I could, Dad. I can sleep with a Cajun or a frat boy or the whole naval fleet if I feel like it. I’m not a little girl anymore. You can’t dictate my life.”
Daniel staggered back a step from the door as if pushed, as if kicked in the gut. Blindsided. Sucker punched. Deceived.
Had last night been nothing but a rebellion against her father? A walk on the wrong side of the tracks so she could flout her father’s ideals?
“Who says there’ll be a next time?” she said. “Maybe I’m ready to go back to Houston and finish my nursing degree! It’s exactly what Mom would have wanted!”
As her argument with her father grew more heated, Daniel raked a hand through his hair and battled down the bitter hurt and anger that roiled inside him.
She’d used him. She’d seen an opportunity to hook a man her father saw as unworthy and dangle her tryst in the senator’s face. A sharp ache of betrayal raked through his chest, and he snatched his pants and dress jacket from the closet.
Nicole’s voice became a muted drone as he dressed and put on his shoes. By the time he gathered his hat and cell phone from the nightstand, a sour disgust, with himself and with Nicole’s betrayal, had risen like bile in his throat.
The shower was the only sound from the bathroom when he gave the room one last glance for anything he’d missed. The rumpled bed served a vivid reminder of what had transpired the night before. He might have been making love to Nicole, but he’d gotten screwed.
Nicole sat on the floor of the shower, silent tears tracking down her cheeks. She had to pull herself together, couldn’t let Daniel see how deeply her father’s attitude hurt her. Somewhere during the night, making love to Daniel, she’d realized the only way to get her life back under control was to make a clean break from her father. She couldn’t be the daughter he wanted her to be, and trying was suffocating her.
Losing her father, so soon after losing her mom, made it all the harder to break free. But if she needed any reminder how differently they viewed the world, it had been obvious when her father had referred to Daniel in such derogatory terms. She’d thrown the words back in his face, hoping her father would hear how elitist he sounded, but Alan White couldn’t see what she saw him becoming. And it broke her heart.
Shutting of the water, Nicole dragged herself from the shower and dried off, deciding how much to tell Daniel about the argument he had to have overheard. The truth, of course, but how much of the truth? She was still grappling with the truth herself.
Finally, pulling on the plush robe the hotel provided, she headed back out to the room to face her future. And found no one there.
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