“Dad.” She bit her tongue against reminding him she was an adult and could choose what name to go by. After all, his name was Richard, but for some reason still unknown to her, he went by Dick. It had become something of a joke to everyone who knew him since he seemed to revel in living up to that moniker.
He cleared his throat, and she heard him take a deep breath and blow it out. A sign he was angry and trying to contain his temper. It was no surprise when he snapped, “Why haven’t you returned my calls? I’ve been leaving messages for well over a week.”
She took a sip of Diet Pepsi and tried to ignore the acidic comments that popped into her mind. “It’s only been a week, Dad, and I’ve been busy working. You should know all about that.”
A terse grunt sounded over the line. Before he could start his familiar tirade, she forged on. “After all, I learned my dedicated work ethic from you.”
Silence.
She was proud of herself for keeping her tone civil and slipping in the backhanded compliment, since he’d always bragged about his long hours spent working and his “sacrifices” for the sake of providing for his family. She had spent her entire life hearing about them.
After a long moment of only the sound of shuffling papers and the soft creak of his office chair, it began.
“Kathryne, if you would have stayed in medical school, your long hours and dedication would have counted for something. But dropping out of school to play with websites is beneath your potential.”
She stiffened. He was needling her. While she would never match her father’s net worth, she made enough to sustain a comfortable L.A. lifestyle without dipping too often into the trust fund her grandmother had left her. Especially since the first thing she had done with that trust fund was buy this penthouse.
Her father knew all that, but it still wasn’t good enough. Ever since she was a child, he had pointedly ignored anything she excelled at that didn’t meet with his expectations. He’d decided before she was born that she would go into medicine, and by the laws of the great Richard Fretwell III, she was supposed to fall in line with that plan.
She massaged her temple with her free hand, trying to stave off the beginnings of a father-induced headache. They tended to be worse and longer-lasting than any migraine she had ever experienced.
He continued, reciting well-memorized lines. “You should be back in school studying to be a surgeon, or a neurologist, at the very least.” He cleared his throat again, which sounded almost like a growl. “When are you going to give up this nonsense and get back to school?”
His hard tone was all too familiar. It was the one he used to tell subordinates that King Fretwell was right, they were wrong, and their compliance was expected. She had stopped being cowed by that when she was sixteen.
She swallowed her anger and fought for calm. “I won’t rehash this with you again. I have no desire to be in the medical profession. My work makes me happy, I make a good living, and that’s what matters.”
She kept speaking before he could interrupt. “Is there an actual reason you’ve been calling me, or are you still trying to bully me into doing what you want? Because if that’s it, let’s hang up now and save us both time and aggravation.”
“Kathryne Jane Fretwell,” he began, his voice ominous, reminding her of when she was small and had dared commit some minor infraction that earned his displeasure.
Before Kate could stop it, a laugh bubbled up and spilled out over the phone line. It wasn’t a happy sound and definitely didn’t bring any lighter feelings with it. “Seriously? Are you hoping by using my middle name, I’ll suddenly have an epiphany that everything you say is gospel?”
His normal diatribe began and flowed over her without any of the individual words registering. She had heard a variation on the same theme ever since she could remember, and she wasn’t willing to waste another minute on it.
“When you have something to speak to me about besides trying to run my life, then you’re welcome to contact me. Until then, I’m done.” She took the phone away from her ear and touched the red button to hang up. Not quite as satisfying as slamming it against the desk, but she wasn’t about to subject her iPhone to that treatment over his majesty, Richard Fretwell III.
She looked back at her computer screen, trying to remember where she’d left off. This was just a design update, so it wasn’t as challenging as some of her other corporate projects.
Anger still burned in her belly. She wouldn’t be able to get back into work mode right now. In fact, the only reason she had been sucked into work as soon as Dex had dropped her off was the urgent email from her client that these changes on the front page of their site needed to be done before seven a.m. tomorrow.