Page 18 of Craving Dahlia

I start to speak, but she whisks out of the room before I can. And I stare after her as she goes, wondering how I misjudged my faith in her so completely.

I really thought she would back me up, if she knew marrying Jude would make me unhappy. But I didn’t count on just how happy my mother’s life makesher, and how unable she is to fathom any other life being a good one. To her, this marriage is rescuing me from a stressful, chaotic existence in New York. Bringing me home to a happier, safer, more comfortable life. And she can’t understand why I don’t feel that way.

Or she justwon’t, because she can’t handle the conflict it would cause.

My throat tightens, my eyes suddenly hot, and a wave of loneliness sweeps through me. Will I always feel this way, if I give in? Trapped in a world that I don’t feel like I belong in, with a family that wants me to comply, not be happy? I love my parents, and this is a side of them that I never wanted to believe existed. A side where my own feelings don’t matter, as long as I do what they want.

Swallowing hard as the nausea ripples through me again, I refocus on my hair and makeup, glad to have something to do to keep my hands busy. When my hair is in thick, long curls around my face and shoulders and my makeup is light but perfect, I go back out to my room and pick up the sapphire blue dress, slipping it on as I look at the long mirror in my room.

It’s a gorgeous dress. The bodice is fitted, with a princess-style pointed v at the bottom of it where it turns into a slim skirt that skims over my hips and down in a straight line tobrush just at my toes. The straps are more sapphire silk, off-the-shoulder, draping over my upper arms. It suits me perfectly, and I wish I could enjoy it more. I like parties, and I like dressing up, but this particular event comes with a dread that no amount of pampering or beautiful dresses or jewelry can shake.

I slip teardrop-shaped sapphire studs into my ears, hook a matching bracelet around my wrist, and slip my feet into a pair of nude Dior pumps before heading downstairs. I can hear my parents’ quiet voices in the small room off of the hall, the one that my mother uses as an informal living room.

When I step inside, pushing the heavy wooden door open, I immediately smell the powdery rose scent of the potpourri that my mother keeps in glass bowls all over the house. She’s sitting on one of the floral couches in the middle of the room with a martini in her hand, a thick rug between it and the couch opposite, a heavy wood coffee table atop the rug. There’s tables along the walls in various spots, with pictures and antiques atop them, and art hanging in heavy gilded frames on the walls. My father is standing next to the fireplace with a drink in his hand too, something clear.

He turns as I walk in, and his expression is pinched. My mother already told him about my reluctance, then.

“Dahlia.” His voice is heavy with disappointment, and I feel my stomach clench. I’ve never handled disappointing my father well. I’ve always tried for his approval, all my life, with my grades in school, excelling at sports back then, in whatever extracurriculars I was signed up for. I always wanted him to be proud of me, and although he claimed he pushed me harder for my own good, it always just made me feel as if I wasn’t goodenough.

Becoming a curator at the Met, at my age, is an accomplishment. I thought he would be proud of me for that, for my good grades at Columbia, for my hard work in climbingthe ladder of my career—and he seemed to be, all these years until right now. But it seems like that doesn’t matter, in the end, when he’s decided that he needs me to do something else for him instead.

“You know I wouldn’t ask this of you if it wasn’t best for the family,” he intones, lifting the cut crystal glass in his hand to his lips.

“Marrying Jude.” I say it flatly, ignoring the bar cart and all of the fixings sitting atop it for a variety of cocktails. Normally I’d make myself a dry martini or a gin and tonic, but I want to be clear headed for this conversation. For tonight, because I have no doubt that it’s going to be a difficult night to get through.

“Precisely. But your mother tells me that you’re—considering not complying with what I’ve asked of you.”

That’s putting it mildly.I bite my lip, sinking onto the edge of the couch closest to him. I give him an intriguing look, silently begging him to remember that I’m his daughter first. That I’m a person, his child, not just a chess piece to be moved across a board like everyone else in his world. “I like my life the way it is, Daddy,” I say softly. “I worked hard for my position at the Met. This is my dream. I thought you understood that. I don’t want to give it up just to come home and marry someone that I don’t even like?—”

That last was the wrong thing to say. Any empathy in my father’s face vanishes, his expression shuttering as his face goes cold and hard.

“There’s nothing wrong with Jude,” he says flatly. “He’s from a good family, and has excellent connections. You will want for nothing. You will have access to every part of D.C.’s upper social circle. Your children will want for nothing. And our family will have new and better possibilities. I might run for President, with the inroads that this will open for us. Imagine that? You as theFirst Daughter. Your husband as my Vice President, even. And a path to the White House for him, eventually?—”

“That’s your dream,” I interrupt, my throat tightening. “His, I suppose, too, if he’s going along with all of this. Not mine.Noneof this is my dream. I don’t even know if Iwantchildren!”

My mothertsksin the background. “Of course you do. Every woman wants children.”

I bite back a scathing remark, knowing it won’t help. “I worked hard for my life,” I repeat. “I don’t want any of this. Ican’tdo it.”

“Everything you have is because of me.” My father’s voice is colder now than I’ve ever heard it before. “I paid for the tuition that bought you that degree. My connections helped you land that job at the Met?—”

My face burns at that. “You got me the interview,” I concede. “But I worked hard to move up as quickly as I have. It’s not all just money and connections?—”

He continues on as if I haven’t even spoken. “I will help pay for your apartment. Your allowance. Your flights home and back. Your credit card is paid in full every month and I don’t even bother to look at the charges. All that goes away, Dahlia, if you refuse?—”

“So what?” I challenge, my own anger starting to burn too hot to keep my voice low and my words measured any longer. “I’ll lose all of that if I come back and marry him, anyway. My job, my apartment, my friends, my life in New York. I might as well tell you no, and try to stay and make it on my own?—”

My father snorts. “You won’t be able to afford a life in New York. There’s no chance of that, Dahlia. You will fail, and when you do?” He shrugs. “There will be no home for you to come back to any longer.”

Those words land like a blow. Even my mother gasps softly, although she quickly covers the sound by dropping anothersugar cube into her old fashioned. Theclinkof it against the glass is loud in the sudden silence that follows.

My father smiles grimly as he sees it sink in. “I have never asked anything of you, Dahlia. I’ve given you everything you could want. As your father, I have provided. Now, I’m asking you, as my daughter, to do what is needed for your family. And if you don’t love your family enough to do so, then we will no longer be here for you when you need us.” He sets his glass down, ticking off every statement on his fingers as he continues to speak. “Your credit card will be cut off. There will be no more deposits. You will not be allowed to come home. If you show up, Alfred will be instructed to turn you away. You will be removed from the will. You may think that your mother will not go along with this, but she will.”

The finality in his voice, coupled with the conversation that I had with my mother earlier, makes me believe him. It’s clear that she loves her life too much to risk it, even for me. And going against my father is difficult. That much is obvious to me in this moment, as I waver on the edge of telling himyesdespite everything in me screamingno, simply because I still crave his approval.

Just like I have since I was a child—and like I probably always will, even if I’m cut out of his and the rest of my family’s life.

“Daddy—”

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