Page 72 of Bachelor

I smiled to myself.

“I came here to check on you. I wanted to do so in person. I had no business at Gatlington. That was a lie.”

“Why not visit me on campus?”

“You have enough going on, I heard.” He met my eyes, searching them for answers. “Christian is spreading some serious rumors about you.”

I swallowed hard, my throat bobbing with the effort. My dad watched me struggle to form the words I needed to lie to him, to tell him everything was fine and none of it was true.

I’d never been able to lie to my parents. Especially my dad. He saw right through me.

“Did you know?” he began, looking around. “I took your mother here on our first date.”

The abrupt shift in conversation caught me off guard. I looked up at him, watching as he sipped his coffee.

“It’s true. I was a junior in business school. I had no money.” He laughed, his eyes creasing with pleasure at the memories. “Your grandfather ran our family’s estate into the ground and I came here knowing it was our only lifeline, so I cast it, and it landed on your mother. Like you, she was the queen of Gatlington. An heiress and totally out of my league. But I brought her to this diner one night after a party on Greek Row and spent my last dollars on her plate of pancakes, and the rest is history. We married a month after graduation, and you came a few months later.”

“I didn’t know that.”

“Well, now you know. Some like to say I married her for her money, but that isn’t true. The first time our eyes met, I knew I wouldn’t be able to live without her, that everything else would be insignificant. She’s a handful, sure, but she’s mine.”

Tears started to sting my eyes. He continued to watch me, only taking his eyes off of mine long enough to nod his thanks to the waitress as she refilled our coffee mugs. I clutched my mug, ignoring the stingingly hot coffee now heating the ceramic.

“Why did you really break up with Christian?”

“Dad, I—” Words failed me, and I found it hard to look him in the eyes for a moment. “I fell in love. I fell in love and it totally flipped my life upside down and now I don’t know what to do.” I sucked in a breath.

I almost told him I’d fallen in love with someone unattainable, someone whose career at Gatlington could end and I’d face my own repercussions if we were found out, but he leaned back in his seat and looked out the window. “When I was student, your current Chancellor was a professor.” He pursed his lips, eyeing a random person as they crossed the street in front of the diner. “There were rumors my entire senior year about him being in a relationship with a student, but it wasn’t until several years later when I returned for a fundraising gala that I heard the full story.”

“What happened?”

“She was a graduate student in a different department. They were investigated, of course, but the administration decided no harm had been committed. Something in the bylaws, I believe. I can’t remember exactly. But they married before she graduated, and he kept his job, and she graduated with her master’s shortly thereafter. It didn’t stop them from being publicly ridiculed, of course.”

“But that was twenty or so years ago. Things are probably different now, right?”

His eyes met mine with a knowing look. “I don’t know, but if your situation...” He tapered off. I could tell he wanted to ask me outright if I was dating a professor, but neither of us were willing to have the conversation in full, not now at least. “It’s worth a look. A deep dive, to find that loophole.”

I brought my coffee to my lips as my mind moved a million miles an hour.

“Whitney,” he breathed, reaching out to gently clutch my forearm as I brought my coffee back down to the table. “I am proud of you. I love you, and I don’t deserve you as a daughter.”

“Dad—”

“But,” he continued, his tone shifting to something weighted and slightly sharp, “know your worth. You come from a wealthy family. Men in certain positions will want to take advantage of that.”

“Certain positions? Christian tried to take—”

“You know what I mean,” he concluded, his eyes fixed on mine.

A lump formed in my throat. I wanted to tell him everything, to tell him about Rhys, to tell him Rhys wasn’t like that. He didn’t want me because of my family and what a relationship between us could offer him.

But while my dad had seemingly come around to the idea that I wasn’t going to be a rich housewife like my mother, and their mothers, and all the mothers before them, he was still part of the elite crowd I’d spent my life trying to escape.

In reality, he might never fully understand my hopes and desires. My dreams.

But this was a start.

And now I had something to go on when it came to figuring this out with Rhys.

---