MARRIED TO MY EX FATHER IN LAW

DON'T COMPARE ME TO HIM

I'm making a mistake.

The thought screams through my head even as I'm kissing her back, even as my hands are buried in her hair and she's making those soft desperate sounds against my mouth and every single part of me is telling me to never let go.

But I have to let go. Because this is wrong.

I pull away. Force myself to step back even though it feels like ripping my own heart out of my chest.

"Lola, stop."

She's breathing hard, looking at me with those big eyes, her lips swollen from my kiss. God, she's so beautiful it actually hurts to look at her.

"Why?" Her voice is so small. So hurt.

"Because this isn't real." The words taste like ash in my mouth but I make myself say them anyway.

"What are you talking about?"

"What you're feeling right now. It's not real." I put more distance between us because I need space to think clearly and I can't think when she's close enough to touch. "You're confusing gratitude with attraction. You're mixing up feeling safe with being in love."

"I'm not confused..."

"You are, sweetheart. I myself I'm confused. Forget everything I said earlier" I keep my voice as gentle as I can even though this is killing me. "Listen to me. You've been through absolute hell for four years. Abuse. Manipulation. Isolation. And then I came along and I gave you safety. I gave you kindness. I treated you like a human being for the first time in years. It's completely natural that you'd develop feelings for me. But those feelings aren't real. They're a trauma response."

"Don't tell me what I'm feeling." There's an edge to her voice now. Anger mixing with the hurt. "Don't you dare stand there and tell me I don't know my own heart."

"You've been through serious trauma, Lola. The kind of trauma that messes with your head, makes you think things that aren't true. One of the documented effects of trauma bonding is that victims often develop feelings for their rescuers. It's a psychological phenomenon. It's not—"

"Are you seriously psychoanalyzing me right now?" She stares at me like she can't believe what she's hearing. "You think I'm so f****d up in the head that I can't tell the difference between gratitude and love?"

"That's not what I'm saying."

"Then what are you saying?"

I run my hand through my hair, trying to find the right words. "I'm saying you need time. Real time to heal. Time to figure out who you are outside of being someone's victim. Time to process everything you've been through. Time to..."

"I've had three months."

"Three months isn't enough to recover from four years of abuse."

"So how much time is enough then?" She's getting worked up now and I can see tears starting to form in her eyes. "Six months? A year? Five years? When exactly do I get to decide that I'm healed enough to know what I want?"

"Lola..."

"And even if you're right about me being confused, which I'm not, but let's say you are. What about you?" She takes a step closer and I have to force myself not to back away. "You said you love me. Were you lying about that?"

"No. I wasn't lying."

"Then what's the problem? If you love me and I love you, what's stopping us?"

"The problem is that I'm too old for you."

"I don't care about the age difference."

"You should care. Lola, I'm twenty-six years older than you. Twenty-six years. When you're thirty, I'll be fifty-six. When you're forty, I'll be sixty-six. You'll spend the best years of your life taking care of an old man who can barely keep up with you."

"That's not how I see it—"

"That's how it is though. That's reality. And beyond the age gap, there's everything else." I start listing all the reasons because I need her to understand why this can't happen. "You were married to my son. That alone makes this completely wrong. Then there's the fact that you're vulnerable right now, whether you want to admit it or not. I'm in a position of power over you. You're living in my house, you're dependent on me for your safety, for everything. That's not a foundation for a real relationship. That's a recipe for absolute disaster."

"You don't actually believe that."

"I do believe it. Every word."

"You're a liar." Her voice cracks right down the middle. "You're lying to both of us and you know it."

"I'm trying to protect you—"

"Protect me from what? From being happy? From being loved? From having something good for once in my entire f*****g life?"

The curse surprises me. Lola never curses. The fact that she just did tells me how upset she really is.

"I'm trying to protect you from me," I say quietly. "That's what I'm doing here."

"Why would I need protection from you?"

"Because I'm not a good man, Lola. I've done terrible things. I've hurt people. I've killed people. I live in a world of violence and crime and darkness and blood. You deserve so much better than that. You deserve better than me."

"I don't want better. I want you."

Jesus Christ, she's absolutely killing me right now.

"You only think you want me because I'm the first person who's been kind to you. The first person who's made you feel safe. The first person who's treated you like you matter. But that's not love, sweetheart. That's trauma bonding. That's your brain trying to attach to someone who represents safety."

"Trauma bonding." She repeats the words like they taste bad. "That's what you think this is."

"I think you need time to heal before you can make decisions like this—"

"You already said that."

"I think you need space to process everything you've been through—"

"Said that too."

"I think—"

"You think I'm too broken to know my own mind. You think I'm too young and stupid to make my own decisions. You think I'm confusing safety with love because I'm too damaged to tell the difference." She's not crying anymore. She's just staring at me with this flat, cold expression. "Did I miss anything or is that about it?"

"Lola, I'm trying to do the right thing here. I'm trying to—"

"The right thing." She laughs but there's no humor in it at all. Just bitterness and pain. "You want to know what the right thing would be? The right thing would be to trust me. To believe me when I tell you what I'm feeling. To respect me enough to let me make my own choices. But you can't do that, can you? Because you've already decided that I'm too damaged, too confused, too young, too everything."

"That's not what I'm doing—"

"It is exactly what you're doing." She wraps her arms around herself like she's trying to hold herself together. "You know what's really funny? Ethan used to do the exact same thing. He'd tell me I didn't know what I was feeling. That I was confused. That I was wrong about everything I thought I knew. I really thought you were different from him."

"Don't compare me to him." My voice comes out harder than I mean it to. "Don't you dare compare me to that piece of shit."

"Why not? You're both telling me I don't know my own mind. You're both deciding what's best for me without asking what I actually want. How is that different?"

The comparison lands like a physical blow. Because she's right. I am doing the same thing Ethan did. I'm dismissing her feelings. Telling her she doesn't know what she wants.

But I'm doing it for completely different reasons. I'm doing it to protect her.

"I'm trying to protect you," I say again because I need her to understand that.

"I don't need protection from you. What I need is for you to believe me. To trust me. To treat me like an adult who's capable of knowing her own heart." She starts moving toward the stairs. "But you can't do that. So I guess we're done here."

"Lola, wait—"

"No. I'm done waiting. I'm done trying to convince you of something you refuse to see. I told you how I felt. You rejected me. That's fine. That's your choice and you're allowed to make it." She's halfway up the stairs now, not looking at me. "But don't pretend you're doing this for me. Don't act like you're being noble. You're doing this because you're scared."

"I'm not scared—"

"You are. You're absolutely terrified. Because feeling something real means risking something real. And the great Ocean Moretti doesn't take risks with his heart, does he?" She finally looks back at me and there's something in her eyes that cuts deeper than any knife. "You're a coward, Ocean. That's what you are."

Then she's gone. Up the stairs. Down the hallway. I hear her bedroom door close with a soft click that somehow sounds louder than a gunshot.

I stand there in the hallway by myself. The house is completely silent except for the sound of my own breathing.

My hands are shaking. I look down at them like they belong to someone else.

I did the right thing. I know I did the right thing.

She needs time. She needs space. She needs to heal properly before she can make decisions like this. I'm protecting her from making a mistake she'll regret for the rest of her life.

I'm protecting her. From me. From this situation. From a future where she wakes up one day and realizes she wasted her youth on an old man who didn't deserve her.

I did the right thing.

So why does it feel like I just made the worst mistake of my entire life?

I walk to my office on autopilot. Pour myself three fingers of whiskey. Drink it in one swallow. Pour another.

Her words keep playing in my head on repeat.

You're a coward, Ocean.

I'm not a coward. I've faced death more times than I can count. I've stared down enemies who wanted to put bullets in my head. I've built an entire empire through blood and violence and sheer force of will. I've done things that would make most men piss themselves in fear.

I'm not scared of anything.

Except...

Except maybe I am scared of this. Of her. Of what I feel when she looks at me like I'm her entire world.

I'm scared of hurting her worse than Ethan did. I'm scared of failing her. I'm scared of being just another man who takes and takes from her without giving anything real back.

I'm scared that she's right. That what she feels is real. And if it's real, if this thing between us is actually real and not just trauma or gratitude or confusion...

Then I still can't have her. Because I don't deserve her.

She deserves someone good. Someone clean. Someone who hasn't spent the last thirty years drowning in blood and sin and violence. Someone who can give her a normal life. A safe life.

Not me. Never me.

I finish the second glass of whiskey. Pour a third one.

Upstairs, I hear water running through the pipes. She's in the shower.

I close my eyes and imagine her up there. Crying probably. Hurting because of me. Because I pushed her away to protect her even though it broke both of us.

I hurt her to save her.

That's what I tell myself anyway.

But the truth, the truth I don't want to look at too closely...

The truth is that she saw right through me. She called me out and she was absolutely right.

I'm a coward.

Because I want her so badly it physically hurts. I want her more than I've wanted anything in my entire life. And instead of being brave enough to reach for what I want, I'm hiding behind excuses that sound good but don't actually hold up.

Age gap. Trauma. Power dynamics. Her vulnerability. All of it is true. All of it is valid.

But none of it is the real reason I pushed her away.

The real reason, the one I don't want to admit even to myself, is that I'm terrified of loving her completely and then losing her.

Everyone I've ever loved has left eventually. My wife died. Willow walked away without a word. Friends have betrayed me. Family has disappointed me. Everyone leaves in the end.

And if I let myself love Lola the way I want to love her, if I let myself have her completely, and then she leaves like everyone else always does...

I won't survive it. I know I won't.

So I'm pushing her away first. Before I'm in too deep. Before it can destroy me.

I'm not protecting her at all.

I'm protecting myself.

She saw it. She called it exactly. Looked right into my soul and saw the truth I've been hiding.

You're a coward, Ocean.

I drain the third glass.

She's right.

I am.