Page 111 of Heart Strings & Hotlines
“You’re his daughter, not a prop to manage.”Make a list, Thane.The sooner you prove that the company is hers and hers alone, the sooner you can go after her father.
She squeezes my arm tighter to her chest. “I need you to stop thinking so hard over there.”
I bite the inside of my cheek to remain silent. She doesn’t want to hear my plans. At least not right now. I’m a little upset about that, so I keep everything inside. For now.
“I’m not telling you this so you can rescue me, and that’s something you’re going to have to come to terms with. I’m not asking you to save me. But as my boyfriend, I need you to listen.”
“As your fiancée, you should just let me fix your problems instead of being so damn stubborn.”
“We’re not engaged.”
“Agree to disagree.”
“Thane, if we ever get engaged?—”
“Not if, Charlotte.”
Her lashes flutter against my arm, and I can easily envision her eye roll. “When I get engaged, then I will consider allowing my fiancé to participate in solving my problems. Until then, I simply need you to listen and support.”
I keep my mouth closed so I don’t say the wrong thing.
“I’ll figure it out. I always do. Now, tell me something about you. Something I don’t know.”
It takes me a moment to rearrange my thoughts from problem-solving to life-story-sharing, and even then, it’s a struggle to keep my attention from how I’ll dismantle her father’s legacy, so I say the first thing that pops into my mind.
“Rafe wants us to do family counseling.”
She squeezes my arm again as though she’s hugging me, and her cheek presses against my skin. I want her to stay there forever.
“That sounds like a good idea.”
That might be the first strike to my heart I’ve allowed to hit since I was ten years old, and she has no idea.
Charlotte thinks I’m broken.
CHAPTERTWENTY-SIX
LOTTIE
Thane’sstiff and cold next to me.
“Can I ask you a question?”
He nods, and it takes all my effort not to shrink away from his cool demeanor.
“Why are you so against therapy?”
“I’m not.” His answer is immediate and detached. “I see how it’s helping Kara. Her virtual sessions with her therapist do truly appear to have an impact on her mood. It’s just not for me.”
“Why?”
His sigh releases the tension in his shoulders, and he slumps forward. “Every time my father got it in his head that he could fix me, he’d send me to a different type of specialist, and when I was growing up, the way to treat was to medicate. All the medication did was numb me and made it hard to learn. Knowledge was more important than food to me, so without knowledge, there was no way for me to survive.”
Unfortunately, that makes a lot of sense.
“Do you want to know why it’s helpful for me?”
“I want to know everything about you,” he says quietly. Slowly, his demeanor and his tone have warmed, and I snuggle back into his side.
