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“I don’t want it to fail,” I said.

“Then stop acting like a child.”

“I don’t want to help you hide what’s happening either.”

My father pressed his lips together. There were words people didn’t say in our family, not because we were kind but because directness was considered vulgar unless delivered by someone with power. Hide was one of them.

He sat back slowly.

“You should leave.”

“Not yet.”

My father looked at me as if he were seeing someone unfamiliar and deeply inconvenient.

“If I do marry her, there will be no access to Lorrie’s trust,” I said.

His laugh was short. “You don’t get to make that decision.”

“Neither do you.”

He frowned at me. “Once you’re married, financial decisions become joint decisions. If she is your wife and you need to structure household assets for tax or liquidity purposes⁠—”

“Stop.”

“—then Walter will have to be reasonable.”

“I said stop.”

He did, though the look on his face made it clear he considered the interruption temporary.

I could feel my pulse in my throat. “If I marry Lorrie, her money is hers.”

“You sound noble. It’s very touching.”

“I mean it.”

“You sound very young.”

“I am young. You keep reminding me.”

“And because you’re young, you still believe marriage is a poem or some romantic nonsense.”

He looked almost amused, which was worse than anger.

“You think Walter Hale didn’t consider exactly these matters when he chose how to structure his daughters’ money?”

His hand came down on the desk hard enough to make the Scotch tremble in its glass.

“Enough.”

The room seemed to hold its breath.

Upstairs, the television murmured beneath the floorboards, while my father and I stared at each other across the desk.

“You will not throw away your future because Lorrie Hale is having second thoughts,” he said.

“I’m not throwing away my future.”