Romancing the Bulldog by Mallory Monroe

Author:Mallory Monroe
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
ISBN: 9780615593562
Publisher: Austin Brook Publishing
Published: 2012-01-20T05:00:00+00:00

***

It went badly from the start. She arrived late, for one thing, which she could tell just irked her father. But she tried to overlook his displeasure. She wasn’t about to go down that road of pleasing him again, especially since nothing she had ever done ever did. She, instead, made the rounds of hellos and hugs for her brother, her brother’s wife, her aunt Beatrice, who had gotten her the job she now had, and her father’s latest-some young supermodel Liz had never seen before. When she got to her father, who was seated in the chair flanking the sofa and seemed royally pissed, she didn’t dare touch him. “Hello, Father,” she said as unemotionally as she possibly could.

Hamilton Morgan responded equally unemotional. “You’re late,” he said.

“Yes, I am,” Liz said as if daring him to say more. She was nervous, more than any of them would ever know, but she was more determined. That was why she just stood there, facing her tall, handsome, powerful father, as if she was standing up to herself. For that was how it felt for her. Her lifelong desire to please him, had little to do with him, and everything to do with how she saw herself. She didn’t think she was anything unless her father, the great Hamp Morgan, said she was something special. Since he never said (ever), she figured it was because she wasn’t. Hooking up with the man she would later marry, a man who reminded her so much of her father that it was uncanny, didn’t help. But at least it was her life, her decision. And when it all unraveled and she phoned her father for help, and he wouldn’t even take her call, was a good thing. Because she knew then she was on her own. She knew then she had to fight for her freedom, or lose it all. She fought.

Just like she was fighting now. Only she was fighting back tears, fighting back that feeling of abandonment, fighting back the fear that this would be their last chance at reconciliation, and it was already breaking bad.

“Don’t just stand there like some dunce,” Hamp told her. “Sit down.” Liz wanted to fire back at him, but she didn’t. You couldn’t win in any mouth battle with her father. He was too quick, too sharp-tongued, too willing to tear you apart to lose. She sat down, on the sofa next to her Aunt Bea, who was about the only friendly face in the house.

Her father then looked at Malcolm, and Malcolm, who sat on the sofa across from Liz and Bea, whose wife Cassie sat so close to him they seemed wedged together, leaned forward, ready to do their father’s bidding.

“I’m glad you could make it, Elizabeth,” Malcolm said. He was the spitting image of Hamp Morgan. Tall, good looking, sharp dresser. And he had his swagger too, his ruthlessness, something that always used to make Liz sad. When they were kids, Mal used to be the good kid, kind and considerate, the type who always wanted to adopt a stray cat.

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