My heart stutters. “What do you mean?”
“The event planning,” he says dismissively. “The wandering. The experimentation.”
Experimentation.
Buckhorn.
Dallas.
Feeling safe at long last.
“That chapter is closed,” he continues. “You need oversight. Purpose.”
He taps the pad. “You’ll help me. I mean, obviously, Charles won’t have you working for him after what you did, so you can start again here. Where I can keep an eye on you.”
I stare at the words, my vision blurring.
“My business needs a softer image,” he explains. “More warmth. Social presence. You’re good at that. You always were. You can manage our online branding, our public-facing communications.”
Social media.
The room tilts violently.
For a moment, I’m not here anymore.
I’m back at the McCoy ranch, sitting at the kitchen table with a mug between my hands. Dallas leaning against the counter, watching me with that quiet, thoughtful look.
You could run the ranch’s social media, he’d said.You’ve got an eye for it. Might be fun.
Fun.
Not a leash.
Not a punishment.
An option.
“I don’t want to do it here,” I whisper before I can stop myself.
My father’s gaze snaps to mine, sharp and furious now. “Explain.”
“I don’t want to stay,” I say, the words tumbling out now, desperate. “I want to go back. To my mom. To Buckhorn.”
The silence that follows is suffocating.
My father stands so suddenly his chair scrapes loudly against the floor.
“That town,” he snarls, “is poison.”
“It made me happy,” I say, sobbing now. “It made me feel like myself again.”
“Happiness,” he snaps, “is not a strategy!”
He looms over me now, his shadow swallowing mine.
“You don’t get to chase feelings,” he continues. “You don’t get to humiliate me and then run back to some small-town fantasy because it’s comfortable.”
I curl inward, my hands twisting in my sleeves.
