“I-I don’t want to get you in trouble.”
Knock, knock, knock.
“It’s fine. I’m tired of pretending to be something I’m not. You might be the perfect daughter, but I am far from the perfect son, and pretending I could ever be is killing me.”
Before she could answer, he strode to the door and yanked it open.
“Hi, Dad. We were just talking about you. Won’t you come in?”
Thrusting a plastic container at Ryan, Alessandro walked in, still dressed for work. “Your mother wanted me to drop off this soup after work?—”
He spotted Elissa, and the slightly irritated expression he’d worn morphed into outrage. His brows drew down and his cheeks reddened.
“What the hell is going on here? You’re supposed to be sick.”
“I’ve been dating your accountant.”
Elissa wiggled her fingers at his father, but didn’t make eye contact, staring at a point over his father’s shoulder.
“Hello, Mr. DeMarco.”
“You lied to your brother and took the day off to screw?—”
“Watch the next words out of your mouth.” Ryan’s voice was cold and calm. His dad’s gaze zeroed in on him. “I will not have you disrespect the woman I love.”
“What the fuck do you know about love? You’ve fucked every woman who would have you. She’s after your money, like all the rest.” His piercing gaze found Elissa. “He’ll never see a cent.”
“I don’t care about his trust fund,” she said from next to Ryan, threading her fingers through his. He had been so focused on his father, he hadn’t noticed her approach. “I care about him.”
The contrast between his father and Elissa was remarkable. He was mostly muscle softening a bit with age. The world revolved around him, and he acted accordingly. Elissa was barefoot in her jeans and—oops—inside-out T-shirt, tiny but fierce in her defense of Ryan, shaking the envelope at his father. Ryan himself had never stood up to his father this way.
“I will be informing your employer?—”
“No need. I told Karina yesterday, and she is waiting for the HR director to return tomorrow. I’m sure appropriate disciplinary action will be taken.”
“You’re a smart woman. You think you love him now, what about in ten years, when he’s still clueless, still foolish, still lazy?”
Elissa released Ryan’s hand and focused on Alessandro like an asteroid ready to end civilization as he knew it, face set in a stubborn frown. She poked him.
She actually poked his father.
The man looked so taken aback someone had dared laid a finger on him that Ryan had to hold in a bark of laughter.
“You don’t know your son at all,” she said.
“And after what, two months, you do?”
She glanced at Ryan, her stubborn frown softening, and she winked.
“Better than you. He knows exactly what he wants to do with his life, you just don’t think it’s worthwhile. But I’ve run the numbers, and he can make it work financially, with or without his trust fund. Even if he can’t, he’s miserable in your office. He’ll be better off as a bartender, or almost anything else.”
Disgust crossed his father’s face. “You’re a?—”
That was enough. Another word and he’d sucker punch his own father.
“We’re done here, Dad,” Ryan said. “If nothing I do will ever be good enough, if who I date will never be good enough, I don’t want the money anymore. The only thing DeMarco money has bought is my education and the tools I need to do what I want. I don’t need it anymore, and I don’t need you controlling my life. Consider this my resignation. I’ll have it in writing first thing and will work until you find a replacement, but I’m done. Deal’s off.”
“We are not done!”
