Page 13 of Daddy's Princess

“And if she doesn’t want to explore that connection?”

For a brief moment, my shoulders slump. The possibility that Sugar doesn’t feel as drawn to me as I do to her is a very real thing, but my gut says she felt what I did. Instinct says she ran out of fear. My gut never leads me astray. “If she says no, I’ll respect that, but I’m not giving up so easily.”

“Sugar’s going to fight you every step of the way.”

“It’s a good thing I don’t back away from a challenge,” I say with a smirk.

Andre nods his head then pushes a folded sheet of paper that I hadn’t noticed toward me. I open it and suck in a breath at the sight of Sugar’s sketch of us. Even if I hadn’t felt how Sugar responds to my touch, seeing the care and detail she put into this drawing is proof that she felt the same connection that I did.

He taps his finger on the paper. “This is the only reason why I’m not warning you to leave Sugar alone. She’s been alone for a long time. Too long. She’s one of those people who think they are fine on their own yet gravitate toward people. She doesn’t play, yet she comes here every week to be surrounded by the possibility of everything Bidden and Bound represents.” I’m not shocked by what he tells me. I can’t help but wonder why. Sugar’s body was starving for attention, for release—both physical and mental, if my guess is accurate. “If she sticks to her usual routine, she’ll be here Saturday night.”

He expects me to go five days without seeing her? “That’s not soon enough. I need to see her now.”

I’m tempted to demand he give me her address but instead ask—nicely—for her phone number. To which he refuses to give me. He won’t even tell me her real name. A lot of people use aliases at the club for one reason or another. Andre staunchly refuses to answer any of my questions. I leave the club frustrated and determined. I hate the idea of waiting five days to see her. It gives her a lot of time to talk herself into thinking tonight was a mistake.

If she does, I’ll just have to convince her otherwise.

7

Sugar

My phone ringingwakes me up before my alarm goes off. I rub my bleary eyes and cringe when I see my mother’s name on the screen. I’m tempted to send her call straight to voicemail, but she’ll just call back until I pick up. She’s annoyingly persistent in her desire to tell me how disappointed she is in me. At least once a week, she calls under the guise of checking in on her only daughter, when really, she’s going to express her displeasure at my career choice. Society wife is the only acceptable career path in case you’re wondering.

Deciding to make the inevitable phone call as painless as possible, I answer. Mom makes it a whole five minutes before:

“I just don’t understand you, Sugar. You have such potential, and you’re wasting it on this silly dream of being an artist. Do you know how many artists actually do anything with their degrees?”

I’ve heard this speech at least once a month every month since I told my parents I was going to Corbet Art School and shirking my duty to go to an Ivy League school. My mom was positively scandalized. I heard: ‘What will the ladies at the club think?’ ‘What will we tell the neighbors?’ ‘How could you do this to me?’ Insert pearl-clutching and Scarlet O’Hare level dramatics.

At least my father is on my side. He doesn’t really understand my desire to draw for a living, but he would never tell me not to chase my dreams. Anytime my dad is around, mom behaves herself like a doting mother who is proud of her little girl. It’s only when dad is absent that mom gets her digs in.

“It’s not a silly dream, mom. I’m already in the top internship program on the East Coast. Titan-Rose Publishing is the leading publishing house in children’s books—”

“And you’re fetching coffee like a badly paid waitress,” my mom interrupts.

I never should have told her about the whole gopher aspect of my job. Yeah, my internship isn’t glamorous right now, but I’ve got my foot in the door. Interns from Corbet have been hired as full-time illustrators. That’s why the spots in the program are so coveted. I’m lucky to be fetching coffee, making copies, and answering phones.

The best part is that I’m constantly surrounded by art. Titan-Rose doesn’t have a single reproduction of some famous piece of art hanging on the walls like most companies would. No, the art is some of the best from the books Titan-Rose has published. Walking the halls is like walking through a piece of my childhood. It’s visual proof that artists like mecanmake it.

“It’s not just running errands, mom. I’m learning a lot.”

I have no idea why I’m even trying to justify myself to her. I hate that she sees me as a disappointment. She had such high expectations for her only daughter. I was going to be her little mini-me. She tried her hardest to fit me into the Sugar shaped picture she envisioned for me. Much to her dissatisfaction, I preferred my brothers’ cars and army men to the fancy dolls she bought me. I didn’t want a cute teddy bear like other girls. I carried around a stuffed snake named Sir Slither. I hate shopping. I hate fancy teas at the club. I’m not interested in dating her friends’ sons or finding a suitable husband. And I’m not interested in getting an Ivy League diploma that I’ll only use to snag myself the ‘right kind of man,’ then never use.

She’s made comments that she might as well have had a fourth son for all the good having a daughter has done her. I wasn’t supposed to be privy to that comment. She was talking to one of the ladies from the club on the phone after her weekly spa day. The one she used to drag me to for some ‘girl bonding time.’ Translation: show me off to her friends time.

Mom didn’t get what she wanted, and when mom isn’t happy, she’s not quiet about it. She’s extremely vocal until whoever it is that’s upset her bends to her will. My dad is the only one who can manage her, and even then, he lets her have her way just to keep the peace. The only thing he has put his foot down on is me. The only time I can remember my parents having a real argument was about me.

Mom wanted me to spend my summer break with her at the club, letting the who’s who of the country club see how perfectly she’s grooming her daughter. A little Stepford version of all the other country club elite. See us fit in! I wanted to go to camp with my friends. Dad was on my side.

“Sugar is going to that camp she wants to go to, and that’s final.”

My mom scoffed and pursed her perfectly pink lips. “You’ve got three sons to groom into proper men. Sugar is mine! It’s time she put away childish things and take her place in society as fitting her place.”

“Leanne, Sugar isn’t you. She’s her own person. The more you try to force her into your vision of a dream daughter, the more you push her away. Sugar is perfect just how she is. Love the daughter you have, not the daughter you think she should be.”

That is why I’m a daddy’s girl. He’s always sticking up for me. Always encouraging me to be who I want to be. To like what I want to like. I let his words play on repeat in my head anytime my mom goes off on one of her tangents like this.“Pumpkin, don’t let anyone tell you you’re not good enough.”

In a way, mom is right about dad getting three sons. I can see how mom would be jealous. My brothers all idolize our dad. Charlie, my oldest brother, went to law school and was made partner at Larson Law. The law firm my grandfather built then passed on to my dad when he retired. Albert, my second oldest brother, also went to law school. After graduation, dad changed the company name to Larson and Sons. Paul is the only brother who didn’t go to law school. He didn’t do anything as foolish as art school, though. Of course not. My brothers are perfect. Paul is now Dr. Paul Larson, head of cardiothoracic surgery at one of the top hospitals in the country.

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