She turned to him. “Her father has a whole wall filled with her accomplishments. You should definitely see them.”
“I would love to.”
And now I was caught, and they both knew it.
Maybe my mother wasn’t quite as impartial as she claimed to be.
Chapter 21
All days are nights to see till I see thee, and nights bright days when dreams do show thee me.
I stopped by the hall mirror and saw that my mother was right. It was there, bare and faint, but definitely there.
Sad over my lost and squandered youth, I showed Dante to the basement, where we heard whines and scratches. My parents had put our dogs downstairs so they wouldn’t interfere with the dinner and filming.
When I opened the door, our pudgy little basset hounds came scrambling up the top step, begging to be petted, tails wagging. I ruffled their long, floppy ears, and Dante crouched down to let them sniff his hand. He passed their test, and they pressed little doggie kisses all over his cheeks.
Good heavens, even my dogs loved him.
“This is Droopy and Snoopy.” Dante raised one eyebrow at me. “What? I named them after the dogs we got when I was five. So more accurately, they’re Droopy II and Snoopy II. Go find Momma and Daddy!”
They ran as fast as their little legs would carry them, and we could hear their nails clacking as they went upstairs to find their favorite people.
I started down the basement stairs. “Did you research my parents?”
“What makes you say that?”
“You mean other than you knowing practically everything about them?”
He grinned. “I have a staff. I got dossiers. I wanted to be prepared.”
I nearly asked him why, but stopped because it might open a door I didn’t want opened. I also wanted to ask him if he’d done it for the other girls, but knew I wouldn’t like the answer either way.
Then he said, “I really wanted your parents to like me. I know that’s important to you,” and the sweetness and warmth that encircled me made my heart do a jig. I was so touched by the lengths he had gone to just to make me and my parents happy.
“The trophies are over here.” My father had put in a built-in cabinet that he filled with all the sashes, crowns, and trophies I’d accumulated during my pageant days. But there was something new. Two big bulletin boards, filled up with newspaper articles. There were articles that quoted me about Nico and Kat’s engagement. There was an announcement from a local paper from a press release I’d done about the launch of Lemon Zest Communications. Several pictures of my graduation days, both as an undergrad and when I got my master’s degree.
My parents were proud of all my accomplishments, and not just the ones they preferred. Here I felt like I had to earn their respect because I’d disappointed them so often, and they loved me anyway. I blinked away the tears that formed and coughed to clear my throat.
I needed to stop constantly almost crying before I became that girl. Although, at this point, maybe I was her already.
“You were busy.”
“Busier than a one-legged cat in a sandbox,” I replied, and he smiled at me as he read the inscriptions on some of my trophies. “Here I thought I could make you a princess, and you are one already.”
“A princess of Monterra is probably a little bit different than the Georgia Peach Princess.”
“I’m not sure our family’s advisors would like it if you tried to put our children in pageants, just so you know. They have rules.”
Our children? “And in this alternate universe, how many children do you think we’re going to have?”
“However many you’ll give me.”
“I’m giving you zero.”
“We’ll see.”
It was so infuriating how he would do that. I would say one thing, reminding him of reality, and he talked about a future with me like it was a foregone conclusion.
He stopped to study me. “You seem sad. What’s wrong?”
How did he do that? I didn’t want to share what my parents had done. It was still too new and too personal to tell anyone else. So instead I said, “You mean other than you wanting to turn me into a baby factory?”