Page 44 of Game of Love
“Anywhere.” He breathed and ran his finger over the edge of my jaw.
“Yeah.”
He dropped his hand to his lap, but kept his gaze trained on me.
“Why now? Why just anywhere?”
I thought about that answer long and hard.
“It’s everything, but in terms of recency…up until the warehouse, I didn’t realize how cruel my father could be. It’s stupid and you’re probably wondering if my eyes have been closed for the last twenty six years but I didn’t know the specifics.”
He intensified his stare and a smile without humor inched across his lips. “Jia, it’s perhaps best if you stay out of business as much as you can. There’s a reason why women are kept out of business. This, the reaction you’re having is one reason. I can’t blame you for wanting to leave, wanting to flee but I’m not sure how you’re going to pull that off.”
“I can’t stay. He treats me like an animal. He wants to marry me off to Armand and keep me in a cage. He’ll do it. I know he will.”
He held out his hands and turned over his palms. “Baby steps, Jia. Take them. Trust me, when you push against a force stronger than you, you get knocked back. Knocked down in a way that takes you a long time to recover. It makes it harder to get what you want. It makes it a hundred times harder most of the time, so it’s worth the wait. Do you understand what I mean?”
I nodded. “Yeah… I get it.”
“It doesn’t mean you give up what you want. It just means you wait longer but when you get it, it feels like you achieved it and you know it’s yours.”
His words soothed me and I actually smiled.
“That sounds nice.”
“Yeah?”
“Hmmm hmmm. It sounds like you got your thing.”
He seemed thrown by my comment but he nodded. “In a way I did.”
“What was it?”
He thought for a moment then answered, “Direction… in life.” He chuckled and I smiled too.
“Really? That was your thing?”
“I bounced around from one foster home to another when I was a kid, not really belonging anywhere. And I could do stuff not a lot of people could do. I fell in with the wrong crowd and they used my skills for all kinds of crimes. Then one day I found my thing and realized I could do more than what I was doing.”
What he’d said did not sound like his sense of direction had led him to work for Pa. That sounded like what a good person would say.
“Why are you working for my father? You seem different.”
“I am but that doesn’t make me a good person.”
“Well you’re good in my book.” I raised my shoulders into a little shrug. “Thank you. Thanks for coming to my rescue, every time. I swear to God I’m more than this. I do more. I am more.”
“You don’t have to convince me.”
“I feel I have to.”
“No. Not one damn bit, but I am curious as to why you want to head to Europe.”
Finally, I could talk about something that made me look good.
“I’m an artist,” I told him.
“An artist?”
