Dragon's Second Chance Romance - Riley Storm Page 0,29

be pretty, she thought to herself dully, wondering how soon it could be done and over with, and what the end result was going to be.

Both her parents were normally quite calm people who preferred to simply talk through issues to resolve them. Then again, they’d also never come down the stairs to confront their felony criminal daughter and a stranger covered in blood before.

Her father appeared ready to burst a vein in his forehead, while her mother had gone even quieter than before, a sure sign that she was experiencing very strong emotions.

An answering upwelling of emotions, brought on by what she’d experienced earlier in the night, surged through her as the door closed behind Pietro. She lashed out at her parents without waiting for them to speak first.

“Well then, go on,” she said. “Get it over and done with then. Tell me how you can’t believe it and everything. Don’t hold back.”

There was silence for a moment after her outburst, both her parents stunned by it.

Of course. Their perfect little daughter. How could they ever understand?

“But Claire…why?” her mom blurted out.

Claire rolled her head to the side and looked at her mom. “Do you really want an answer to that? Or are you just going to keep judging me no matter what?”

“That’s enough of that attitude,” her father said, trying to lay down the law.

“You know,” she said, looking at her father. “I think maybe I’m entitled to a bit of attitude, considering someone else came and bailed me out when my own parents were too ashamed of me to even come visit! I didn’t expect you to pay the bail, but not even coming to see me?”

That had hurt, she knew, and Claire was fighting back tears, blinking rapidly, pressing her tongue to the roof of her mouth. Everything she could think of to try and stop it from happening. The tears would come, but later. Not now.

“We were just so shocked,” her father said. “It all happened so fast. They were here, then you were gone. Without any surprise or argument. You just went with them like you knew it was true.”

“It’s because I did know,” Claire cried. “Because I did it!”

“But why?” her mother asked softly, shaking her head.

Claire shook her head. “I doubt you’d understand. I don’t even understand now that I look back, and I was the one who made the choice to do it.”

“There must have been some reason at the time though,” her father said. “Something that made you think it was a good idea or that you needed to do it.”

Claire snorted angrily as she thought back to what those days had been like. “Yeah. A boy. Said he needed my help, and I was so wrapped up in wanting to please him that I agreed to it. Thought he’d like me more if I did. What an idiot.”

“A boy,” her mother said, shaking her head.

“Yeah, mom. A boy. Cause you never did anything stupid when you were younger either,” she said with biting acidity, referencing the fact that her mother had been married once before she’d met Claire’s father. It wasn’t a secret, nobody cared, but it proved Claire’s point perfectly.

“Claire,” her father said sharply.

“The point is, I wasn’t thinking right,” she said angrily, not responding to her father but switching the subject back to herself, in silent acknowledgment that maybe her comment hadn’t been necessary. “I don’t like what I did. That’s why I pleaded guilty. Why I didn’t try to run.”

“You’ve been running for months now,” her father pointed out. “You even came here, using our house as a hideout.”

Claire rolled her eyes. “No dad. For a lawyer, you’re being awfully thick about this. I wasn’t running at all. Until this morning, the video wasn’t even available. It had been stolen from the dealership and kept as leverage over me by my ex-boyfriend.”

“He was blackmailing you?” her father asked quietly.

“Yes. He put it out there to punish me because I didn’t stay with him. I never ran from the law.”

There was silence between them all as her parents processed this data, trying to reconcile it with the image they had of their daughter. As they did, the overwhelming impression that Claire was getting was one of disappointment.

That hit harder than any anger or loss of temper ever could. The knowledge that she’d let her parents down cut deeper than most knives. Although Claire might have been rebelling since she was seventeen with her choice of men, inside