Falling For My Father's Best Friend

Chapter 5: Exposed

Everly's POV

It was my dad’s enormous press conference for his campaign. The house was quiet and I made my chance, unlocking the door with a hairpin.

I snuck into my dad’s study to look for any means of contacting Grayson. I spotted my phone resting on the desk.

I switched it on, and a message popped up instantly from an unknown number. This is a text message that was meant for my father’s phone, which was also lying there.

“The Senator thinks he can conceal his daughter’s shame? At 8:00 PM tonight, the world is about to learn exactly what kind of 'family man' Luke Hart is. This campaign is ending tonight.”

My blood turned cold. This blackmailer was not only threatening him but would distribute the video to the national media at the conference.

I didn't think. I picked up my keys, snuck out the back window, and drove my old car towards the city hall. I had to end the broadcast. I had to tell him.

I got there right as things were reaching their peak. The room was filled with media personnel, camera crews, and pack leaders. My father was on stage, smiling, getting ready to make a record-breaking announcement.

“And now,” announced the announcer, “a look at the Senator’s vision for our future.”

The lights faded. I shoved through the double doors at the back of the assembly hall, gasping for air, my hair disheveled.

“Stop it! Turn it off!” I yelled, but my cries were lost in the simultaneous gasp of five hundred people.

There was no political campaign ad playing on the giant screen behind my dad but…a video of me and Grayson kissing played on repeat, fifty feet wide.

A hush fell over the ballroom before it erupted into a flurry of camera shutters and shouted questions from the media.

My dad stopped on stage, his eyes fixed on the screen in terror. I stood in the doorway, immobilized, the harsh glow of the projector lighting me up like a spotlight.

It is as if the temperature in the room suddenly plummeted by twenty degrees. A heavy and very familiar presence materialized behind me.

Then there were heavy, deliberate footsteps on the marble floor.

I turned my head. Grayson was approaching me, his suit tailored to perfection, his face a mask of cold, deadly impassivity.

He did not look at the media or look at my father. He looked at the screen, then at me.

The room erupted.

A roar from my dad sliced through the silence. “TURN IT OFF!” he yelled, his neck arteries standing out like cords as he turned to the technical team. “Turn it off right now!”

It went black, but the damage had been done.

The camera lenses swung wildly. The news reporters shouted over one another. A whiff of panic, sweat, from the black boxes, hung in the air. I stood rooted to the floor of the foyer, my heart beating so furiously that it threatened to break my breastbone.

Then my father saw Grayson and he went wild.

“You!” my father screamed, springing down from the stage quickly. He covered the ground in mere seconds, his fist c*****g into Grayson’s expensive suit, pulling him forward with force. “You twisted f**k!”

The loud gasps echoed through the hall and the security moved in, from both packs.

“I trusted you!” my father growled, shaking him. “I let you into my house. Near my daughter. And this is what you do? You prey upon my daughter?”

“Luke,” Grayson snapped, holding onto my dad’s wrist to keep him from ripping his own throat out. “This is not the place.”

“Oh, this is the very place,” my father hissed. “In front of everyone and the entire council. I will destroy you.”

My chest hurt so badly that it made me bend forward, clutching my hands.

“Dad, stop!” I shouted, struggling to get to him. “Please, this isn’t…”

“Stay out of this!” my dad warned without looking at me. “You’ve embarrassed this family enough.”

Grayson's eyes flicked to me, then—it only took a second—and in their depths, I saw it.

The pain and love but he wasn't rejecting me.

Not yet.

“Luke,” Grayson said slowly, his voice going dangerously calm, “you’re making this worse. Stand down.”

“Or what?” my dad growled. “You'll mark her again? Finish claiming her like the predator you are?”

It hit like a gunshot.

A murmur rose through the crowd. The cameras zoomed in. I watched as the expressions changed and the suspicion dawned, then fear.

We were unknown to humans, unknown what we were, but they were sufficient in their understanding of us to fear us.

“Touch my daughter again, and I’ll reveal it all to the world,” my dad hissed into the mic, his face inches from Grayson’s. “The packs, bonds, shifters. Just you name it. I’ll destroy your whole damn life, Grayson, and I swear to the moon that I won’t lose any sleep over it.”

My blood went cold.

I could feel Grayson's anger rise to the top from the bond.

My father turned harshly to me, his eyes blazing. “And as for you—if you take one more step towards him, and say his name again, you become no daughter of mine. I will disown you tonight. In front of everyone.”

“No,” I whispered, shaking my head. “Dad, please—”

In Grayson, something snapped and I felt it. It was like a knife cutting through my heart.

“Enough,” Grayson said suddenly, his voice commanding with deadly power. He let my father go, moving back away from him.

Away from me.

The bond shrieked.

“I will not have you threaten your own daughter,” Grayson went on coldly. “And I will not let this farce spin out of control into something that jeopardizes either my pack or yours.”

My heart skipped a beat, the hope dawning lamely. He was defending me.

And then he turned—to the crowd, and the cameras.

“There is no mate bond,” Grayson stated clearly.

These words were more painful than any slap.

“There never was,” he continued, his face remaining expressionless. “The video you saw was made up. Edited. It was meant to be deceiving.”

I looked at him, trembling with shock. No. No, he didn’t mean that.

“Everly Hart is young,” Grayson went on, his voice flat, detached. “Beautiful. And worthy of living her life without the destruction of her dignity through some cruel smear campaign. She swore no oath to me and I swore no oath to her.”

My lungs were burning.

“She deserves better,” he continued. “Not this circus.”

Dad stiffened in shock.

Again, the crowd erupted but I couldn’t hear them anymore.

I stumbled forward. “Grayson…” I gasped.

He didn’t look at me.

Not once.

“I do not accept any claim to her,” he said firmly. “I do not acknowledge any bond. And I will work fully with the authorities to expose who masterminded this fraud.”

Fraud. But he had marked me.

The bond was convulsing, tearing itself apart within me.

I felt the pain, tore through my chest. I clawed at my throat, gasping for air, my eyes tunneling as if the room were falling in.

I couldn't breathe.

“Everly!” someone called out—maybe my dad, maybe not

The world lurched violently. Grayson's face finally swiveled in my direction, his eyes widening—but it was too late.

The pain swallowed everything.

Darkness rushed up to meet me as my knees gave out, with the floor rushing up at me.

Then nothing.