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I shake my head. “I can’t be like that, Dad. I’m just not made that way. I’m sorry.”
“I know,” he agrees. “Which is why I have another proposal.”
Oh, this should be good. Maybe he’s planning on auctioning me off to the highest bidder…
I stare at him, waiting to hear what god-awful plan he has for me next.
“It’s time you settled down,” he goes on. “Even though you’ve had certain…indiscretionsin the past, we can overlook that. You’re still my daughter, and your name carries a lot of weight in this town.”Oh, God, is he really going to sell me?“You’d make a good housewife. With a little bit of styling and couture, you may even make a great one.”
The room spins.
A housewife?
What the fuck is he on about?
“Dad?” I stammer, lost for words. “I’m not following. I’m not going to be a housewife…”
He sighs like I’m dumb, taking his glass as he swirls the amber liquid around and slowly walks back toward the desk.
“I have a proposal, it’s a generous one at that. One I’m sure you’ll agree is more than adequate, given your current situation.”
My ears begin to ring. “My current situation?” My mouth feels full of cotton balls, and I start to sweat.
“Your unmarried state, Luna. You may not think it’s important, but to a Shields, prestige and status are all that matters. People will respect you if you marry well. You’ll have a good life, and you may even learn to accept your husband, if you give it a chance.”
My unmarried state?He says it like it’s some kind of disease that I need to be cured of.
He can’t be saying what I think he’s saying. He can’t.
“My husband?” I try not to spit the words out. “What are you talking about?”
He sits once more and slides his glass onto the bronze coaster as he lays his hands on the arms of his chair. Like he really is not just CEO of his company, but of me as well.
“I want you to marry, Luna. A man of my choosing.”
My eyes go round. I open my mouth to speak but no sound comes out.
“Marry?”
He nods once. “It’ll be arranged, of course. I’m sure the subject of your inheritance has come up with your mother plenty of times. I did, after all, attempt to help you with college before you moved, hence moving your funds into a trust account that can’t be accessed until?—”
“Until you have me where you want me?” I fire back.
He purses his lips. “You can choose to look at it like that, or you can choose to embrace this like a Shields and realize you have duties and responsibilities if you carry this name.”
“Would you prefer it if I take Mom’s name?” I fire back. “She did, in fact, raise me after you left us. Maybe it isn’t me that needs toembracemy duties and responsibilities, Dad.”
“You know nothing about it or about adult relationships,” he fires back. “You don’t know what happened between your mother and me, you were just a child.”
“I know you cheated and left us, left her broken-hearted and alone. There is no excuse for cheating. None at all. Mom worked two, sometimes three jobs, to support us…”
His nostrils flair. “Of course she would have painted me as the devil in all of this,” he mutters. “She was the one who didn’t want to work things out, did she ever tell you that? I left when she gave me no other options. She wanted me out, never wanting to salvage our relationship.”
He's a liar. He’s a fucking liar.
And why does he act as if I’m a child who can’t comprehend anything? I’m thirty years old. I know how relationships work. I know how cheating works and I know how a dead-beat dad works. It makes me sick.
“I can’t believe that you’re throwing this back on Mom,” I say, shaking my head. “She was devastated when you left. We had to struggle, Dad. There were times when she couldn’t make ends meet and you didn’t care. You let us struggle and Mom didn’t fight you for a dime.”
