Page 10 of Smooth Sailing

Uh-oh.

Oh no.

Oh crap.

I was going to start crying.

Angry tears.

Very angry ones.

And maybe yelling.

Loudly.

I couldn’t do either. I’d learned that.

Boy, had I learned.

I had to be strong, smart, ambitious, hardworking, busy doing things that mattered, and although tears weren’t verboten, they were discouraged and only accepted in certain circumstances.

Those didn’t include when I butted heads with my dad.

“He’s agreed to steer clear of you,” Dad shared. “I suggest you do the same.”

“Well, yeah, Dad, I’ll do that since he attacked me,” I snapped.

“Diana—”

“You’re telling me you didn’t come here to make absolutely certain, at the very least, this predator was expelled from this institution, but also doing what you could to make certain what should happen actually happens, that being he’s arrested and charges are filed. Instead, you smoothed things over for him, and I have to change my schedule to avoid him?”

“Listen to me,” he said in his well-known and oft-used I fear you’re too dim to understand, but I’m going to try to explain anyway voice. “You haven’t had a great deal of experience with men?—”

I cut him off again. “I’ve dated a lot, Dad, and none of the guys I’ve dated have wrestled me to a bed and tried to tear my clothes off.”

I’ll hand it to him, when I said that, he flinched.

But he recovered quickly.

“Those were boys in high school,” he retorted. “They were not men.”

Like boys in high school might not have the same inclinations.

Was he crazy?

“I’m a sophomore here,” I reminded him. “And I didn’t do a nun impression my first year.”

“Diana—”

“So what you’re saying is, now that I’m dealing with ‘men,’ I can’t be safe in my own space and instead have to have a mind to how some loser might feel about whether he wants to have sex with me or not. But he doesn’t have to have a mind to me about whether I want the same, and maybe, you know, use his words to share what he wants and asks me instead of attacking me in order to simply take what he wants.”

“It’s the way of the world,” Dad said stonily.

Oh yeah.

I couldn’t believe I was hearing this.

I should believe it. This was my dad. Nolan Armitage. The epitome of the heartless, power-mad, money-hungry, workaholic attorney who found his way to getting what he wanted by any means necessary, and what he wanted, obviously, was power and money. All other things—his daughter, his wives (yes, plural, though not at the same time)—didn’t factor.

---