Page 239 of Power Play

A humorless laugh escaped me. “Appropriate?”

“Charm.”

“No. Say what you mean.”

My mother’s face tightened. “He is beneath you.”

Everything inside me stopped. The ugliness of the statement was enough to make even my father glance toward her.

I stared at my mother. “Wow.”

“Crystal.”

“No,” she said, looking at him. “She needs honesty.”

I swallowed. “Okay.”

My mother turned back to me. “We didn’t raise you, educate you, protect you, and give you every opportunity so you could throw away your future on some tattooed boy with no future and no foundation.”

My eyes filled.

Ryan had been right, and I hated that almost as much as I hated hearing the words.

“You don’t know what foundation means.”

My father frowned. “What?”

“You think foundation means money.”

“It means stability.”

“He is stable.”

“He plays a sport for a living.”

“He has a degree.”

That silenced both of them.

My mother blinked. “What?”

“Ryan has a bachelor’s degree in English literature and writing.”

My father stared at me.

“He tutors me.”

My mother’s disbelief made something angry rise through my fear.

“Klein knows him.”

“Professor Klein?”

“Yes. She called him one of her favorite students.”

Neither of them answered.

I almost laughed. “That doesn’t fit the person you invented, does it?”