Page 125 of Always: A Legacy Novel

“Not for sex, but for other medical things. But yes, I knew it was a possibility that sex was coming or happening because last year she wanted to change birth control for the sake of having reliable birth control. She came to me because she trusts me. That’s not a bad thing.”

“And you didn’t tell me? You didn’t think to bring it up to me that my daughter is having sex, or wants to have sex, or anything? None of it, Cat?”

Her father’s voice became progressively louder until he was simply shouting.

Catherine’s guilt and embarrassment compounded harder in her chest. She didn’t like the way her father’s gaze skipped over her in the mirror, like he was disappointed, as though he didn’t know what to think of the girl he was seeing at all.

She was supposed to be the good one.

She made good choices.

She did good things.

“You’re freaking out because of sex, Dante,” Catrina murmured. “That’s it.”

“No, that is not it.”

“It’s a big part of it, bello. Tell me differently.”

“You should have told me.”

“Why, so you could lock her in her room, until you felt she was old enough to handle sex?”

Dante blew out a hard breath. “It’s more than that—it’s this whole situation! I don’t know what in the hell has gotten into my daughter. I don’t know the kind of shit she’s been pulling when I’m not looking, or why. And I don’t know her, Cat. I thought I knew my daughter, and what she was doing, but apparently, I don’t know anything at all. Thank you for that, really.”

“Dante—”

“Just be quiet, please.”

That was all her father said.

Her mother kept quiet.

Catherine couldn’t look her father in the eyes when he stared at her in the rearview. His disappointment radiated throughout the vehicle, and she felt oh, so small under the weight.

This was not who she wanted to be.

Not at all.

Cross made eye contact with Dante Marcello over his step-father’s shoulder, and he knew then that it was bad. He assumed it was probably bad when Catherine bolted out of the principal’s office without so much as a look at him, but he didn’t really know until now.

“I want that conversation,” Dante told Calisto, “and you make sure he’s there.”

“As long—”

“As long as nothing, Calisto.”

Dante left the reception area with his wife right behind him, and the principal called the Donati family into the office at the same time.

Cross wished he could be surprised at the security camera footage the school caught of him and Catherine the Friday before, but he really wasn’t. And if the idiots thought they were the first kids to fuck on school property, he had news for them.

Still, Cross kept quiet. He let the principal rant. Something told him that his father, and his very quiet mother, were not interested in hearing him say anything.

Thirty long minutes passed before Cross heard the principal say, “Clearly we don’t have enough proof, but our suspicions are enough to warrant this meeting, and some kind of action.”

“Like what, exactly?” Calisto asked.

“Cross is banned from having any vehicles on school property for the rest of the school year, and Catherine as well, although we understand he was the one driving her car. Obviously we can’t stop the relationship between Cross and Catherine; that’s not for us to do. However, we can make a demand about what they do while on our property. We’re going to ask that the two keep a distance from one another during school hours—”