“I assumed that any man looking to marry either of my daughters would come to me…and also you. Don’t know how this really works now.”

“Gabrielle will marry me without your blessing, Dad. She won’t love it, but if the alternative is not marrying me…she’ll live with it.”

“I know,” he says and I’m surprised at his lack of pushback to my comment.

“Gabrielle loves you and Mom so much. She’s actually been rather terrified you’ll blame her for all of this.”

“Why on Earth would she think that? You both should know better, but I’m more upset with you over this, James.”

“Why do you think she thinks that, Dad?”

“I don’t know? Tell me after all this time she can’t possibly think we see her differently than we see you and Monica?”

“Normally no. In this very complicated, difficult, taboo situation? Yes, she does.”

“Doesn’t she know how much better she made our lives? That she’s my daughter even though she may not share my same blood?”

I shrug. “I’ve been over and over this with her. Deep down she knows it, but she’s scared. Monica didn’t take it well at first. Neither did her roommate. She gets it’s a hard pill to swallow but she just wants someone to be supportive of us off the bat. She wants to hear, ‘if you’re happy I’m happy.’”

“That’s a hard thing to ask of someone. By nature, people will reject this.”

“Reject what, love? Since when?”

“You know what I’m saying, James. You’re her adopted brother for the past seventeen years. To your point, you helped raise her in some ways. How do you wake up one day and decide that your relationship is different?”

“So, he didn’t take it well then.” Her face falls and I pull her into my arms before the tears can form because the second I see her cry I’m going to lose it.

“Please don’t cry, angel.” I press a kiss to her forehead. “He was okay by the end of the conversation, he just needed some time to cool off, which I expected. This is why I told him by myself so I could bear the brunt of his anger and you could be involved once he cooled off.”

She pulls back and I’m grateful that although her eyes are glossy it doesn’t appear that she’s shed any tears. “Are we going to tell Mom this weekend?”

“If you don’t want to, we don’t have to, but I think we should. It’s time to get all of this out in the open. No more hiding.”

Chapter Twenty-Two