Building Her Throne Burying My Heart (Claire) novel Chapter 123

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Every time I saw Garrison, my first instinct was to avoid him, but he always managed to stick close, impossible to shake off.

“Lambert, wait up,” he called, hurrying over to me. “Dad wanted me to give you a message.” He lowered his voice, like he was passing on some big secret. “He wants you to quit this job. He’ll talk to Claire, get her to let you go, and set you free.”

He paused, as if waiting for me to process it, then went on, “But you have to cut things off with Darleen. No more contact. Ever.”

“If you really want to come back to the Charles family, you have to leave everything from the outside behind. If you can’t do that, then you’ve got nothing to do with us. That’s it.”

It was obvious Halley had spent a long time thinking this through. The Charles family cared a lot about appearances. If people found out about the mess between me and my dad, his pride would take a hit. Halley was the kind of guy who already had everything, so of course what mattered most to him now was his reputation. I knew he couldn’t stand how I treated Darleen so well, while every conversation with him turned into a fight. It seemed he figured that, since the Charles and Gates families were about to become connected, Claire would listen to him out of respect and let me go. He was using that as a bargaining chip, hoping it would force me to leave Darleen behind.

Garrison kept going, “We’re your family, you know. At the end of the day, you only have us. You give everything to someone outside the family, and it just makes Dad feel so cold inside.”

A cold laugh slipped out before I could stop myself. “Feel cold inside? He doesn’t have the right to talk about feelings. He knows exactly why he wanted me back.”