Was that possible? Was that part of what Arthur was doing? Turning Marc into an acceptable choice for me? Making sure he had the money my father thought he needed in order to forget his mother was a heroin addict.
I sighed sadly. Not willing to stray from the script I’d written for myself. “I don’t know that it matters much. You could approve of him. But Marc, well, I just don’t think he looks at me the way I look at him.”
“More fool him then.”
I laughed softly. Then I took a sip of my orange juice and another bite of toast. “You know, I was thinking about what comes next. I imagine you’re still not in favor of me attending Princeton.”
“We agreed not this year.”
“Yes, we agreed,” I said. “I was thinking about what I would do then. I’ve asked before about maybe getting a job.”
He scoffed. “Why on earth would you work when you don’t have to? I didn’t raise my daughter to be a common laborer.”
“I just thought the experience of working would help in my growth. So that I am ready for school next year. It doesn’t have to be anything serious. I could work at the Starbucks on Main Street.”
His face flushed. “Absolutely not! I don’t want anyone in town seeing you working. As if I hadn’t spent my whole life ensuring you would never have to. You know how that town thinks. What they would say? That I’ve raised you to be more than someone who pours coffee, of all things. Take a menial job and people will question everything we’ve built.”
His reaction was expected. I knew how important appearances were to him. “It doesn’t have to be in town. I can find something in some other town.”
“You don’t drive,” he countered
Of course, I drove. George taught me when I was fifteen, just like he did Marc.
“I can Uber,” I pressed. “I’m not trying to upset you, Daddy. I just don’t know what I’ll do with my time if I’m not going to school and I’m not working.”
“You’ll read,” he said, using a napkin to brush the crumbs from his shirt. “You’ll study independently. What would you say to another tutor? Maybe we can bring out a teaching assistant from Princeton to work with you one-on-one. How does that sound?”
It sounded like I was going back to my gilded prison. However, at this point, I’d pushed him as far as I could. Days of thoughtful arguments and give and take were over, it seemed.
He’d let me attend Marc’s soccer games. He’d let me attend school for three years. In his mind, the result had been me asking Marc to go to prom. Had been me announcing I was going to marry him.
It made sense Arthur was going to hold the reigns a little tighter now.
“That sounds excellent,” I said. “May I be excused? I think I’ll take a walk on the beach. It’s lovely today.”
“Of course. Don’t exert yourself,” he said serenely. “We wouldn’t want to bring on another attack.”
No.Wewouldn’t want that.
I got up from the table and went inside the hotel suite. I walked past the couch where Marc had gone down on me. Into my room where he’d had me in so many ways, I couldn’t remember them all.
There was a certain amount of power in that.
Part of that was the sex. Marc had taken us to a new place, and, while intellectually I understood that sex played a part in any relationship, I’d had no idea how important it would be to ours. How much deeper our connection would become. An understanding of who we were to each other, and, more importantly, what we needed from each other.
There was power, too, in defying my father. In knowing that my life was happening independently of his, and there was nothing he could do to stop it. To that end, Marc was right. There was a limit to Arthur’s power. To what he could make me do.
And by next January, when Marc was finally out of school, his degree in hand, there would be nothing he could do to stop us from being together.
All Marc and I had to do was keep us a secret for one year.
How hard could it be?
* * *
Landen Enterprises, LLC
January
