Brave Enough(39)

“Would you like to weigh in, Tag? Or don’t you have any reason to follow the stock market?” He’s wearing a smirk that makes me want to jump across the expanse of polished wood and strangle the shit out of him.

Stromberg adds to it with his pathetic attempt at covering his laugh with a cough. It’s fine if they want to get their kicks at my expense. We’ll see how that works out for them in the end.

I let a smile play over my lips. It’s easy to keep my cool when I know what I know.

“I dabble,” is my only response.

“What else do you ‘dabble’ in, other than dirt?” Weatherly’s father asks. He’s making very little effort to hide his contempt. In fact, I don’t know why he bothers.

“A little of this, little of that, but you’re not really interested in my answers, are you?”

“Pardon me?” William O’Neal asks, his smug expression turning to one of thinly veiled anger, as if to say he’s affronted that I’d dare take a tone with him.

“Let’s be honest. You’re looking for ways to reveal me for the ignorant commoner that you think me to be, exposing my ‘real self’ to Weatherly so she’ll see the error of her ways and run into the arms of your handpicked man. Isn’t that about right?”

There’s an eerie absence of sound, like the whole wealthy world is holding their breath as they wait for my inevitable social beheading.

He surprises me with his candidness. “I’d be lying if I said that results like those wouldn’t please me. It’s no secret that I want what’s best for my little girl. And as much as you obviously have to offer society,” he says, his lips twitching over his droll comment, “I feel that she could do better.”

“So pairing her with a man twice her age who wants her as a trophy wife and business arrangement is what you deem ‘best’ for your only child?”

“Pairing her with someone who has the means and the knowledge to care for her for the rest of her life is what’s best for her.”

“Regardless of how she feels.”

“Weatherly is young and impetuous. She’ll thank me for this one day.”

It infuriates me how he degrades her right in front of her, as if she has no feelings at all. I don’t know how she turned out so well with this asshole for a father.

“And what if she never does? What if she blames you instead?”

“She won’t, but if you think you know her so much better than I do, then marry her. Right now. Show her that you love her for her and not for her money. Because she’ll be destitute if she marries you. Promise her that you’ll care for her and your children on the salary you make here, a salary that wouldn’t even afford an engagement ring, for chrissake. I’ll even make it easy for you. You’ll have this job for as long as you want it. I won’t fire you for ruining my daughter’s life. At least that way, I’ll know she has a roof over her head.”

I’m not normally a particularly capricious man, especially when I can’t identify and account for the consequences of my actions. Yeah, I take my pleasure where I can get it, but there’s little risk. I make sure of it. And my business affairs are always well planned and researched. I’ve never let someone push me into anything that I didn’t want to do. Not William O’Neal. Not even Weatherly O’Neal. I know what I’m doing, even if they don’t.

“You know, Mr. O’Neal, I really would’ve expected a man of your intelligence and business acumen to be a better judge of character, but I suppose that’s my mistake.” I lean up in my chair, staking Weatherly’s father to his chair with my gaze, and I invite, “Look into my eyes and tell me that you’re fool enough to think you can goad me into doing something that I don’t want to do.”

He leans forward and glares right back at me. “I’m hoping I can goad you into leaving my daughter the hell alone.”

I stand so quickly my chair rocks behind me, nearly tipping over. I place both hands flat on the table and I bend slightly forward so that he can hear my low voice plainly. “Rest assured that this decision will be up to your daughter, because I’m damn sure not throwing her away to the selfish whims of her jackass of a father.”

For the first time since he started with his barbs, I look to Weatherly. She’s sitting, still and quiet, in her chair watching me. As I walk around the end of the table and approach her, her amethyst eyes shine up into mine with something between excitement and amusement and maybe a little awe. I bet she doesn’t see people stand up to her father very often.