We arrived at work after Leo opened in the morning. Our day and evening was planned, and tomorrow, Christmas morning, we would drive out to Temecula and see my mother and Al. This would be another first for Katherine, and I worried she was nervous, but since her entire being was nervous, I knew there was more.

As far as my mother was concerned, Katherine had covered her bases well. She bought the biggest gift basket I’d ever seen, which seemed to include the entire Yankee Candle collection—I mentioned they were a favorite of hers—and Al was covered with a box of cigars and a beer gift basket from Trader Joes.

I’d hefted presents she bought for all of her friends into the store room since we were to meet at Victoria and Cameron’s house that night. And now, she was busy, on fire, scrubbing and cleaning and tidying to the point each Bear Claw coffee mug on the display shelf was angled so the customer could see the branding when they walked in the door.

Finally, as the morning rush died down, I asked her what was in that message.

“Katherine?” I tried to pull her away from literally making the cash register shine—it was plastic, but she was relentless.

“Yeah?” Her task had reached a level of cleanliness often classified as OCD.

“Stop.”

“Stop what?”

“Stop doing that before you rub through the plastic and hit the motherboard.”

“What?” She finally turned to me, completely distracted.

“Katherine, what’s going on?” I held her wrist gently, because I’d learned from my previous relationships that there are days when you should not cross a woman.

My caution wasn’t enough.

“Let go of me,” she demanded, though my touch was light and only meant to take her attention from whatever was on her mind.

“Katherine,” I said more quietly. “Talk to me.”

“I need a break,” she said and yanked her hand away.

“Okay,” I replied without argument.

Her phone buzzed with a new text. She took it from her pocket and looked at the screen.

“No,” she whispered.

“No…what? What’s going on?”

She looked to the door and moved in its path, and the second she planted her feet, a woman walked in, and I knew immediately that woman was Katherine’s mother.

“Leave,” she told her, standing as tall as she could, her body rigid like she was preparing for a fight, protecting her territory.

“Katherine.” The woman came right to her and desperately urged, “They’ll be here any minute. You need to listen to me—”

“No. I told you I didn’t want to hear from you or Dad, and yet, here you are, trying to fuck this up for me. When are you gonna stand up to him, Mom? When—”

That was when the door opened…

There was one customer seated in the far back corner with headphones on, completely unaware of what was happening. Leo stood back and watched, then silently moved toward me with a small nod, letting me know he was there for whatever we needed.

I nodded toward the back and said, “Get Tori.”

Then I stood with Katherine. Not behind her. I stood at her side.

A man walked in with the same eyes and jaw structure as Katherine. Her father loomed before us. I hated him instantly, a pig of a man, the kind of man that would save himself before the women and children.

But the next man…I reached for Katherine’s hand and squeezed it. I said one word into her ear so she could hear me, “Battle.”

“Dad,” she said, holding her ground, still standing proud and tall, surrounded by her dream. With me at her side, and, hopefully, Tori not far away, I hoped it would be what she needed to fight.

“Katherine,” her father said. “You’re a difficult girl to get a hold of.”

“Woman,” she corrected. “In case you didn’t notice, I’m a woman.”

“Female,” he countered. “All the same.”

“Max, you always had a way with her. Tell my daughter here what a terrible idea this was,” he said, nodding to the man behind him as he took in the shop.

Max was younger than her father, but not by much, and when Katherine began to shake beside me, her resolve fading, I looked to her mother, who shook her head, trying to communicate something to her daughter.

“Why?” Katherine rallied. “Why did you come here?”

“We have an engagement party over New Year’s, which I’m sure your mother explained to you. You did give her that message, am I wrong?” he asked his wife. She nodded her answer. “That one does what I ask. You…do not.”

I wanted to turn our café into the set of a horror movie and paint the walls with the blood of these two men, but I contained my anger for Katherine. I needed to allow Katherine to take this stand against her oppressive, asshole father.

“This is my business partner, Holst. We’re making a profit, and that’s all you need to know. Now go away.”

He raised his brow and looked at our clasped hands. “Looks like he’s more than a business partner.”

Her grip tightened as she flipped her hair over her shoulder and declared, “Yeah. I’m gonna marry him. Now, we sell coffee and we have,” she looked over her shoulder, “two lemon poppy seed muffins and one cinnamon roll left. But I insist you make your order to go,” she spat.

And that was when the identity of the second man became clear. I surmised that he worked with her father, but now I understood as he stepped forward and told her, “You’re making a mistake, Katherine.”

“No, I made a mistake when I was fourteen and gave my virginity to a predator that took his fill of my body and my heart then left me…” she faltered, “…broken.”

I moved my hand around her waist as the other man approached.

“Katherine.” Her father said her name like an accusation. “What in the hell are you talking about? Whatever you got yourself mixed up in as a teenager is not the point of this conversation. This conversation is to determine if I need to clean up your mess. And your mother said you’d renovated the apartment building? You cannot throw money away on an investment like that unless it’s completely necessary—”

“Dad!” she shouted.

“Do not raise your voice at me!” he returned.

Quietly, evenly, she explained…everything. “It’s not an investment, you asshole, it’s my home, and I will live in it until I’m ready to have a family. Then I’ll eventually convert it back into a house when we outgrow the two bedrooms upstairs.”

“You’re an idiot,” he retorted.

“Fuck you,” she returned, and with that, he moved to stand above her, his fat finger pointed in her face, and that was when I pushed him—not hard—but I pushed him all the same.

“You need to back off,” I warned.

“And you need to know your place.”

“This is my place, right beside this woman. Back off.”

“Ron, back off,” the other man spoke in agreement. “Ron,” he urged, and the second time did the job. Katherine didn’t move, but the other man did.

“Max,” she whispered.

“My darling, Katherine,” he returned in a way I knew he’d said it before to watch her face soften, to watch her bend to his will, and the power he held over her. And when I felt the weight of her body slacken beside me, as if she was going to fall to her knees, that’s when I knew…

He still had that power.

“What…?” her father asked as her mother came forward.

I never let go of her hand even though that scum…Max…reached his hand to touch her face.

“Do not. Fucking. Touch her!”

“Someone tell me what’s going on here? Claire?” he demanded of his wife. “What’s going on?”

“Wait outside, Ron,” she told him. “Just…wait outside.”

“I’m not going anywhere!” he shouted.

The man in the corner was now standing behind the counter next to Leo, essentially watching the drama unfold.

Then, Max spoke. “Thirteen years ago, I left the woman I loved.”

I moved Katherine back a fraction of an inch, not for her sake, for his. Any closer, I’d have to hurt him.

“Afraid of what people would say,” Max continued. “Afraid of what my mentor and business partner would think, of how it would affect my future. And I thought…staying away from her was the best thing I could do, and it killed me, Katherine. It killed me not to come back to you.”