Lola Stark - Destry

“Amelia! I shall not tolerate any of this disrespectful behavior from you,” he demanded. Mother simply sat drinking her martini. Typical, don’t speak unless spoken to. I could finally see her for who she really was. A shallow shell of a person.

“Disrespectful? You want to know what’s disrespectful? Screwing your sister’s fiancé six ways from Sunday on her Egyptian sheets! That’s damn disrespectful.” I laughed harshly.

“Don’t be ridiculous, Amelia.” He really wasn’t grasping my point here, so I decided to be blunt and straight to the point.

“I never wanted to marry that asshat. I was only agreeable because it was expected, and now I don’t give a flying fuck what is expected of me. I’m happy now, Daddy, and if you aren’t okay with that, then that’s on you.” Both my parents gasped loudly at my sudden use of the English language and all the colorful words I’d spurted.

Daddy smiled cruelly and hit me with his nasty words. “That country hick did this to you. But rest assured, by now he won’t be waiting for you.”

“You have no idea what you’re talking about.” It suddenly registered that he shouldn’t know about any country anybody, and he was clearly referring to Destry.

“Oh, that’s right, darling. Wesley paid your cowboy a little visit this morning. He went out there to talk some sense into you, but fortunately you weren’t there so he’s filled this character in on your current engagement and responsibilities.”

My stomach dropped and my head became light and fuzzy. Wesley had been out to the ranch after I left? I hadn’t told Destry about my past, but I’d sworn to myself he would know all of it when I went back.

“Now, you have no choice. You have to come back to Wesley. He’ll be the only one willing to marry you.” I’d never had real respect for my father after growing up and seeing how he treated people, but this was disgusting behavior at its finest. “You will go home now and unpack your belongings. You will ignore the child Wesley and your sister have created, and you will go about living as the perfect wife.” He sat back and downed the last mouthful of his scotch. “It wouldn’t look good for us if he moved from one sister to the other.”

Child? What? My sister was pregnant? By my ex fiancé? Holy fuck no!

“Like fuck I will!” I yelled, blood was roaring in my ears; I was furious. The fact he thought I would just look past that disgusted me. Simply, the fact that he was demanding I live that life, made me want to slap him. “Go and play Barbie with your precious whore of a daughter. I’m done here.”

I stood and pushed my chair back roughly. Not even a few strides from the table he bellowed, “You walk out of this house and you can kiss your inheritance goodbye, young lady. You’ll be cut off.”

I stopped, spun around and looked at him like the trash he was. “Go to hell! I don’t want your money or anything else from any of you. Keep your shallow worthless wife, money hungry skank of a daughter and the piece-of-shit that knocked her up. Y’all deserve each other.” With that, I spun on my heel and walked to the door noticing the butler trying to hide a smirk. I walked out of my childhood home and slammed the door behind me.

How dare they! Loving parents hadn’t raised me; that much I was already at peace with, but what just went down was more than even I could accept. I pulled my cell phone out of my back pocket and scrolled down to Destry’s number. My finger hovered over the screen for a second before I pushed down and pulled the phone up to my ear.

I just hoped I could salvage any damage Wesley has caused. I was going to wring that asshole’s neck if I ever saw him again.

I slid into my car with my cell still pressed to my ear and nothing. It rang out. I hit call again, and this time it went directly to voicemail. “Destry, call me back please. I need to speak with you,” I left a short message and slid my phone into my back pocket.

“Shit,” I cursed under my breath.

I put my car into drive and sped off out of the perfectly paved driveway, heading back to Luling. I wished I’d had time to do a big burnout across their manicured lawn or at least run down a few of the prized rose bushes that lined the property, but I wasn’t waiting any longer. Destry was the only thing on my mind at that moment. He was without a doubt more important to me than hanging around to tell the lowlife people who wanted to control me, just what I thought of them. As far as my finances went, I had whatever was in my purse and I would have to stop and drain my cards at the closest ATM. That’d have to get me through until I could get a lawyer and find out what I needed to do to release the hefty inheritance my grandfather had left me.

I drove as fast as I could, all the while gripping my steering wheel until my knuckles were white. My stomach was in knots and I had a feeling I’d just screwed up the only good thing I’d found in my life, by not being open and honest.

“You’re an idiot, Amelia!” I cursed myself. I pulled into a gas station and filled my car up then used the ATM to withdraw the last of my accessible money. That plus the five-thousand dollars wasn’t going to get me far. I would have to be very careful with it and most likely find a job somewhere and fast. That was the least of my concern though. I jumped back into my car and threw my purse onto the passenger’s seat then sped off down the interstate, praying to God, I had what it took to fix this.

I looked at my cell again and deleted the twelve more missed calls. “You’re the cliché bitch who just had his balls ripped off and handed to him, right now.” Austin laughed from beside me with a pointed look at my busted up hand.

“Well, I’ve been fucking a chick who is engaged, so I’m kinda pissed,” I hissed at him.

“I knew you were banging her!” he said with far too much excitement.

With a roll of my eyes, I told him, “You didn’t have to come. I could have brought myself in.”

“D, you can barely hold your cell when you check it every five minutes.” He was such a smartass.

“She keeps calling. I’m not answering it. She knows she’s been caught in her bullshit lies. I told her not to lie to me,” I said in a hushed whisper.

“You sure she was lying?” he asked with a raised eyebrow. I scrunched my face up and stared at him like he’d lost his damn mind. One too many kicks to the head I thought. “Just sayin’, brother. Don’t jump to conclusions.”

Before I could tell him to give it a rest, the doctor came out and called my name. I shuffled over to him and walked into the double doors.

I was bone-ass tired. My hand hurt like a bitch and now I was sitting in a hospital so Ellie would shut up about my hand that wasn't even broken.

Could it be true? Was I jumping to hasty conclusions without knowing the facts? Fuck Austin and his Doctor Phil bullshit. I didn't even listen to the doctor as he spoke; my mind was focused completely on the images of Amelia floating around in my head along with the words 'she is my fiancée. What the fuck was I meant to do?

The doc checked me out and did unnecessary x-rays just to tell me what I already knew. My hand wasn’t broken, just ripped up and bruised. The nurse came in and pulled the pieces of embedded bark out of it, and then cleaned me up and applied some shit smelling cream and a bandage before sending us on our way.

“What’re you going to do when she shows back up?” Austin asked me from behind the wheel on the way back to the ranch.

“I doubt she will. We’ve seen the last of Amelia. She got caught. I’ll be surprised if she shows her face around here again.” Even though she’d hurt me, the idea of never seeing her again was like salt in a wound. I couldn’t deal with that so I threw up my walls and stared out the window, blocking out all thoughts of her.