An Offer He Cant Refuse - By Christie Ridgway Page 0,90

thought was kinda weird, but Rachele wondered if it was the way her mother might have watched her when Rachele was a little girl. As if the other person mattered in a totally unexpected way.

"Johnny Magee owns the property on El Deseo," her father said between bites.

"Yes," Rachele answered. "I told you about that job."

"I've been there," he said. "Looking for you, but you'd let this Johnny's associate drive you home."

Rachele gripped her fork. Was this the right moment to talk to her father about her new relationship? She'd put it off time and again, and she knew Cal was getting impatient with her excuses. "His name is Cal. Cal Kazarsky."

"Well, it doesn't matter what his name is, because I don't want you going over to that house anymore." Her father didn't look up from his food. "And I don't want you going home with some stranger."

"Cal's not a stranger, Papa." A tense little laugh escaped from her mouth. "And I didn't go home with him, he drove me home."

"No matter." He waved his fork. "You won't see him again. You will not go back to that house."

She stared at the man across the table. He was in his mid-fifties, still handsome, she supposed, with a full head of salt-and-pepper hair. But he was her father, not her keeper, and Cal was right. If she didn't come clean, he would continue to treat her like a child. She'd kept her secret for too long already.

"You don't even know Cal," she said.

He waved his fork again. "Neither do you."

"Yes, yes I do." She swallowed. "I've been seeing him for a couple of weeks. We're... we're dating. Like a couple."

Her father frowned at his plate. "A couple? No. I didn't give you my permission to date."

His flat tone started her pulse thumping. She set down her fork and clasped her hands in her lap, trying to stay calm. Trying to sound calm. "Papa, I'm a grown woman. Twenty-one years old. I don't need your permission to do anything."

"You are my daughter," he said. "And you will do as I say."

She swallowed again. "Let's try this one more time. Papa. I don't need your permission to come and to go, to do my job, and especially not to... to fall in love."

His head jerked up. "I forbid you to use that word."

"Love?"

"I forbid you to use it."

She stared at him. "I don't understand."

"I forbid you to use it!" he repeated, his voice rising as he shoved back his chair. He stood, his hands in fists at his sides. "I forbid you to make mistakes or to be hurt or to have your heart broken. Do you understand me?"

"Papa - "

'There's to be no more discussion of this."

Rachele rose to her own feet, her legs shaky. She started backing away from the table, not afraid of her father, but afraid of what they might be about to sever. "We need to discuss this. This isn't a field trip you're forbidding me to go on. This is about my becoming my own woman. A grown woman."

"There will be no men in your life," her father asserted again. "And there will be no mistakes or hurt feelings or having your heart broken. This is for your own good."

She still couldn't believe what she was hearing. She'd expected him to be worried, but not to out and out refuse to be reasonable.

"Papa, I care for this man. I have feelings - "

But he couldn't concern himself to listen to them. "Defy me in this, Rachele," he declared with such conviction that she could only believe him, "and you are no longer my daughter."

Cold washed over Rachele's skin as she stared at the man who had raised her. Was this really her father? Was he really the kind of person who could dismiss her feelings, dismiss her, so easily? For years she'd thought it was grief that kept him at a distance, but now... now she could see that it was indifference. She was an obligation and a responsibility, but not a person to him.

"Then I guess I'm no longer your daughter," she said slowly. "Because I am going to defy you."

"You will do no such thing - " Then her father blinked, and blinked again, his expression growing bewildered.

"What is that on your face, Rachele Maria?" His forefinger touched his nose, his eyebrow. "What have you done to your face? You don't look like my daughter anymore."

And she realized that for the first time he was seeing