Finally, he glances to Michael and offers a tight yet pleasant, “Excuse us, please.”
Then William gets up, tosses his napkin on the table and stalks out of the room, giving me an “eat shit” look as he passes.
I stop Weatherly with a hand to her arm when she reaches the doorway. “Will you be okay by yourself? I can come if . . .”
“I’ll be fine,” she says, impulsively rising up on her toes to give me a quick kiss. I’m sure that pisses both men the hell off, but I don’t give a damn.
William stalks on ahead and when Weatherly would pull away to follow him, I reach up to hold her to me for a few seconds longer. I don’t know why, but I want her to know she isn’t alone in this. And I want her asshole father and his bag-of-dicks friend to know that Weatherly isn’t alone, too.
When I let her go, she leans back and stares into my face, her violet eyes sparkling up at me like twin amethysts. In them, I see caution and dread, but a ferocious determination, too. That makes me smile.
I bend to whisper in her ear. “Maybe you should stop thinking about our shower for a few minutes. You might need all your concentration for this.”
Two pink spots infuse her cheeks and it’s all I can do not to drag her back upstairs and make her forget that there’s anyone in the house besides us.
“You are a wicked, wicked man, Tag Barton,” she scolds softly, licking her bottom lip when she moves her glance down to my mouth. “Your face cleaned up nicely by the way.”
She moves to walk past me and I turn to watch her go. When she looks back over her shoulder and grins, I think to myself that this woman might be more of a problem for me than I ever would’ve guessed.
FIFTEEN
Weatherly
“You’d better have an excellent explanation for this prank, young lady,” my father says the moment I shut the door to his study.
“Dad, I’ve told you all along that I want to marry for love, not for business or convenience.”
“And I have told you— Wait, so you’re telling me that you’re in love with this person? Just how gullible do you think I am, Weatherly?”
“Why is that so unbelievable? What do you know about my life other than what you choose to fill it with?”
“So you’re going to stand there and tell me that you’re in love with the help?”
“Oh, so that’s what this is about. You’re not nearly as upset that I’m engaged to someone else and didn’t tell you as you are about the fact that he’s not up to your high standards. Is that it?”
“Don’t make me out to be the bad guy here. I’m just trying to do what’s best for you, for our family. Like I always have. I’ve never been selfish and I didn’t raise you to be selfish.”
“God!” I say in exasperation. “Why is it so horrible, so unthinkable, so incredibly selfish to want to marry for love? This is America, right? Arranged marriages did go out with the cavemen, right?”
“It’s not like Michael is some kind of barbarian who will treat you poorly, Weatherly. For chrissake, he’s worth four hundred million dollars and he’d see to every comfort you could ever even dream of.”
“But that’s not all there is to it, is it, Dad? This isn’t about what Michael can do for me.”
His eyes narrow on me. “I’ve worked my whole life, made sacrifices you’ll never know anything about to build this business into what it is today. And the instant someone threatens it, threatens the very foundation of who we are as a family, and you can do something to help, this is how you respond.”
“Don’t be so dramatic! This isn’t about our safety or our freedom. This is about money. And power. Plain and simple. If Randolph Consolidated takes over, you’ll be out and that’s eating you alive.”
“You listen to me, young lady, I will not have my daughter marry a common laborer just because she doesn’t agree with my politics. Let’s not forget, darling, that it’s my business, my money that has funded your precious charity all this time.”
“Which you’ve refused to continue helping as a means of extorting me into doing what you want.”
“Make no mistake, Weatherly, if you want to play hardball, I can exert much more pressure than just pulling your trust fund. Don’t tangle with me, young lady. I didn’t get to where I am without learning how to bend people to my will when it suits my purposes.”
I feel my chin tremble. How has it come to this? That he is so uninterested in me as a person, as his child, that he would seek to hurt me just to get what he wants? I’ve always known I was nowhere near the top of his list of priorities, but that he would play dirty with me, his own flesh and blood? I guess I never knew just how low I fell on that list. “I’m sorry that this particular pawn has grown up to be such a disappointment to you, father. I thought you’d eventually see it my way because you love me and you want me to be happy. I can see now how very wrong I was.”