“I am your father, and I’ll speak to you however I wish.”
I crossed my arms over my breasts and glared at him. “If you want this to be…what’s that term your idiotic politics people use…a productive dialogue…then you’ll, you know, enter the fucking twenty-first century and realize youdon’tactually get to talk me like that. Speak respectfully or shut the fuck up.”
He rocketed out of his chair, outrage on his face. “Evangeline du Maurier! What in theworldhas gotten into you?”
“You’re trying to railroad me, and I won’t have it.”
“I’m forcing you to see sense.”
“Maybe I don’twantto see sense, though. What then?”
“I’ve tolerated your pigheadedness long enough,” he bit out, leaning onto his desk, “and now it’s high time you accept the instructions put in front of you by those who have your best interests in mind.”
“The only person who has my best interests in mind is me,” I shot back. “You haveyourbest interests in mind, and Thomas’s. You don’t give a damn about what I want.”
“You don’t even know what you want, nor how to get it. You think you want to doart,and run off and have empty-headed littleadventureswith barbaric and unsavory roughnecks. You claim you’re not a child, but your actions prove otherwise. I’ve given you rein this long, hoping you’d eventually grow up and see things with a more clear-minded and adult reasoning, but it seems I’m mistaken.” He sat down again, reached into a drawer of his desk, and produced a manila folder. He opened it, spreading out several sheets of paper, twisted them to let me read them, and then let a smirk of triumph steal over his lips.
One glance was enough for me to know what he was presenting me with a trump card, and I sank into the chair. “Dammit.”
“Feeling rather vulgar, today, aren’t you?” He tapped the topmost printout, a copy of my private bank account statement. “I’ve allowed this, thus far. No longer.”
Allowed.
Allowed?
I glanced at him. “You knew?”
He snorted. “Of course I knew, idiot child. You think you can steal money from me and I won’t notice? You weren’t even very clever about it, honestly. It was money I gave you as an allowance, and for the most part you didn’t really evendoanything with it, so I let it be. And I kept my knowledge of it to myself, as kind of…ace in the hole, so to speak, in case you ever became rebellious.” His smirk widened into a shit-eating grin. “You don’t get to where I am by being naive or foolish, Evangeline.”
I sighed, leaning back in the chair in defeat. “So…what now?”
He gathered the papers and rested his elbows on the desk, steepling his fingers. “I’m good friends with the president of this bank, so I’ve taken control of the account.”
I sat forward, protesting. “I’m an adult and I opened that account myself! You can’t do that!”
“You opened it with funds that were, technically, stolen.”
“I didn’t steal it! You gave it to me as an allowance, and I simply moved it to a different account.”
He sighed. “Evangeline,” he murmured condescendingly, “it’smymoney.Igave it to you, and I can take it back at my convenience. Arguing is futile.” He slid one of the printouts to me, which showed that he’d shunted all the funds, except for five thousand dollars, into his own account, and named himself as the primary account holder, with me as a secondary account holder with only provisional access. “This is your new reality, my dear. That’s what I leave you with, and it is all you will get. Unless…”
“Unless what?” I demanded.
He shrugged. “The same terms I laid out when I first retrieved you from the clutches of that…thatredneck,inAlaska, of all places.” He tapped his fingertip on the desk as he enumerated each item. “First, you finish your degree at Yale in political science, abdicating all pretension to your artistic frippery. Obviously, once you’ve gotten your degree and you’ve performed the second item I shall be naming shortly, you can pursue art all you wish, on your own time, as your husband allows.
“The second item, then, obviously, is to marry Thomas.” He paused for effect. “Soon. All the arrangements have already been made. The church, the dress, the cake, the invitations to all the proper people, it’s all been taken care of already. All you have to do is show up, say ‘I do’, and become Mrs. Evangeline Haverton, as has always been your destiny.”
“My destiny.” I went faint at his words. “And once I’ve done that, then what?”
“Then you receive your due portion of my estate.”
“My…due portion?” I frowned at him, perplexed.
He nodded. “Yes, your due portion.”
“I’m your only legitimate heir, Dad. Who else is there to receive a portion?”
“That is none of your concern.”
