for standing up to him.
"Come on," Kathryn said to Kerry, Lisette and Mrs. Collias. "Let's leave them alone."
Ron didn't like being left alone with his daughter and this boy.
"Before you start yelling at Arthur," Cynthia said, "I have something to say."
"It won't do you any good to defend him."
"I'm not because I seduced him, not the other way around."
"I don't know why you would say something like that," Ron said, "but it's not going to protect him."
"I'm not saying it to protect him. I'm saying it because it's true."
Ron couldn't believe her. She'd hardly dated. She wouldn't know how. Ron told himself to take it easy. He'd get to the bottom of this shortly. Then he'd see what he could do to make this kid wish he'd never been born.
"Maybe we'd better sit down," Ron said. "I don't think the blood is reaching your head."
"I wish you'd stop acting like I'm helpless and innocent," Cynthia said.
Ron wanted better communication with his daughter, but he hadn't bargained on this. "You're telling me you dragged this boy into the bushes against his will and had your way with him?"
Cynthia smiled suddenly, and he felt better. If she could smile, there had to be some other explanation.
Ron turned abruptly to Arthur who flinched visibly. "My daughter says she seduced you. Is that true?"
The boy's tongue seemed to stick to the roof of his mouth. Of course it wasn't true. Not even a feckless teenage mass of rampant hormones could tell a lie like that.
"It wasn't that I didn't want to," Arthur said, "but I didn't have any protection."
"But you had sex anyway?"
"It's easy to get a boy to have sex, even if he's trying to hold back," Cynthia said. "All you have to do is - "
"I can guess," Ron said before Cynthia could shatter what was left of his image of his innocent daughter.
"It wasn't all her fault," Arthur said. "I was willing enough when she said it wasn't her time, that she wouldn't get pregnant."
"You told him you wouldn't get pregnant?" Ron said, stupefied, to his daughter.
"He wouldn't have had sex with me if I hadn't."
Ron decided it would be easier to go back to Geneva and pull off the impossible negotiations than to deal with this daughter. "Did you do this more than once?" he asked Cynthia.
Arthur answered. "No, sir. I wasn't stupid enough to do it twice."
Ron's heart sank. He turned to his daughter. "You knew it was your time, didn't you? You were hoping to get pregnant."
The color drained from Cynthia's face, but she didn't turn away. "I didn't plan it. I'd been really depressed all week, and Arthur was so sweet I just wanted to stay with him forever. I didn't think I would get pregnant, but I knew I wouldn't be upset if I did." Her body seemed to slump, to sink within itself. "There, you know all my horrible, dirty, nasty little secrets. I'm not sorry for myself, but I am sorry for Arthur. I shouldn't have done this to him."
Ron wanted to ask if she felt sorry for him, but he realized she hadn't even considered his feelings. "Why wouldn't getting pregnant upset you?"
"I wanted something of my own to love, something that would love me back. A baby has to love its mother, doesn't it?"
Ron felt as if someone had just kicked him in the gut, knocked him down and stomped on him. It was worse than that morning so long ago when he realized he wasn't as good as other people. Almost as bad as learning of Erin's cancer. Now his daughter, the only person he had left in the world, had said she was so desperately lonely she'd gotten pregnant so she could have a baby that would love her.
How could he ever have thought he was a success when he'd been such a monumental failure as a father?
Never in his life had he felt as miserable as he felt now. He had to do something to make Cynthia realize he loved her, that he always would love her.
He walked around the coffee table, held out his arms and drew the stiff, resisting body of his daughter into his embrace. "Baby, I love you just as much as I loved your mother. I would have given up every meeting, every trip, if it could have kept her alive. I feel the same way about you."
She pushed against him, but he wouldn't release her. "Then why didn't you do it?"
"Because I thought