Page 43 of Ryder’s Storm

“My behavior toward Derek?” She almost yelled the words, but she didn’t care that she sounded like a fury. “He attacked me! He didn’t want to take no for an answer. He almost raped me.”

“You’re hysterical, Scarlet, calm down.”

“Calm down? You believe Derek over me? Ryder was there. He saw what Derek tried to do!”

Her father sighed. “Please, honey, it’s time you face the facts. I’ve let you get away with too much ever since your mother died. Because I love you. But that approach didn’t work. It’s my fault. I should have been firmer with you, and gotten you help earlier.”

“I don’t need help! I need to live my life the way I decide. I’m an adult.”

“You’re not behaving like one. You’re throwing another one of your tantrums. Claudia was right. You’re not well. Your condition is getting worse. I didn’t want to see it, but—”

“My condition?” She huffed angrily. “I have PMS, but since you’re a man, you clearly don’t understand what that means. I’m not the only woman who has to deal with it. And it doesn’t make me mentally ill!”

Her heart thundered, the sound so loud, it echoed in her ears.

“It’s more than just PMS,” her father claimed.

“What? Are you a doctor now? You forget that I’m the one studying psychology, not you. And trust me, I don’t have a mental disorder. I have a physical issue. That’s all it is. P. M. fucking S.”

“Don’t you take that tone with me! I’m still your father!” His face turned red with anger.

“Then act like it! Trust me instead of a jerk who tried to rape me!”

“Don’t be so dramatic. Derek didn’t try to rape you. You were having one of your episodes, and were coming on to him. And just because you regret it now, doesn’t mean you can besmirch a young man’s reputation by claiming he wanted to rape you. You’ll apologize to him, and to Claudia!”

“I won’t! And you can’t make me!”

“Goddamn it! You’re just like your mother. You’re showing the same symptoms as her. I hoped for so long that you didn’t suffer from the same ailment, but I can’t turn a blind eye to it any longer, or you’ll end up like your mother!”

“What? End up how? I don’t have a heart condition! So leave Mom out of this. This isn’t about Mom. It’s about you! You not believing in me. You throttling me with your protectiveness! I can’t breathe! Don’t you understand that? You’re suffocating me.”

Her father clenched his jaw. “I’m doing it for your protection.”

“That’s not protection!” she cried out. “That’s control!”

“You need a firm hand. I made a mistake with your mother. I let her get away with everything, and it only got worse. I saw it coming, just like I see it in you now. I know how this will end.”

“Now who’s being dramatic? I can take care of myself.”

Furious, her father gripped her biceps. “No, you can’t. Just like your mother couldn’t. And now she’s gone.”

“Because she had a heart attack! There’s nothing wrong with my heart,” Scarlet protested while she tried to free herself from her father’s grip.

“Damn it, Scarlet! She didn’t die of a heart attack. She killed herself!”

Stunned disbelief paralyzed her.

“And you’re showing all the signs that you’ll do the same thing. And I can’t lose you too. Not after losing her and then Joshua.”

Her pulse pounding in her veins, her breath trapped in her lungs, Scarlet felt as if she stood outside of her body, watching herself and her father. As if this was a nightmare, not reality.

“No,” she pressed out on a tiny breath. It couldn’t be true. “She died of a sudden heart attack.” She looked in her father’s face, and saw the truth there as clearly as if it had been written in ink. “Why?”

Her father let go of Scarlet’s arm. “She had one of her episodes. She was delirious. I don’t think she even knew what she was doing.”

But Scarlet barely heard the words. Her mother had left her voluntarily. She’d killed herself not caring what it would do to her daughter. But that wasn’t all.

“You lied to me. You lied to me all my life. How could you?” Tears welled up in her eyes, and she tried to push them back down.