“I know who he is. That’s not what I asked.”
I straddle the truth, trying to call forth my mind-set from back when it all began.
“He’s . . . we have an arrangement. It’s not personal.”
“When you were riding off with him on the back of that motorbike, it looked very personal to me.” The disappointment in her tone vibrates through me, as powerfully as the motorbike’s engine.
Then she straightens up, her expression hardening to a cold, commanding mask, like a sniper taking aim.
“You are to stop seeing him straightaway,” she orders. “You have an unblemished family name to uphold—I’m not going to watch you sully it by running around with the help.”
My eyes dart to hers. And a grade-A steel, the same kind used to make scalpels, fills my spine.
“I’m not a child—don’t speak to me like one.” I’m a doctor, a bloody surgeon, a fully grown woman. I have my own accomplishments, my own plans . . . my own life. “This conversation is inappropriate. I’m not discussing this with you.”
She stays right where she is, like a mountain that can’t be moved and knows it.
“I’ll cut you off. You won’t receive a penny from the family trust from this day forward.”
Mettle, pluck and moxie are funny things. Sometimes they hide themselves so thoroughly you don’t even know they’re there.
Until they rise up—just when you need them most.
“Keep it. I don’t need the family trust. I can support myself with my salary at the hospital just fine.”
She’s not surprised, her expression doesn’t change; it’s as if I’ve said what she already knew I would.
“And what about Tommy Sullivan? Can he support himself just fine as well?”
A dawning awfulness slithers through me, because a threat conveyed in an elegant, refined tone is still a threat.
“What do you mean?”
“From what I understand, this personal protection business of his is still just starting out. Among his caliber of clients, rampant and poisonous gossip is the best kind. A few well-placed words from me to the right people will kill his firm in its infancy. It won’t be difficult.”
“Words like what?”
“About his guards being untrustworthy, incompetent, drunk on the job.”
My hands go numb and the color drains from my face.
“Why would you do that?”
“Because it is what’s best for you, best for the family—and there is nothing I won’t do for this family. You may not see that now, but when the day comes that you are a distinguished surgeon you will.”
“You have it all wrong. He makes me better.”
“Better at what?”
“Everything!”
“The fact that you actually believe that shows he’s already done more damage than I suspected. You’re becoming dependent on him.”
“No.” I shake my head. “That’s not true.”
Her green eyes glitter as she looks down on me, and her smile is pulled tight with an aged bitterness.
“You remind me so much of myself, Abby—you always have. When I was a bit younger than you are now, I was studying advanced archeology—did you know that?”
I shake my head, because our family doesn’t talk about such things. We don’t talk at all.
“I was brilliant at it; I had so many plans. Places I would go, papers I would publish, discoveries I would make. And then . . . I met your grandfather and everything changed. We were very different people, opposites really, but that just made falling in love with him all the more thrilling. When we first married, I tried to carry on with my studies and career, but it’s impossible to walk down diverging paths at the same time. Choices must be made. Sacrifices. And for women and wives and mothers—the sacrifices will always fall on us. I won’t let you make the same mistakes I did.”
“But it’s not your decision to make!” I shout. I clasp my hands together beseechingly. “Please, Grandmother, don’t—”
“Stop.” Her voice strikes out like a whip. “I have neither the time nor the stomach for dramatics. Your singular talent has always been your practicality. Your ability to see your shortcomings clearly. Don’t let that fail you now.”
Lash, lash, lash.
For a moment breath escapes me, taking my words with it. And I don’t know what I would say even if I could, but the Dowager Countess doesn’t give me the opportunity.
“If you care for this boy—even just a little—you will end your relationship with him immediately. I’ll know if you don’t. And when I ruin his business prospects, I’ll be sure he is informed that your stubbornness was the cause. Which I suspect will resolve the situation to my satisfaction anyway.”
It hurts to hate someone that you love—but right now, in this moment, it’s not hard.
She moves towards the door, sparing me a stiffly benevolent look before she goes.
“Chin up, Abby. You’ll thank me for this one day, I promise.”
* * *
I compartmentalize at first—the way good surgeons are able to do. It still doesn’t come naturally to me, but I’m getting better at it. I push it away, lock it down, bury it deep until I barely sense that it’s there.