Gulping, I forced it out. “Logan Lawson.”
I heard his teeth snap.
The old disgust.
The violence that coated his carefully constructed response. “You promised, Aster Rose. You gave me the Oath of Life.”
“I know, Papa, I know, but I…”
Tears sprang free, and a sob ripped up my throat before I could contain it.
“Tell me where you are, and I will come for you.” Panic whipped from him.
“I’m safe, I’m safe. But I need you to do something for me. Allow one request.”
“And what is it I’m allowing you? For Logan Lawson to live when you went against the one thing required of you?” Rage thinned his words.
One thing.
My life.
Every last piece of me.
My pulse wavered and shook. “Yes. Yes, Papa. And I need you to allow me to stay here. Just for a little while.”
Until I figured out how to prove to my father that Jarek wasn’t loyal. That he was no good. That he would hurt the family in the end.
And if I could prove it?
Maybe…just maybe my father would see me as my own person. See me as someone who could stand for herself. See I didn’t need him to pick a husband for me.
I was hisdaughter. Not his possession.
“You know I cannot do that, mia vita. This is where you belong, and the last place I would allow you to stay is with that boy.”
That boy.
“I have never belonged with Jarek.” The blasphemy was out on a whoosh of air that I should have dammed. But I couldn’t stop it, the flashflood of hatred and hurt.
“He is your husband.” My father sounded offended in his defense.
“And why is that?” Hurt shot through the words. I gasped in a shocked breath.
How could I say it? Release it? Not when it meant breaking the promise I’d made that day.
When I’d given Logan a chance at life at the cost of my own.
Tears kept falling, racing in a torrent of grief. I looked to the ceiling and tried to suppress the sorrow that surged from the secret places. To hold it back.
I had to be strong. I had to convince him there was a reason I was doing this.
But I had to be smart about it. “I need a break, Papa.”
A permanent one, but I couldn’t tell him that.
“I need to breathe. I need to heal. I’ve never had that chance.”
“Aster Rose…your responsibilities are here.” I heard the undercurrent of it.