Dangerous Daddy

Chapter 28

NATALIE POV

*Flashback*

When I was nine years old my parents took me and my brothers to California for three days. My father worked the whole time, it was a business trip for him after all, but the rest of us got to relax as a family and hangout.

I never actually went into the city, the huge house we stayed in was situated on a beach so I stayed in the sun by the water all day everyday. It was so peaceful and quiet, my brothers even stopped picking on me while we were there. I knew the day we left that I belonged in sunny Los Angeles.

I begged my parents to take us for another trip for months after we got back, but I was always denied.

"Natalie Maria Carver, I said no!" Hearing my father raise his voice to me for the first time frightened me, I stopped asking go back after that. Instead I promised myself that I would get there on my own.

The day I graduated from high school I packed up my things and moved from the only home I had ever known, in New York City, to LA. I joke to myself that I left to escape my family, they are amazing people whom I love with all my heart, but I am the black sheep. I don't fit in with them, they are loud, boisterous, and very outgoing. The shyness I am cursed with does not run in my family family.

My two older brothers are the opposite of me, they can't go one day without getting into some sort of trouble. They choose to spend their free time running around the city causing mischief and my parents never seem to be bothered by it. They don't even bat their eyes when the police show up at the house to question my brothers about various misdeeds throughout the neighbourhood.

In New York I only had a handful of friends, and they were exactly like me. We never partied and we spent almost every weekend studying or playing board games together at my house. We were losers, I still am. I haven't talked to any of them very much since I moved, I miss my friends. Honestly, I even miss my idiot siblings.

When I got accepted to UCLA I was beyond thrilled, my parents were so proud and even threw a celebration supper for me, but I could see right through them. They were not happy about their little girl moving so far away. I know that they always assumed that I would stay with them until I got married to the son of a family friend, he would work for my dad, and I would always be close to them.

I saw my mothers heart break the day I opened the acceptance letter. That was the first time I ever saw her cry. On that day I vowed to make moving away from them worth every tear. I would study, graduate, and make something of myself.

My father insisted on paying for everything, but I wanted to be an adult and do it on my own so I told him to keep his money. I had scholarships to pay for tuition, books, and a dorm room so I only needed a part time job to pay for food. I did however, take him up on his offer to help me move across the country.

When I first got to the university I was matched to share a dorm room with a girl named Katrina. She was great and we hit it off right away but I barely saw her. I was alone most of the time, she had a boyfriend and spent every night with him at his place. I liked it that way.

Classes were going better than I ever could have imagined. I had one of the highest GPA's of all the first years, and I got along with all of the professors. I was starting to come out of my shell more in class and was even making a few friends to have a study group with. I loved my life, this was everything I ever wanted.

Katrina and her boyfriend broke up in October after she caught him cheating on her. After that she spent her first full week in our dorm. I tried to help her get over the breakup, but I really had no idea what to say. They eventually got back together in November, even though I begged her to think about it, he was just going to hurt her again.

Everything had gone back to normal by Christmas, well almost normal, she stopped staying at his place. Katrina made him spend every second with her, which meant he was in our room, a lot.

Christmas was the break I didn't know I desperately needed. I was sick of spending all my free time with them. Kat was okay, but I didn't like him. The way he looked at me was creepy, he always gave me a bad feeling. I just couldn't forgive him for what he did to her.

One day, in January, Katrina was spending an all nighter in the library to finish an assignment last minute. I woke up at 2:00am to her drunk boyfriend banging on our door. I ignored him and tried to go back to sleep, I definitely didn't want him in here if we would have to be alone.

"Natalie, I know you're in there." He slurred.

Of course I was there. I never partied or went out. I was starting to feel bad that he knew I was home and ignoring him. So I stumbled to the door in the dark. I was just going to explain that Kat was gone and that he should leave.

"Kat's not here, she's in the lib-" He pushed past me into the room, not listening to a word I was saying.

"I didn't come here for her."He smirked at me and I felt sick, if I couldn't make him leave then I would go get security.

He was so drunk that I didn't think it was even worth it to try and talk to him, so I turned around and reached for the door. My body was pushed up against it before I could even touch the door knob. I could feel his liquor filled breath on the back of my neck.

Everything after that was a blur. I fought to get his hands off me, but he was too strong. He spun me around and practically threw me onto my small bed. I was frozen in fear watching him leer at me while slowly unbuttoning his shirt.

I was only saved when he tripped over his own feet at the side of my bed and slipped, hitting his head on the corner of my bedside table as he fell down. After checking to see that he was alive I ran out of the room.

I left that night and never went back. I got my own apartment and have been enjoying the independence, of course I had to start working more to pay the extra bills but it was worth it. I felt safer being in control of my own space.

Katrina begged me to stay. She swore that they had broken up for good this time. For months she apologized and tried to convince me to move back in to the room with her. Swearing up and down that she hasn't spoken to him.

He probably panicked when he woke up in the hospital, because I called him an ambulance, and thought I would try and press charges. I always told her I just wanted to forget about it. We slowly drifted apart.

When my parents heard about what happened in the dorm room that night they were furious. I thought my dad was going to drive down and drag me back home, kicking and screaming. I calmed them down and assured my mother that I had taken the necessary steps to be safe. They reluctantly agreed to leave me be and a few days later I got a package in the mail containing pepper spray and a small pocket knife.