Wanting More (Mitchell Family #5)(57)
Author: Jennifer Foor

She sat there putting her hands in her face and shaking her head. “I never had a nervous breakdown and I sure as hell didn’t receive any money from you. I’ve taken less than five days off since we bought the salon.”

“Yeah, I figured when I did that for you, it would bring you back into my life.”

I turned around and faced the man slowly, and in that amount of time, I heard Amy gasp. “Did you just say that you bought my salon?”

The old man cocked his eyebrow. “You didn’t know?”

She shook her head. “Rick told me he bought it. In fact, he wouldn’t even let me go with him when he signed the papers. He told me it was my gift from him.”

“Sweetie, your stepmother, well, my wife, she wrote some books and made a heck of a lot of money. We sold the hardware store almost six years ago. Since I didn’t need all the money and I knew you were struggling, I bought the salon as a business investment for you. How could you not have known something like that? Your name is on the deed to the building.” He leaned back against the counter and seemed just as confused as Amy was.

“I don’t understand any of this. Rick told me he bought that salon and if I left him, I would lose everything.”

“I don’t know what’s going on here, but that salon is yours. I have a copy of the deed to prove it. Rick has no claim to it at all. I even paid for the business license. After hearing this much, please tell me that you’ve left that man, Amy. I can’t make up for being absent, but you have to know that I never wanted that kind of life for you. All this time I thought you were happy and resented me as a parent.”

I walked closer toward the man and caught his attention. “Sir, forgive me for cuttin’ in, but I think it’s obvious what’s happened here. Clearly, Amy had been lied to for years.”

“I am seeing that.” He stood up straight and reached across the counter to grab Amy’s arm. She sat up in her seat, but didn’t pull away from her father. “Have you left that man?”

Amy looked at me and smiled with tears running down her face. “Yes, well, I am leaving, but not just because of all of this. It’s so much more, Dad. God, the last seven years of my life have been a lie. I can’t believe this is happening to me.” Her head laid down on the granite counter and she began to sob. Her father kept a hold of his daughter and rubbed her arm as she let out the pain and tension of feeling trapped.

He looked over at me and took in the tattoos on my arms and probably how young I looked. “Son, can I ask what your relationship is with my daughter?”

I cleared my throat and walked up behind her to rest my hands on her shoulder. Before I could answer, Amy sat up and looked back at me. She smiled through the tears. “He’s my boyfriend. He…” More tears came and she could barely speak. “He protected me from Rick. He saved me.”

The poor man looked up at me. “Saved her from what?”

I could see the fear in his eyes as he looked from me and then back to his daughter. “Sir, your daughter has been in an abusive relationship. My sister works at the salon and they’re close friends. Look, I realize that you probably don’t agree with extra-marital affairs, I reckon’ no father would, but I can assure you that I love your daughter. I wake up every single day wishing she was with me, where she’d always be safe and loved.”

I watched his face turn from concerned to pained. His eyes became glossy as the reality of the situation hit him. “My God, Amy, why didn’t you just come home? I would have made sure that disgrace of a man never came near you again.”

“Because I thought you didn’t love me anymore. I thought you would turn me away and I couldn’t feel rejection from anyone else in my life.”

The emotions in the room were hard even for me to handle. I saw two people that loved each other and had been lied to in order for one man to be in control of his wife. It made me sick that such people existed in the world.

“Amy, I’m your father. I know I was hard on you and said things I shouldn’t have, but I wouldn’t ever want you to suffer the way you have.” He looked up at me. “He really hurt her; like he hit her?”

I nodded my head. “Yes, sir and I’m afraid even worse than that at times.”

He shook his head. “My God! I had no idea. You have to believe that, Amy.”

“Look, dredging up the past isn’t going to help matters right now. Amy needs your help. Rick is pretty much holdin’ her a prisoner and makin’ her think she has to stay because she won’t have anything if she leaves. I have to say, I’ve offered for her to come and stay with me for a while now, and that salon is what’s keepin’ her from comin’.”

He stood straight up and looked me right in the eye. “You tell me what I have to do and I’ll do it.”

I thought about her coming to stay with me, but with my family crowding in and Rick expecting her to come to me, she needed a place where he wouldn’t go. “She needs a place to stay until I get us a place together. It won’t be that long, maybe a couple of weeks.”

Amy looked as if I had slapped her in the face. “But I…”

I put my hands back on her shoulders. “I need you to be safe for now. It’s just until I can find us a place. I promise.” I looked up at Amy’s father. “I’m goin’ to give you two some time to catch up. If you need me, I’ll just be outside.”

Amy needed a lot more time to work out things with her father, but for now, she was safe and that’s what I needed her to be. Now, I just needed to figure out how I was going to tell my entire family that I was moving out to live with my married girlfriend.

Chapter 36

Amy

My world was spinning in every different direction and I was getting lost in all of the confusion. My father, who I hadn’t spoken to in so long, had been there for me this whole time. Rick has spun a web of lies and trapped me in a loveless marriage.

I didn’t know how far the extent of the financial lies he’d told was, but I was certain that if the salon was mine, there was more he was keeping from me.

Still, I had a way out and knew for a fact he couldn’t take my business from me. The only thing I had to worry about now was getting my things and making sure he didn’t come after me. Even through the emotional reunion with my father, I couldn’t take my mind off of feeling like I was finally going to be free of that man. I hated him so much.