There was no point in shouting, but I had to bite my bottom lip to stop from crying. My dream. The thing I’d been working toward for years. College. Princeton. Marc and I together. On our own as adults.
There was no point in calling Admissions. No point in trying to seek financial aid and do it on my own. I wasn’t naïve. My name was Landen. Much like my father had the power to get me into Princeton, he had the power to keep me out.
“What am I supposed to do?” I asked tightly, reigning in my emotions. “Without school?”
It’s not like he would let me work. I used to ask him every summer if I could get a job in town, but he considered it beneath us to do menial labor. Beyond that, he didn’t like the appearance me working would project. What would people in town think? Personally, I thought no one would care.
He sighed, as if the worst of what he had to say was now behind him. In fact, he smiled and reached for my hands, still clenched together in my lap. He pulled on them and it was everything I had in me not to pull them back.
“Ashleigh, I’ve had the most wonderful conversations with the headmistress of a finishing school in Switzerland. Villa Pierrefeu is one of the last of its kind and when I think about the sort of training you’re going to need—”
“Training for what?” I asked him. “What exactly am I being trained for? I was leaning toward a career in academia. History to be precise. What good would a finishing school be for that?”
God. Finishing school. In Switzerland. Where I would learn how to better sip my tea and plan complicated seating assignments and place settings at various parties he imagined I would throw.
Did he not know me at all? I wasn’t some princess he’d groomed to enjoy the whirlwind of the elite social life. I wasn’t a Hilton or Kardashian bent on making myself famous, ultimately culminating in some scandalous reality TV show.
I wanted to study. I wanted to teach at the highest levels.
I wanted Marc.
Marc didn’t give a crap about how polished I was.
Arthur bowed his head. “With great wealth comes great burden. You know this. I’ve shared this with you. You will be exposed more and more to people of our ilk as you grow older. You’ll start to mingle with them. It’s just how it happens. I’ll need to count on you to be an exceptional hostess for me. Until now, I’ve kept you excluded from all that, but it is our world.”
I stood and tugged my hands away from his grasp. “That’s your world. It was never mine.”
He stood as well. “This is what comes from giving you too much freedom.”
I wanted to scream. I wanted to pull my hair out. “Too much freedom? I’ve been sequestered on this estate from the time I was a child. I was allowed to attend only three years of high school. And now you want to ship me off to Switzerland to turn me into some kind of perfect hostess? For you.”
“Not just for me. For your husband someday, too.”
“My future husband is going to be Marc and I’m pretty sure he’d rather have an educated wife instead of afinishedone!”
There it was. My greatest mistake. Later, I would look back on this moment and wonder ifthishad been the thing to seal our fate.
Arthur’s face got red and he was gripping the crystal glass in his hands. “I did not go through all of this, do all of this, to have a daughter who would end up with the bastard son of a whore drug addict.”
“Are you serious right now? What have you gone through? Your father was a rich broker. You’re a rich broker. Very successful, congratulations. But it’s not like you suffered anything for it.”
“You don’t have a fucking clue what I’ve suffered.”
I took a step away. The cursing was back. The face mottled with rage and fury.
“You’re going to Switzerland. End of story,” he bit out.
I shook my head. “You can’t make me. I’m an adult. I can walk out that door and there is nothing you can do to stop me. You think I’ll die without your money, but I won’t.”
Then he sneered at me. “Yes, my darling girl, you would. Because you have no idea how cruel the world is to people who don’t have money. So I’ll keep it in terms you can understand. You go to Switzerland, or I’ll have your childhood friend expelled from Princeton. In fact, I’ll make sure the expulsion will be so repellent, he’ll find a difficult time getting any credible college in this country to accept him.”
I let out a gasp. “Who are you?” I asked him.
This man who I’d called daddy. This man whom I’d obeyed like a good little girl. This man who’d made me curtsey and kiss him on the cheek before bed.
“I’m your father.”
I shook my head. “No. People don’t do things like this. Not to their children.”
