“Well, isn’t this a pleasant surprise?” my father said as I shrugged off my life jacket and stepped toward him.
“What are you doing here?” I demanded.
My father had the same muddy brown hair as I did and the same dull blue eyes, but right now they were bright with rage. If anyone had a reason to be angry, it was me, not him.
“I know you submitted a complaint against Dr. Pike.”
A bitter laugh escaped me. “You’re kidding, right?” I snapped. “You came all the way here to confront me about Conrad?” I glared at him. “How did you even know where I was?” I lifted a hand, stopping him from answering. “Don’t answer that. I don’t want to know who you paid off. I’m not coming home, Dad, and I’m not apologizing for turning Pike in for what he did.”
“Do you have any idea what’s going to happen to my reputation and my business if he gets his license suspended?” He ran a hand through his perfectly styled hair, messing it up and making him look a little unhinged. “I told you I would deal with him quietly.”
“You didn’t,” I said flatly. “That’s why we’re in this mess, Dad. There were zero consequences for what Pike did to me.”
“Hope. Stop playing games. Please. Your mother is worried sick about you. You’re throwing away your future as a dentist, and you’re damaging our family name. This little runaway act has to end, and I came here to tell you that the little incident with Conrad isn’t worth all this.”
“Little incident?” My mouth dropped open. It was official. He was insane.
“I’m not going to dental school, Dad,” I spat. “And quite frankly, I don’t care if losing his license hurts you. As your daughter, you should care more about me than your business partner. And as for Mom—if she really cared about me, why hasn’t she tried to call me? Even once?”
My dad shook his head. “We do care about you, Hope,” he insisted. “So much that we don’t want you to ruin your future.” He sighed, then turned to Jay suddenly. “Dr. Alarcón, when I called you, I thought you would at least beable to help convince her to return. But it seems you’ve only made her more stubborn.”
I went rigid. “Hold on,” I said slowly, turning toward Jay. “What?”
Jay’s jaw clenched, and he shook his head. “Hope?—”
“You two know each other?”
I felt like I was in a bad dream.
I wanted to wake up so badly.
I was screaming at my body to wake up.
Please, please wake up.
But I didn’t wake up, and the scene didn’t fade. My father stood rooted in front of me, and I felt my world start to crash down.
“Oh, he didn’t tell you?” My dad’s face twisted into a smug smirk. “Dr. Jay was a student for a time when I taught a semester at UCLA on implants. When he told me he was moving out here to Big Bear to start a clinic, I reached out to Mason—he’d been searching for cheap properties in Big Bear for his survival cabins—to see if he knew of a place.”
The world around me started to close in as I watched a flood of emotions flash across Jay’s face.
It was true. It had to be, otherwise Jay wouldn’t be reacting like that.
“You didn’t tell me you knew each other,” I said, my voice barely above a whisper.
Jay opened his mouth and then closed it again. His face held a mixture of pain and regret that I would never be able to unsee.
Something in my heart felt like it was splintering. The pain was so sharp I felt tears prick my eyes.
“I called him when you first pulled your little runaway stunt,” my father continued. “Mason told us you werehiding out at his cabin in Big Bear, and I remembered Jay lived nearby. I knew he had his clinic in town. So I called him up and asked him to look out for you, give you a job if needed, and convince you to come back to dentistry. I didn’t want you giving up on everything we’ve worked for.”
I couldn’t breathe. The pain in my chest was so intense I almost couldn’t stay standing.
The perfect little world Jay and my father had built for me shattered into a million pieces. He’d been my father’s puppet this whole time. My dad had been pulling the strings from miles away, still controlling me.
Everything between us had begun based on a lie. And I didn’t know whether some or all of it had been a lie.
Unable to be anywhere near Jay or my father any longer, I headed toward the cabin and started into a run back down the dock.
