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My mother stayed silent, letting my father take the lead, which was par for the course. I didn’t expect her to chime in at all, not when he was this worked up.
“Who am I?” I said. “I’m someone who’s spent years being who I thought you wanted me to be, at least in public. But I’m not that person. I don’t want to go into politics. I don’t want to hide that I’m gay. And I don’t want it to be a secret that I’m in love with Archer Carrington.”
Holy shit, I couldn’t believe I’d just said all that out loud, but the words were true. Following in my father’s footsteps, being in government… That wasn’t for me, and it was past time I acknowledged that. And if I didn’t want that life, then I didn’t have to hide. I didn’t need the secrets that had overtaken my life up to this point.
Even as I felt like I could breathe again after putting it all out there, my father’s fury pushed back, suffocating everything in the room.
“Have you lost your mind?” he seethed. “Has that man brainwashed you into something you can’t get out of?”
“No,” I said quickly. The thought wasabsurd. “I’m the one who pursued him, not the other way around.”
My mother’s eyes were bugging out of her head as they darted between the two of us. “Wh-what about Serena?”
“Yes, what about my future daughter-in-law?” he said. “You’d blindside that poor girl with her ownfather?”
I shook my head. “She wasn’t blindsided, and she was never going to be your daughter-in-law. Serena’s my best friend, but that’s all she is. I’ve never been a secret to her.”
My father finished off the rest of his drink and slammed the glass down, causing it to crack. Then he turned his back on me, resting his hand against the mantel. “You’re saying she helped you in this…this…deception.”
“There’s no one to blame in all of this except me. I take that on fully. Leave Serena and Archer out of this.”
A laugh bubbled out of him, low at first and then rising until it echoed off the walls. He faced me again, and his expression had alarm bells going off.
“Leave Archer out of this, you say. No, I wouldn’t dream of such a thing. As a matter of fact, I should pay him a visit?—”
“No,” I said, horrified. “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”
“Why not? I’d love to see the look on his face when I tell him he’s no longer the Elysium president because he couldn’t keep his hands off my son.”
“What?” My mouth fell open. “You can’t do that.”
“I can do anything I damn well please, and effective immediately, Archer has been stripped of his position.” He smiled, but it was full of malice. “He’s also been fired from theAstor school board, and I can’t imagine many of his clients at CTA will be thrilled by his behavior.”
Shock and disgust had me clenching my fists as I stared up at him. “He doesn’t deserve that, and you know it. You’re punishing him when you should be taking it out on me.”
“Aren’t I? Since you claim it was your actions that led to this chain of events, his dismissal is, in fact, your fault.”
The sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach was because he wasn’t wrong.
My father crossed his arms over his barrel chest. “What, nothing to say now?”
“There isn’t anything I can say that would change your mind. Is there?”
He stared down at me, the answer clear in his expression.No.
“Right. So you brought me here just to tell me you’re going to punish him.”
“I brought you here to set you straight,” he said firmly. “Since you can’t be trusted to make decisions for your own good, I’ll be taking over from here.”
I blinked up at him, not sure I’d heard him right. His expression didn’t change, and when I turned to my mother, she was looking everywhere but at me.
It was all so insane that I couldn’t help my chuckle. Only once it started, I couldn’t stop.
“You find this amusing?” my father said.
“I do, actually. You want to take over…what, exactly? Because you may have missed it, but I’m not a kid anymore. Whatever you wanted me to do back then, I always jumped and asked how high, because I didn’t think I had another choice. Now I know better. I have nothing but choices. So, no. You won’t be taking over anything.”
The red flush in his cheeks deepened. “You expect me to sit back while you ruin your life making mistake after mistake? Do you even have a plan?”
