Page 113 of Resisting the Temptation
Instead, it’s always me trying to protect myself, but still getting burned anyway. No matter how many harsh words she spits at me, it’s always me who ends up in trouble for trying to stand up for myself.
This time is no different. I don’t understand how a parent can choose to protect the bully over the one being bullied.
Hailey shrugs. “What? It makes sense, right? Why else would he be dating her? She’s just damaged goods.” Hailey’s eyes rake over me with clear disgust.
Maybe—and yeah, I’m being bitchy—she can’t understand a genuine connection with someone because her husband is a cheating piece of shit who looks like a thumb.
Amanda, who I think has always hated me too, nods along with Hailey. “Just remember he has a career too, Emma. You can’t cry rape just because he hurts your feelings or breaks up with you.”
My lower lip wobbles, and I bite down on it to make it stop, but I can’t stave off the flow of tears now that the dam has broken.
I can’t look at Ben, terrified of what he must be thinking. He must think I’m so weak. Just sitting here letting myself be berated by the people who share my DNA, not saying anything.
There’s no way he’s going to want to continue our… whatever the hell we are after this. I don’t blame him.
“Is he even a U.S. citizen? Are you even here legally?” Ian, Hailey’s husband, asks from the other side of the living room.
I angrily swipe away my tears and glare at him. “He’s half Italian and half Puerto Rican, dumbass. Don’t start spewing racist bullshit. ”
Amanda’s sixteen-year-old son, Dallin, who’s just been scrolling on his phone replies before Ian can. “Puerto Rico is a part of the U.S. If he was born there, he’s a U.S. citizen. They teach that in geography class.”
Ian grumbles something and storms out of the room.
I’m too anxious to even appreciate the blow to his ego.
“Emma, you better watch your mouth in my house. I will not tolerate that type of language,” my dad snaps, pointing a finger at me.
Ben stands and holds out his hand to me before I can answer. “It’s time to go,Dulzura.”
I stand and grab his hand; I’d do anything he tells me right now. “I’m so—”
“Shh. It’s not you who needs to apologize.” He looks around the room at the people who are supposed to be my biggest supporters, but none of them will meet his gaze.
“You should be ashamed of yourselves. Ashamed of how you’ve treated her. She has every right to cut every one of you out of her life and not look back. If I were in her position, I’d have done it a long time ago. She’s given you more grace than you deserve, and she’s done it all on her own.”
He looks at me, his eyes bright with an emotion I can’t place. “But she’s not alone now. She has me. And I’ll be damned if any of you hurts her again.”
Ben looks at my parents. “Not that any of you deserve to know, but I would quit my job before I ever risked Emma’s career. She’s extremely talented. She’skind. She’s smart. She’s the most incredible woman, despite the toxicity she was raised in. I’m lucky she took a chance on me. I won’t lie and say it was nice to meet you. But I will say, thank you for letting me into your home and for dinner.”
Then he drags me to the door and slips on his shoes before helping me slip on mine. Without another word, we get in the car, and he pulls away from my childhood home. Away from the toxicity of my family.
Tonight caused a shift in our relationship. The walls I was trying—and failing—to keep erected have cracks splintering through the bricks, and my heart is begging me to let Ben in.
The air in the car is charged even though we haven’t said anything.
I don’t even knowwhatto say.
No one’s ever stood up for me like that. I’m sure Jordan probably would have, but I never let them. The possibility of my parents lashing out at Jordan and it tarnishing their view of me was too much of a deterrent.
God,I can’t believe Hailey and Amanda said those things. And Ian? Another wave of embarrassment slithers up my spine, and my nose burns with the threat of oncoming tears.
“I’m sorry,” Ben rasps from the driver’s side, shaking his head. “I’m so sorry, honey.”
“For what? It’smewho should be apologizing for them.”
The hotel is only a few minutes from my parents’ house, so he pulls into a parking spot and shuts the car off.
He rounds thecar, opens my car door, and helps me out, but before I can step away, he cages me against the car. The cool metal of the vehicle is a stark contrast to the heat of Ben’s body as he cups my face with one hand, forcing me to meet his eyes.
