Page 13 of Beg for You

When the creep left, I turned to my father. “What was that about?”

He flushed—from anger, embarrassment, something else, I had no idea. God, I’d never seen him lose his composure like that before, and that’s what I was witnessing.

“Dad…”

He turned away. “Let’s eat before dinner’s ruined.” Then he strode to the dining room, back and shoulders stiff.

What in the hell was going on? “Where’s Gran?”

“In her room.”

I followed and took the seat to my father’s left. My seat. The right had been Chris’s. My father always used to say Chris would be his right-hand man one day. Then Chris had stopped coming to dinner, had stopped coming home altogether. He’d become someone else, and my father had refused to see it. Had blinded himself to the downward spiral my brother was on. They’d always had a strained relationship, and I got the feeling my father had been afraid he’d lose him for good if he tried to control him. Because it had never worked. The tighter my father held on, the more my brother pushed back.

“Has she not been well today?”

Dinner was already on the table. There was also a glass of whiskey in front of my father, the bottle beside it. He swallowed down the amber liquid in one gulp then refilled his glass and repeated the action.

“Dad?”

“She’s fine,” he muttered.

This was so out of character I reached out and grabbed his hand before he could down a third glass. He jolted and yanked his hand from mine, stumbling to his feet.

“What on earth’s going on?” I blurted. “And don’t try and brush me off and say it’s nothing. Something’s really wrong and I…I demand you tell me.”

The glass in his hand suddenly flew across the room, shattering against the marble fireplace. I shot to my feet when he spun back to me.

“You want to know what’s wrong?” he all but screamed.

I just stood there in shock, actually frightened. My father could be controlling, cruel at times, but I’d never believed he would physically hurt me. Right then, he was as close to the edge as I’d ever seen him, and I thought he might be capable of anything.

“I’m ruined,” he yelled, voice breaking. “I’ve lost almost everything. Besides this house and the land we have left, I have nothing, and it’s only a matter of time before the bank takes our home as well.”

My body was held so rigid I thought I might shatter if I tried to move. “Ruined?” I shook my head, unable to believe it. “How?”

“A couple of investments turned bad. I was treading water, but I knew it wouldn’t last. Then something came up, a sure thing, something that would save me…” He shook his head. “I trusted the wrong people, Cassandra. There was no sure thing.” He lifted his head. “I don’t know what to tell you…except it’s gone, all of it.”

I slumped back into my seat. “Is that why Spencer was here? No…tell me you aren’t going to sell this place to him?”

“This land has been in our family for generations. If I lost it”—he rubbed his hands over his face—“it would kill your grandmother.”

I’d received a small trust fund from my mother when I was twenty-one. The bulk was used to open the gallery, and the rest I’d used on my horses, to work toward reestablishing a breading program here. “I have the gallery,” I said in desperation. No, I didn’t want to give it up, but I would if it saved our home.

He shook his head. “The gallery, the horses, if we sold all of it, it still wouldn’t be enough, Cassandra. Not nearly enough.”

“Have you been to the bank?”

“They won’t touch me. I’ve tried.”

Oh God. How could this be happening?

I couldn’t bear to think of losing our home, Gran’s home. My father was right; it would kill her. She’d die of a broken heart if she saw it taken from us, everything she and my grandfather had built, had worked for.

“Spencer came to me with a proposition, something that could save this house, our land, my business…it could save…us.”

“Whatever it is, you have to try. You have to.”

“It involves you.”