Page 24 of Forcing Her Hand

“Roger is seeing someone else now,” her father reminded her mother. The tone of his voice and the stern look he gave Allison sent the message that it was all her fault for not nailing him down. Somehow, they’d apparently missed the memo that Allison didn’t want him, no matter how many times she tried to tell them.

Patrice waved her hand, dismissing Veronica as anything serious. “If Allison merely applied herself, I’m sure he would be interested in her again.”

Ugh. That was absolutely it. If she treated Roger like a college class and ‘applied herself?’ Allison couldn’t take her parents’ attitude anymore. She was tired of hiding from them.

“I have a date next weekend,” she announced.

Her mother lit up immediately. “With Roger?”

“No, his name’s Todd.”

“Why isn’t he here tonight to meet us?” her father asked, his heavy brows drawing together under the mop of thinning dark brown hair.

“What’s his full name?” her mother asked at the same time.

“He’s in Turkey, finishing an internship. And his last name is Rinald.”

Silence.

“I haven’t heard that family name before,” her mother said thoughtfully. Allison put her fork down, knowing she’d have to do battle. At least she’d finished most of her dinner. The thunderclouds gathering on her father’s face indicated he was catching on faster than her mother. “How did you meet him?”

“At school. We had a class together last fall, and he’s in Chad’s fraternity.”

“What do his parents do for a living?” asked her mother.

“No idea.”

Her father’s face was starting to turn pink. Allison took a sip of her glass of wine. Although she was calm and nonchalant on the outside, her insides were spinning.

“What does he do for a living?”

“I’m not sure. He was working at a mortgage company part-time before he left for the internship in Turkey.”

“Why on earth was he doing that?” her mother asked, wrinkling her nose. The pink in her father’s face was darkening.

“To pay for school. His scholarship didn’t cover everything.” Might as well get all the information out in the open.

“You dumped Roger, so you could date this… this nonentity?” The outrage in her mother’s voice sparked Allison’s own. Her parents were so uptight, so ridiculous with their notions of how people should behave and who was worthy of being in their presence. The automatic assumption Todd wasn’t—Todd, who had paid his own way through school and worked harder than anyone else in their social set to have the opportunity to get his degree—absolutely infuriated her.

“He’s not a nonentity,” Allison snapped.

“He’s not appropriate,” her father said, his voice low and dangerous. “Roger was appropriate.”

“Roger doesn’t interest me,” she said, her temper rising as fast as her parents’. “And you don’t know Todd isn’t appropriate because you’ve never met him. Roger doesn’t love me. Roger wouldn’t know what love is if it bit him on the ass. He doesn’t care if he never falls in love, but I do.” She knew she wasn’t being entirely fair to Roger, but she didn’t care.

“Love means nothing,” her father said, snapping at her as his voice started to rise. “You have responsibilities. Whoever you interact with has to meet a certain standard. You will not be allowed to shame this family.”

“Well, I’m ashamed to be interacting with such wretched snobs, how’s that?” Allison’s felt her cheeks flush with fury. “I don’t think it’s shameful to interact with people who didn’t have everything handed to them.”

“You had everything handed to you, you ungrateful little…” Her father actually sputtered as he lost complete control, shouting and unable to keep to his own standards of good breeding. Coldly, Allison thought it would probably do him good to call her by some nasty name, but even now, he couldn’t. She felt nothing but pity for him—pity and contempt.

“And now I’m working for it. I haven’t accepted any of your money since I moved out, and I won’t. Every check you’ve given me has gone to charity. I’m grateful for everything you’ve done for me, but that doesn’t mean I’m going to look down on people who weren’t lucky enough to be born to parents who could provide the way you have for me. That’s all my social standing is—luck of birth.”

“We should never have let you move out,” her mother said. When Allison looked over, she realized her mother was crying and felt a small pang of guilt. Her father hurried to stand behind her mother, patting her shoulder ineffectually as he tried to be comforting.

“Why?” Allison asked, feeling a little sad. Her parents were no longer giants in her world, no longer the omnipotent beings she had practically worshiped and never questioned. “So you could control my every movement? Plan out my life and force me to live it? That’s why I moved out, Mom. I don’t want that. I wanted to make my own decisions and live my own life.”

“Then, get out.” Her father glared at her. “Get out and don’t come back until you decide you’re ready to apologize and live appropriately. You want to be independent? Fine. You’re on your own.”

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