Page 97 of Forbid It

“I’ll tell them to come to the game instead.” Dad shrugs. “You guys can leave together, and they can catch you there.”

I brush my hair away from my head and hold it on the top of my head. My cheeks heat as tears gather in my eyes. “Dad. What are you talking about?”

“You and Robbie.” He smiles, and it’s so unlike any I’ve seen from him before. He seems almost smug. “I have to say, you guys took a lot longer to sort this out than I hoped, but it’s going to do wonders for the team.”

“Sort what out?” The answers are barely out of reach, like a surfboard floating away with the tide before I can catch it.

“You know.” He waves his hand. “The best relationships are the organic ones, aren’t they? The finance team have already shared the projections with me, and they are looking more than healthy. Very good.”

I blink at him. The implication of his words finally sink in. I don’t think I’ve ever had to admit this to myself but, “Mom was right.”

“What’s that now?” Dad asks as he looks back at his phone.

“You planned this?” An ache appears behind my eyes, the tension from this morning and the tears I still haven’t let spill metastasizing with every word. “Me and Robbie?”

“Well, I wouldn’t say I planned it.” He grins and I want to smack it off his face. “But I certainly hoped it would happen.”

“You set me up?”

“If you want to call it that.” He shrugs.

Did I just break up with Robbie for no reason? I didn’t have to start a fight. I didn’t have to pack up my stuff and break his heart. I didn’t have to leave him.

My chest squeezes painfully and I cover my eyes with my palms. “I can’t believe this.”

“Cassie?” Dad asks, concern creeping into his voice.

“You’re telling me—” I take a breath. “You’re telling me, this entire time I’ve been stressing about you being disappointed in me, but this is what you wanted the whole time?”

“Cassie.”

“You manipulated me.”

“Hey now.”

“No,” I snap, rising to my feet. “You told me to come to every game, even though I wanted nothing to do with football, so I did. You told me to come to your stupid events and parties, so I did that too. But you didn’t tell me to do this. You didn’t even ask me.”

“I don’t know what the problem is, sweetheart.” The bewildered expression on his face somehow manages to infuriate me more. “You’re happy, aren’t you? It all worked out in the end?”

The laugh that tears out of my chest is uncontrollable, though nothing about this situation is particularly funny. “Well, I hate to disappoint you, Dad,” I choke out, “but I just broke up with him.”

Dad gapes. “Well, why did you do that?”

“Because I thought you’d tell me to!” I scrape my hands through my hair. Laughter keeps bubbling and I can’t stop it, even as a headache starts to pound behind my temples. “Why can’t we just have a normal relationship? Why does everything have to be business first and family second? Why is my relationship about the fucking Dow Jones?”

“Because you’re Cassandra.” Dad explains. “What you do has an effect on the stock market.”

I choke at that. “You’re unbelievable.” I’m literally standing in front of the man who is supposed to protect me, supposed to be my father, but he only sees me as a product that exists to make his portfolio fatter. The Cassandra that makes him money. My voice and my body and how many tickets I can sell will always be more important than me. No matter what I do or how much I give, it will always come down to how I can make him more. People like him aren’t content with what they have, they need it all. They don’t care how many lives they destroy or fucking trees they cut down, all that matters is how many zeros are in the bank account at the end of the day.

I gave up the one thing that made me happy. I gave up a good man because I thought this one in front of me was going to tell me to. My father hadn’t even asked me to jump and I had already leaped, with nothing to catch my fall but the jagged rocks below. I thought I was sparing everyone by ending things with Robbie. I thought it was the right thing to do. But it was all for nothing.

“What a great investment having a daughter was for you, Dad,” I tell him, my voice flat and unshaken even as tears cling to my eyelashes. “I hope it was worth it.”

“Cassie,” Dad says. It sounds like he has more to say but nothing comes out. I’ve never seen my father speechless before.

I straighten my spine and ignore the tear that escapes my eye, rolling down my cheek and gathering on my lip. “You need to leave.” I order. “I can’t look at you right now.”

He puffs up his chest, angry redness spreading across his cheeks. “You can’t kick me out.”