Page 111 of Bend (Bend & Break Duet 1)

I had pushed food around my plate for two hours and hadn’t bothered to put up the pretense of listening. Alex had courted my father as ifhewere the one he needed to impress. Not me.

“I thought you would’ve cut off your relationship with that common man given you’re betrothed to another.” He opened the filing drawer in his desk. “Whether or not you’re faithful to your husband is irrelevant to me, except if I can catch you, so can anyone else. That is unacceptable.”

You’ll never stop your frightening stalking, will you?

Somewhere in the back of my head, I thought I was pulling off seeing Cal without him knowing. It was foolish thinking.

There was nothing that escaped Samuel Hollingsworth. And even then, Cal had tried to protect me. To lose my father’s tail when he’d followed us.

“When you were gallivanting with him before, I’d hoped you’d come to your own realization that he wasn’t good enough for you.” He sighed, pulled out a folder, and closed the drawer. “Your judgment can’t be trusted.”

He opened the file and scanned through a few documents.

“Not only was your relationship with him a disgrace to this family...” He looked at me with a steely gaze. “Which you knew, otherwise you wouldn’t have kept it from your brothers.”

No. My relationship with Cal hadn’t been a disgrace to my family. I was young and stupid and scared of my brother for no reason at all. Looking back, it was absurd. But the secret had become easier to keep than telling the truth. It still amazed me that we dated for as long as we did without Teague finding out.

Seeing how it ended, though, how I was duped by Cal, maybe my instinct had been right.

And maybe my father was right that Cal wasn’t the man for me . . . it was his reasoning that was so very wrong.

“I’ve been too lenient.” He tapped the papers. “You’ve made a fool of me. I thought the issue was resolved when you ran off to London.”

My palms grew damp. I’d begged and pleaded with Father to let me go, desperate to get away from Cal and all the heartbreak.

“I felt the distance was best back then, so I allowed you to go.”

I was a puppet, who thought she’d had a choice.

“Since it’s quite clear time and distance and experience has not made you wiser, you leave me no choice.” He pressed his lips together as if in deep contemplation. “The thing about people like that Calhoun rodent is that there are so many ways to get a point across. It’s almost unfair they make so many poor choices. I have a buffet of options to make it clear he isn’t to see you again.”

Even at the point I hated Cal the most, I never would’ve wished my father’s wrath on him. Never.

And I didn’t now.

“Since you’re sointimatewith him.” He paused to let the implication sink in. “What do you think would be the most effective? His mother, his brother, or his massive debt?”

Contempt. That was what I felt toward my father.

How could he hurt innocent people? What would he do to them? And Cal was in debt?

“I won’t see him again.”

His face was as hard as I’d ever seen it. “Oh, I know you won’t. But it’s too late. You both need to understand that the tryst is over.”

“Please, don’t—”

“And whatever I decide, you can remember thatyoubrought this upon them.”

Guilt hit me swiftly, nearly taking me under.

I had to warn Cal. He might not know what my father’s wrath would bring, but at least he and his family wouldn’t be blindsided by it. Father would do something to Cal’s mom? One of his brothers? But hadn’t they suffered enough already? Losing Cal’s dad?

What was wrong with the monster in front of me?

He closed the folder. “Try to concentrate on what’s important. Which is getting the Davenport’s company.”

With a chin flick, I was dismissed.

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