Page 82 of Protecting You
Alyssa waved off his apology. “You couldn’t have known. And I shouldn’t care.” But she did.
“Your dad sounds like a hard man to please.”
She propped her hands on the bed behind her, leaning back on them. “He was. Still is.”
“Are you…?” He worked to figure out how to ask his question. “Does your father help you out, financially? Or are you cut off, or…?”
“He helps more than I want him to.”
“Meaning?”
“Like with my apartment. When I quit the NSA, he was furious, even suggesting that he’d helped me get the job—as if I couldn’t have done it without him. It was the first time in my adult life that I ever defied him, which is…pathetic, I know.”
“You’re an adult, Alyssa. The fact that your father issues orders and you feel like, in refusing to do them, you’re defying him? That tells me more about him than it tells me about you. You get to make your own decisions.”
“Yeah, well… The point is, I had a plan. My cousin Sam has a brilliant business mind, and he helped me draw it up and even loaned me the startup money. I decided to move to Boston instead of back to Shadow Cove in order to be close to potential clients. I rented an apartment and gave my two weeks’ notice, and then I told my father.
“After Dad quit railing about what a stupid decision I’d made, he told me the area where I planned to live wasn’t safe enough. He signed a lease and demanded I live in the Back Bay apartment instead.”
“He demanded it, and you did it?”
She dipped her head side to side. “Probably the wrong choice of words. He strongly suggested it, and I would have refused if he hadn’t gotten Mom on his side. She suggested I was being stubborn—which I was—and that my safety was more important than proving to my father I didn’t need his help. I relented for her sake.”
“He pays for it?” At her nod, Callan said, “It’s a nice building.”
“So much for it being safe, though.” Alyssa’s smile surprised him until he realized that the break-in proved her father wrong. She was enjoying that, anyway.
“So you’re not still trying to please him?”
She shrugged. “Don’t you want to please your parents?”
“My parents have always been encouraging. Growing up, I never felt like they were disappointed in me.”
She tilted her head to the side. “Do you feel like they are now?”
“What?” He played back what he’d said, how he’d said it.Growing up…“No. They’re…no.”
He was lying. He didn’t just guess his parents’ disapproval. He knew it. They kept waiting for him to take on the role he’d been thrust into. And he kept…not doing it.
Any excuse to stay away, stay where he knew what he was doing.
He should tell Alyssa about Peri. She’d shared her story with him, after all. But the last thing he wanted was for Alyssa to realize what a terrible father he was. What a terrible person.
He liked this woman, far more than he should. Far more than he’d even admitted to himself.
But this relationship couldn’t go beyond where it was right now. He and Alyssa needed to figure out what to do about Ghazi, and then Callan needed to focus on Peri.
He couldn’t let himself be distracted by the beautiful blondewho studied him as if she could see right through him.
His cell phone rang, and he was grateful for an excuse to end the conversation. Not that he wasn’t happy to know Alyssa’s secrets, but he wasn’t ready to share any of his own.
CHAPTERTWENTY-ONE
“It’s Malcolm.”
Alyssa half expected Callan to walk out of his hotel room or ask her to leave when the call came in. But he just swiped to answer it.
Considering she was no less involved in this Ghazi situation than Callan, she stayed right where she was to hear his end of the conversation.
