can do things so much better than everybody else. Chad is a good man, and he comes from a good family. I don’t understand what you think is wrong with him when you’re so willing to sleep with someone like Becca.”
Her reply was one that I had expected. She would defend this boy to no end, and little did she understand that he was not the kind of man looking to settle down with someone like her.