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His response confuses me. I’m positive he doesn’t know about the horrible things I said to Gus on the night I met him. The only other people who know are Davis and Gus, and neither of them would tell my father…so why the hell is he angry with me?
“How am I at fault?”
“You know,” he shoots back. “The same reason I had to send Mikhail to retrieve you after you ran off to Europe to do god knows what after college…”
Davis’s eyes widen and I inhale sharply. My father is slut shaming me. My father—a man on his third marriage to a woman only slightly older than Davis—is shaming me for this.
“Dad, that’s so unf—”
“You’re going to Paris,” he interjects, refusing to look me in the eye. “You’re taking a job in the Paris office, working on strategy in European markets. You’re going to keep your head down, you’ll never speak to Gus Winter again, and you will never, ever come near another deal. Do I make myself clear?”
I’m so taken aback, my hands begin to tremble. Wordlessly, I look at Davis, who looks equally shellshocked.
“Julia, do I make myself clear?” he repeats, planting his hands on his desktop.
“I’m not a child,” I snap. “I’m twenty-eight. Do you think you can tell me who to spend time with? Where to go? What to do? No. I don’t want your jobs or your ultimatums. Keep them both.”
“Oh shit,” Davis whispers so softly that I barely hear it.
My father’s glare has never been more powerful. For a few painful seconds, he seethes without breaking eye contact, and I want him to stop. I’m withering deep down, and I want him to stop. My father and I have never fought like this.
“You don’t want my opinion, then fine. Fine,” he snaps, throwing up his hand. “Do whatever you damn well please, Julia. You always have. But from this point on, you’re only a Ridgeway by name.”
A silence sets over the three of us, leaving only the sound of the fireplace to break the tension.
“Dad…” Davis murmurs, shaking his head softly, sadly.
It takes me a moment to realize what he means when he says, “only a Ridgeway by name.”
No more inheritance. Nothing.
My father is going to cut me off.
I’m going to end up like Jay Raymond, manipulating people and living in a constant state of desperation because the family I once had no longer accepts me.
“I love him,” I finally blurt out, looking at my father to see if I can find a soul behind his frosty exterior. “Does that mean anything to you? Yes, the way we got together was unconventional—”
“You don’t love him,” he cuts in, sighing and shaking his head.
“—I’ve never been so happy. In fact, I’ve never been happy at all—”
“You don’t love this man.”
“And you have no idea how long I’ve waited for—”
“He bought you. He bought you like a whore, Julia,” my father finally snaps.
The comment makes my stomach plummet. For once, I don’t know how to respond. Speechless, I turn to Davis, whose jaw is so tight, I can see the tension in the side of his face.
“Don’t talk to her like that,” he protests coldly. “Don’t ever say that to her.”
“Why not?” our father replies, raising a shoulder and shrugging with the kind of confidence only a billionaire can muster. “Semantics, I suppose. She’s not a whore because Gus Winter didn’t even have to pay for her. You’re the one who paid, right Davis? This man got fifty billion dollars, and he got to humiliate your sister. Quite a deal, frankly.”
Davis’s hands are literally trembling with anger. He rises. “Dad—”
“Stop,” I interrupt, placing a hand on Davis’s arm to push him back into his seat. “Don’t. It’s not worth it.”
My father always gets the last word. Always.
