Her announcement stopped Dad cold. He stared at her, inhaled sharply. “Atlantic?” he finally managed in a hoarse whisper. “Oh God, what have you done? Are you insane? Do you even know who Atlantic is?”
“Only the biggest shipping company between here and the Far East,” she said smartly, in spite of the terribly cold and sudden feeling of uncertainty. “And they are looking for a new partner in ground transport.”
“They are also Canada Shipping and Ocean Transport’s biggest competitor. God, Robbie, do you have any idea who pays your salary? Who pays mine? Did you ever stop to think who Atlantic’s chief competitor might be?”
“What?” she asked weakly, feeling the ground shift beneath her. Beside her, Rebecca muttered something unintelligible; Rachel guzzled her wine. “What do you mean?”
“What I mean,” Dad said, suddenly sounding weary, “is the reason we don’t have the Atlantic account already is because we have CSOT. When those two ships dock, it just won’t do to transport the biggest competitor to our chief client, will it? Why? Because we are a large part of the reason CSOT is so successful, Robin. When they dock, we get their freight to the distributors FASTER AND CHEAPER THAN ATLANTIC!” he roared.
“Oh God,” she whispered, stunned that she could have missed something so basic.
Dad pressed his hand to his forehead, seemed to be in pain— physical or emotional, Robin wasn’t sure. “I should have taught you,” he said miserably. “But I stuck you in a vice presidency and sent you off to Europe to run around and look pretty.”
Whoa. Had she heard that that right? He’d sent her to Europe to look pretty? “What did you say?”
“Well, surely no harm has been done,” Mom said quickly. “I mean, Robbie, you didn’t sign anything, did you?”
Stunned, hurt, and whacked right off her pedestal, Robin could hardly think. “No, Mom,” she responded impatiently. “I didn’t sign anything, but I made certain assurances . . . oh, never mind, you wouldn’t understand—”
“That’s exactly what I am talking about!” Dad snapped again. “Arrogant!”
Robin jerked her head up, glared at her father. “If I’m arrogant,” she said between clenched teeth, “I learned it from the master.” She suddenly shoved to her feet, tossed her napkin aside. “I am so out of here.”
“Robin!” Mom exclaimed, coming to her feet, prepared to follow. But Robin was too quick, out the door before Mom could stop her, spurred on by the pain of her father’s disdain.
Behind her, Bonnie bestowed a very heated gaze on Aaron. “You just never seem to get it, do you? You will reap what you sow!” she snapped, and went after Robin.
There was no amount of appeal from her mother that would change Robin’s mind to leave Blue Cross Ranch. Robin was sick to death of tiptoeing around him, of watching him wallow in self-pity. She packed quickly, tossed her things into the back of her car, and said a quick good-bye to her sisters, promising to call soon.
She hugged her mom and reluctantly bowed to her pressure to at least say good-bye to Dad. Robin poked her head into the library to tell her sulking father she was leaving, but naturally, he wasn’t about to let her go without one last dig, and even that was delivered under the pretense of an apology.
He was sitting in a big leather chair, hunched over. “I shouldn’t have yelled,” he said instantly. “I know you were trying to help.”
“Yeah, well,” she muttered, shrugging, uncertain what to say, because she had, apparently, been very wrong. She felt like a monumental fool, a silly little girl playing grown-up games. She could just see Evan’s little smirk in her mind’s eye, hear him say in that way of his, I tried to tell you. . . .
“But I just wish you weren’t so arrogant, Robbie,” her father continued, shaking Robin loose from any remorse she might have had. “That arrogance costs you too much—just look at your life and tell me it isn’t so.”
For a moment she could only stare at him, reeling from the pain of his inexplicably complete disapproval, a stinging criticism that had, as far as she was concerned, come out of nowhere. A million things went through her mind, things she should say, things she should definitely not say, but in the end, all she could manage was, “Bye, Dad.” And she walked blindly out of the library without looking back, out of his ranch house and to her car, uncertain when—or whether—she might ever see her dad again.
She drove nonstop to Houston, testing the upper bounds of her Mercedes, uncaring about anything except to get as far away from Comfort and Aaron Lear as possible.