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“Of course he likes you, child. And love can come later.”
“You loved Mama when you married her.”
“We were lucky. But I would have married her even if I had not.”
“That is so easy to say, but you were never put in this position.”
“It is not a bad situation for you.”
“According to you.”
“Yes. According to me.” He said it as if his word should be final.
But this was not the Middle Ages. “I am not you.”
“No, you are my daughter. My loyal daughter. Your love for our family and our company is too great for you to put your own personal feelings ahead of everything else.”
He was right, but that didn’t mean she was going to marry Dimitri. “There has to be another way that does not involve selling your daughter to the highest bidder.” She knew it was more complicated than that—that she had made a promise four years ago she should never have made. But still.
“I am not selling you,” her father said in freezing tones.
“What would you call it?”
“Ensuring your future.”
“You mean your future and that of your heir.” But, again, it was far more complicated than her bitter words allowed. There were generations and multiple decades of family pride in the business at risk, her mother’s lifestyle, as well as her father and younger brother—and those hundreds of employees she had mentioned earlier.
“I will not dignify that comment with a response.”
That did not surprise her, and in a small way she felt she deserved such a reaction. But in another way…not.
“What about Spiros? Couldn’t I marry him instead?” she asked a little desperately.
“He is like a brother to you,” he said, repeating the sentiment he had expressed four years ago.
“He is not my brother. We’re not related even distantly. We’ve never lived together in the same house. We aren’t siblings. We’re friends and I would rather marry him.”
Her father looked singularly unimpressed with her words. He really did see her and Spiros as almost siblings, but they weren’t. “You agreed to the promise four years ago, Phoebe. You agreed to join our two families through marriage to Dimitri. It is time to make good on that promise.”
“I was too young to be making such a commitment, and you should have known that.” Heck, as much as she loved him, her father had no doubt taken advantage of that fact.
“Nevertheless, you did make it. And, lest you forget, your mother was only two years older than that when she married me.”
“Two years can make a big difference. I knew by the time I’d turned twenty that I’d made a mistake agreeing to the proposed future marriage with Dimitri as well.”
“Yet you never said anything.”
“Neither did you…about me following through on it.”
“We were waiting for you to finish your education.”
“Why bother? You clearly had no intention of me ever using it.”
“Do not take that tone with me.” He stood up and paced over to the window, looking out. Unlike his usual almost military-like bearing, his shoulders were stooped, and an air of defeat clung to him. “This situation is difficult enough for me as it is, without having my daughter turn on me.”
“I’m not turning on you.”
He turned to face her, his complexion pale, his eyes pleading in a way she knew he never would with words. “So you agree to keep your promise?”
