He Wanted Me Hidden, I Became Untouchable Chapter 06
That night, I had barely made it back to my room when Grant followed me inside.
“Why did you agree to marry into the Ashford family?” he asked from behind me.
I gave him a small smile. “Why shouldn’t I?”
Grant froze, then clenched his jaw and growled.
“Do you really like Julian that much? He wants you to marry his nephew, and you’ll just do it?”
“Or do you think ruining your own life will somehow hurt him?”
His voice was thick with anger.
Grant rarely let his emotions show. With me, he had always been the calm, dependable older brother. But now, he seemed to have stopped trying to keep them in check.
Dad had told me I didn’t have to force myself into anything.
Grant thought I was doing this because of Julian, that I was only trying to get back at him.
At first, when I’d heard about the alliance at my birthday party, I had thought the same thing.
But later, in Dad’s study,
when I saw how gray his hair had become,
I suddenly realized how sheltered I had been my entire life.
None of the family’s everyday burdens had ever landed on my shoulders.
I loved painting and wanted nothing to do with politics. Dad had never pressured me. He had only encouraged me to do what made me happy.
He always said, “If the family ever lost Dad, it would still have Grant. Emmy only needed to do what she
loved.”
I had been free to study whatever I wanted. I had never been forced to carry some so–called family
responsibility.
I wanted freedom, so I traveled under the name Luna Bennett, from one end of the country to the other.
Everything I’d seen had been beautiful, romantic, and sincere. So when Julian entered my life, I never once thought to suspect him of bad intentions. I simply gave him my heart.
What happened today finally woke me up.
The world wouldn’t always play out the way I imagined.
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If kept hiding beneath Dad and Grant’s protection, I would never grow up.
In a strange way, I had to thank Julian. He had shown me what people were really capable of. Even the person sleeping beside you could still stab you in the back.
After a long silence, I looked up at Grant and smiled.
“Grant, you know better than anyone that a marriage between our families would benefit both sides.”
Grant let out a cold laugh and held my gaze. “Don’t even think about it.”
“Emmy, I spent three years in Baycrest buried in work. I failed to look after you, and that gave Julian an opening.”
“I regret it. I won’t make the same mistake twice.”
“Julian is out of the question. His nephew is even more out of the question.”
With that, he turned and left my room.
I frowned as I watched him go. A strange unease settled in my chest.
I had expected Grant to object. It wasn’t a surprise.
Even Dad had asked me how Grant would react if I agreed.
Grant had always been intensely protective of me.
His three years in Baycrest had been the one period when he relaxed his guard. Otherwise, as he had said,
Julian never would have found an opening.
Growing up, I’d barely been allowed to be around any guys. I hadn’t exactly been encouraged to get close to girls, either.
When we were in school, plenty of classmates said Grant was taking things too far.
But I was the only one who knew why.
On the surface, the Whitmores had taken Grant in from foster care. In reality, his mother had abandoned
him on the side of the road.
He had watched her turn around and walk away.
Even when he screamed and chased after her, she never looked back or stopped.
Later, I was the one who found him beside a dumpster and brought him home.
Grant was seven years old at the time.
That was why he feared I would leave him, and why he was terrified I’d abandon him the way his mother
had.
……
Grant still wanted to protect me the way he had when we were children, but he had forgotten that we were both grown now.
One day, we’d each have families of our own.
I would. So would he.
