In the end he’d rather have her walk away because being different wasn’t treasured in her life growing up, it was suspect. It made him wary of her because she didn’t conform.

Even when she’d tried to conform she’d fucked it up.

And it didn’t seem to matter either way¸ because her father still didn’t want to talk to her, even at a dinner with her sitting right across from him.

“Are you ready to tell me what happened in there?” Asa asked quietly several minutes later.

Was she?

“Obviously whatever it was has something to do with me. At least partially. I want you to unburden yourself, and you can’t if you worry how I’m going to feel. This isn’t about how I feel, it’s about how you feel.”

Tenderness flooded her to near bursting. How did she get so lucky that she found this? She never expected that love would be something so utterly certain. Asa had called to her from the start and now he fit in her life in a way that lightened her heart and made her feel grounded all at once.

“I’m in love with you, Asa. You know that, right?”

Wow, had she just said that out loud? After that freak show of an evening? After he’d lied to her and she’d caught him?

“Ack! Pretend I didn’t say that.”

He reached out to take her hand, squeezing it. “No way. I heard it and I’m holding you to it. You scare me. I’m scared I can’t possibly measure up. You were meant for more than me.”

“Shut up. This again?”

He barked a startled laugh. “And then you remind me you’re perfectly capable of your own choices and decisions, so I’m not going to argue the point because as it happens I’m in love with you too. But I still want to hear about what happened in the restaurant.”

Those words made it easier for her to tell Asa. “He thinks I’m a failure.”

Asa’s voice was quiet, but she heard the anger in it. “What? Honey, he’s drunk and he clearly doesn’t like me much. He’s just being defensive. He doesn’t mean it.”

“No. No, I think he does. All these people who claim being drunk made them say offensive or hurtful things. Bull. Alcohol exposes your true feelings. The ones normal filters usually keep you from saying out loud. And it’s not really about you, because he’s made me feel like a failure my whole life.”

Asa blew out a hard breath. “I don’t get him at all. He’s got four really great kids. You’re all at the family business. Were, anyway. You all seem to understand and value what that means. What Colman Enterprises means. He’s mad because you quit. But he pushed you there. Your quitting doesn’t make you a failure. That’s his failure – that he couldn’t see such amazing talent. You chose an alternate path to succeed. It’s petty and abusive to hang it on you like that.”

It did feel abusive, but having him say it, having someone not in her family say it, meant a lot. It meant she hadn’t been oversensitive or imagining it outright. It was so damned nice that he saw it. To be believed.

“When I quit, it was liberating and nauseating all at the same time. I knew even as I was saying the words that it was the right thing to do. It was the right choice. I don’t need him to ask me back, or even to admit he was wrong. For me, that’s past, and if he’d just made the smallest effort I’d have been happy to move on. I would have forgiven just about anything. But there have to be some limits. You just don’t say things like that. Even if you think them.”

She blew out a breath, trying not to cry as the memory of that moment washed over her again. The shame. The sense of betrayal. He’d hurt her so carelessly but with so much vitriol she knew it was exactly how he felt.

PJ pressed the heel of her hand over her heart. It seemed odd that such a wonderful thing – the first time you tell someone you love them – could happen on a day when such a horrible thing had also happened.

“He said things to me. In public. In front of other people. Stuff that got to me because it’s a lifetime worth of conditioning. Anything outside the plan as laid out by Howard Jr. is a failure. And then I’m horrified because I’m a twenty-five-year-old woman who wants her dad to be proud of her.”

He growled and then sighed. “You’re supposed to want your parents to be proud of you. I’m thirty-seven and I want my mother to be proud of me still. More than that, parents should be thrilled their kids still want it.”

Asa hadn’t been this angry at a person whose ass he couldn’t beat in years. Rage simmered in his belly at how upset Howard Colman had made his daughter.

Failure? Was he kidding?

He’d enjoyed her sister and brother Shawn as well as her mother, and even Jay was all right. They all seemed to have a great deal of affection for PJ.

Her father had power over her, which normally, if your dad was cool, was a good thing. But the guy seemed to prefer to manipulate and shame his incredibly talented youngest child, and based on the few stories she’d told Asa, her father had been picking at her the whole of her life.

“You turned out pretty well. Thank goodness for it.”

“I don’t want to talk about it anymore. Not tonight. Thank you for coming with me,” PJ said, her voice tired.

“Nope.”

“What? Nope what?” At least now the sadness was tinged with annoyance and a little curiosity.

“I’m not having any attempts on your part to pretend this all away. Your father shredded your heart tonight, Penelope Jean. You told me you loved me, which means your heart is mine. I don’t take kindly to things that are mine being misused. You’re mine. I warned you I didn’t play, and I don’t. I’m deadly serious about loving you.”