Page 72 of Dirty Pool

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“Why would you do that, Da?”

Charles didn’t bother to entertain Gabbie’s question as they arrived back at his home. Instead, he walked right past her, not even bothering to remove his boots or coat. If that was the game he wanted to play, then she didn’t mind going along with it.

“I asked you a question!”

“And I don’t have to answer it,” he replied dryly. “You’re under some sort of impression that I owe you an explanation, Gabbie, and I do not. I am your father, not your friend or otherwise. You are the child in this relationship. And it does not matter that you are edging closer to twenty-one every day because at the end of it, that changes nothing. I am still the parent, and you are still my child.”

Gabbie heard the door open behind her, and footsteps as men trickled into the house. She’d driven to the meeting with her father, and his driver. She came back to his place because this was where her vehicle happened to be.

She didn’t plan to stay, though.

Not after today.

“Why would you put my relationship with Michel into the conversation like that?” Gabbie demanded, following her father deeper into the house. Men trailed behind her, too, but she refused to pay them any mind. She was going to get an answer from her father one way or another. He didn’t have to like it. “If you have something to say about the fact I see Michel, then you should bring it to me.”

“What good would that do?”

“What?”

In the doorway of his office, Charles spun around to face Gabbie with fire in his eyes. For the first time in as long as she could remember, a part of her wanted to shrink away from the way her father was looking at her right then. So mad, and disappointed. It was as though he was seeing her through new eyes, and this was not the person he wanted to see staring back at him.

She could say the same to him.

Still, she held firm.

She didn’t move.

“What good would it do me to tell you to stay away from the lad, hmm?” her father demanded sharply. “I think I have said more than enough over the last several months since you’ve run around with the prick that it’s clear I don’t approve. But whatever it is, you’re determined to see it through, so I might as well let you get it out of your system now before reality comes to wake you up.”

“What does that even mean?”

Charles scrubbed a hand down his face. “You’ll learn in time. As I intend.”

“I—”

“And as for that Italian fecker,” her father continued, “he needs to pick a side, Gabbie. If he wants to entertain the Italians in the daytime, and then shift with my daughter in the shadows when no one is looking, then the man can’t be trusted, can he? A lad like that … his mind is too sharp, lass. They had to know what he was doing, and then he can decide what he really wants to do. I know where he comes from, and you have to watch him like it, too. I need him to know that I am aware of his choices, and he has others to consider now.”

“Are you giving him the ultimatum, then? Them, or us?”

Charles arched a brow. “It isn’t that complicated, sweetheart. You don’t have to understand when all I want you to do is follow along.”

Wasn’t it that complicated?

She thought so.

“Follow along with what?”

Charles waved a hand at her, and she knew what that meant without him telling her. A dismissal. He was done with their discussion, and she was quite aware how that worked with her father. Once he was done, he was finished. No amount of her prodding or pressing would get more from him.

“I have men to deal with,” he told her. “And you haven’t checked your sugars since this afternoon. Go do that now.”

“My sugars are fine!”

“Do it.”

She wasn’t a child.