ARROGANT BRIT (A BRITISH BAD BOY ROMANCE) (22 page)

“Dad–”

The tires squealed as he wrenched the car
backwards in an arc, flying down the road and around a corner. After a few
seconds, he was out of sight and rumbling from what must have been one
horrendous nightmare to another.

There was no point in trying to follow him,
so I dejectedly stepped back inside and locked the door behind myself.

Clara was dressed in her clothes from last
night, sitting at the dining table and staring blankly into space. The window
was nearby, so she likely saw and heard every last syllable of that.

At a complete loss, I shrugged at her.

“So, that could have gone better.”

She glanced at me, all emotion stripped from
her eyes. “Dalton, what the fuck are we going to do?”

Prepared to console her and offer some
bulletproof plan to resolve everything, I parted my lips to speak. When nothing
came, I realized that we were truly, honestly fucked.

Chapter 21

I was still reeling from the events of the
morning when Mom called us, several hours later… putting into motion the events
that would dictate the rest of our lives.

“Raleigh and Riana are here, and they wish to
see the two of you,” Mom curtly told me over the phone. “You’d better get over
here, quick.”

I informed Dalton of this, and we reluctantly
walked to his motorcycle. We drove the hour-plus back to our parent’s house
with hearts full of a violent concoction of anxiety, dread, and fear for the
future.

When we arrived, William let us in at the
door. Without a word, he led us past the kitchen, down the corridor, and to the
large dining room table from the day we’d learned that our parents were dating.

Mom was seated on one side, and across from
her were Dalton’s grandparents, the fierce Raleigh and Riana Carlyle.

“Greetings, Dalton,” Raleigh nodded slowly
towards his grandson as we entered the room together.

He turned back to William, who was taking his
seat next to Mom. Dalton and I took the two chairs in the center, leaving the
empty chairs across from us.

“I see that we are all here now…” Raleigh
continued. “Shall we dispense with the pleasantries and get straight to
business?”

William half-scoffed, but didn’t say a word.

“Excellent. Well then, we are gathered here
today because, as you may or may not know, my health has begun to suffer. This
means that we must discuss the coming inheritance.”

He began to prattle on about some inane
bullshit concerning rules, stipulations, and the dangers of family disgrace in
the eyes of English high society. After a while of this, Mom and William –
particularly
Mom
, though – were
visibly uncomfortable… and even borderline aggravated.

“I’m sorry, is there a problem?” Raleigh
finally asked, cutting a glance over at his son and daughter-in-law. “Is
something I’m saying disturbing or bothering you? This is rather important to
the ongoing wealth, so if either of you find yourselves with some form of a
problem…”

Mom pursed her lips furiously, but cast us a
knowing, disgusted glance. William, on the other hand, simply sighed and
remained quiet. It seemed that neither of them were willing to say a word about
what they’d seen.

That’s why I was surprised when…

“They’re angry because they found me in bed
with my stepsister,” Dalton casually remarked.

I glanced at him in horror. I quickly
realized that every pair of eyes in the room had turned to him, featuring a
range of surprised, disgusted reactions.

“Excuse me, Dalton, but would you care to
repeat that?” Raleigh Carlyle muttered in indignation. “I don’t believe I heard
you correctly…”

“I wasn’t picking up the phone because I was
asleep,” Dalton elaborated. “Our parents decided to break into my home and
march up to my bedroom. They found me asleep with the woman I love… a woman
who, unfortunately, turns out to be my new stepmother’s daughter.”

It was a second before it clicked in my head.

He just admitted that he loved me
to them all.

“You do
not
love my daughter,” Mom haughtily demanded. “You are just some scumbag
military man with a power complex. I mean, for god’s sakes, she’s
eighteen years old!
You’re, what,
twenty-five? Twenty-six?
”

William curtly replied on our behalf: “Sarah,
don’t call my son a scumbag. He’s many things, but at the end of the day… he’s
a good man.”

Mom chortled. “Well,
clearly not
.”

“Excuse me,” Dalton chimed in, “but I fail to
understand how loving someone makes me even
remotely
a scumbag… but I will say that we started falling for each other
before
we knew of the complicated
relations…”

“I knew it!” Mom cut in.

“Knew what?” I demanded.

“When you two were introduced, you told us
you knew that he was a Marine,” she relished in reminding us. “But I hadn’t
told you that, because I’d only
just
found
out a few days before… I
knew
that
something was fishy about that. So, where did you two meet?”

“The night before, at a banquet,” I answered.

“A banquet?”

“A Marines’ banquet,” Dalton clarified. “I
was in attendance, and we bumped into each other at a nearby bar after the
fact. We were… mortified, to say the very least, when we recognized each other
at your little family luncheon the following day…”

“And why didn’t you say anything, son?”
William asked, having quietly watched us all interact. “We could have maybe
done
something about this back then…”

“Oh, definitely
not
,” Mom turned on him. “This is a travesty.
Incest?
In
my
family?”

“It’s more likely than you think,” Dalton
chuckled. “But it’s not incest.” He pointed back and forth between us. “We’re
not
related.”

“You’re
stepsiblings!
”

“Thanks to the two of you, yes,” I cut in.
“But not by blood. There’s nothing biologically wrong with our love.”

“Oh please,” Mom laughed. “You two keep
throwing that word around.
Love.
As
if you both know what that really means.”

I looked over at his grandparents, who had
remained stone-faced and impenetrably sour during this entire exchange. No
matter what my mom was saying, I was already dreading whatever would happen the
moment that they opened their mouths…

“We
do
love
each other,” Dalton told her, lifting his chin up. “I would
die
for this woman, if it meant keeping
her safe. I’d lay my life down on the line to protect her. As long as she’s
with me, she’ll never be in danger, never hurt or scared.”

“You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Don’t I? I have
defended
a dying man in the sand beneath a collapsing building with
nothing but a goddamned knife
.
I did
this against a man who was intent on killing him.”

He looked positively livid as he stared my
mother down. “I don’t expect you to understand, Sarah, and I don’t particularly
care if you condone it… but I have
personally
defended someone in the most literal sense of the term.”

Dalton pointed towards me.

“As much as I love my friend… as much as I’d
do it again in a heartbeat… your daughter means more to me than that man. If
I’m willing to sacrifice my own life to protect another man, what do you think
I’ll be willing to do to keep the woman I love safe and secure?”

Our parents looked back and forth between us,
and then at each other. It was William who spoke first.

“Well, I’m convinced.”

Sarah stared at him, mouth agape. “You can’t
be serious. You
know
they don’t
really love each other.”

“Darling, you don’t know my son. He’s not a
liar, he’s not a scumbag, as you so carefully put it earlier, and he doesn’t
give false promises… and I know that he doesn’t let anyone into his heart.” He
turned to face Dalton, a proud smile on his face. “If he says he loves Clara,
then I believe that.”

Mom was about to burst a vessel.

“Mom, I love him. I love him with all my
heart,” I confessed to her. “He’s a real asshole sometimes, but he’s got a
strong heart, a courageous spirit, and he’s possibly the best man I’ve ever
encountered in my life…” I rose from my chair, standing by his side and
threading my fingers into his. “I don’t care if you don’t get it. That’s not
important to me. Just understand that we love each other, just as validly as
Will and you love one another… and we’re prepared to prove it to you over time,
if you’ll just let us.”

“I think I’ve quite heard enough.”

All eyes turned to Raleigh Carlyle, who rose
up from his chair. He was staring dispassionately towards Dalton, an unreadable
emotion stretching across his old, wrinkled face.

Whatever it was, it didn’t look good.

“Dalton Carlyle,” he spoke, letting his tone
carry his grave disappointment, “you have disgraced this family beyond all
reasonable doubt. I hereby fully renounce you from the Carlyle Fortune.”

“Yeah, I knew that was coming the second I
opened my mouth,” Dalton smirked. “If you think endangering my future to be
with the woman I love is reason enough, then you can keep the stupid money.”

“You realize, of course, that the moment my
will is rectified, you will be forever barred from this inheritance, just like
your father before you.”

“That’s always been the problem with you,
hasn’t it, darling Grandfather?” Dalton asked. “You turned on your son when you
thought he’d strayed down the wrong path… he pulled himself back, rebuilt his
life, and made something of himself
without
you OR your goddamn money
, and you never, ever considered reconciling with
him… even
after
he lost his sister…”

William squirmed slightly in his chair, but
nobody else was paying attention to him at the moment.

“You have
always
thought of yourself as having some sort of moral high ground,” Dalton
continued, “but here’s the thing: you are the most selfish, conceited son of a
bitch I have
ever
had the misfortune
of knowing… and it’s a real shame, too.”

“Is it?” Raleigh asked apathetically.

“It is,” Dalton confirmed. “Because I’ve
never really had grandparents. You’ve seen to that personally. The few times
you two were ever around, it was always to pressure me into meeting your
ridiculous expectations… tell me, Grandfather, what other family do you have?”

He remained silent.

“That’s what I thought… we’re
it
, aren’t we? We are the only people in
the world that you can turn to as you grow old, and you’ve pushed us away…”

“I will not stand here and listen to this
bullshit,” Raleigh Carlyle muttered. He turned to his wife. “Riana, we are
leaving.”

Curiously, she didn’t budge.

“Riana?”

“Dalton… has a point,” she mentioned. “These
two are all that’s left of the legacy, Raleigh. They are all that we have.”

“They’re not getting my money,” he firmly
replied. “They’ve squandered their chances…” He turned back to face his son and
grandson. “…They’ve
disgraced
us, the
both of them. If only our darling Gloria had survived, we could have continued
on… we could have
mattered
again…”

“You could have mattered all along,” William
spoke up. “Instead, you chose to cut me lose when I needed you most, and you’ve
barely
been in your single
grandchild’s life… you think
we’re
the
disgrace, Father? No. No,
that
particular
distinction belongs to
you.
”