The Secret (Winslow Brothers 3)

Evidently, finding out your daughter is sleeping with one of your star professors is the point at which poise breaks.

“This goes beyond putting your own career at risk by being childish, Rachel,” he continues, his eyes meeting mine. “But you’re putting Ty’s at risk too.” He tosses both hands out toward his sides erratically. “Am I losing my fucking mind?’

Oh, I see. This is all my fault. I should’ve known. Everything is Rachel’s fault in Nathaniel Rose’s eyes.

I bark out a sharp laugh, and my father’s attention is back on me.

“You think this is funny?”

“Yeah, Dad. I think it’s pretty freaking funny that at the end of the day, even someone else’s actions are my responsibility. Not only do I have to Be serious, Rachel and Take your career in your hands, Rachel, and Do as I say, Rachel, but now I also have to worry about keeping up with someone else?” I shake my head. “I don’t think so, Dad. You can count me out.”

I shake my head and start to open my mouth again, a lashing the likes of a sadist coming, but Ty’s voice is there again, carrying over me.

“This isn’t a game, Nate,” he says and stands up from his chair.

“This isn’t a game?” my dad retorts, his voice harsh. “Well, then what the hell is it? Some kind of sick joke?”

“I’m in love with your daughter!” Ty shouts, the sound echoing even within the cozy, overcrowded, book-filled space. It feels like his words repeat a hundred times.

I’m sorry, what?

Did he just tell my father he’s in love with me before he actually told me?

My skin tingles and my tongue feels thick, and if I don’t get out of here soon, I’m going to black out. After all these years, after all this time, after all that I’ve fought to change, I now find myself in a room with two men who are happy to speak for me.

“You’re in love with my daughter?” my father questions, outraged at Ty. “What do you know about love? Do you even realize the consequences that this type of relationship could have on your future? On her future? She is finally back in New York. She is finally back to focusing on the important things instead of flitting about with no plan. You are nothing more than a distraction.”

“With all due respect, Nate, you’re wrong,” Ty continues and steps closer to my father, neither one even sparing a glance in my direction. “You are right about a lot of things, but this is one thing you’re wrong about. I am in love with your daughter. And that means I’m the man who wants to support her, encourage her, and be what she needs.”

What I need is to be an active participant in my own life. To make my own decisions, be my own woman, pick my own destiny. No one gets to tell me what my future holds but me. No one.

“Ty, you don’t know what’s best for her,” my father refutes, firing the gunshot that triggers my fight-or-flight response.

I feel out of control. I feel violated. And I feel like if I sit here for even a second longer, my heart will shatter into a million tiny pieces.

“No,” I say so forcefully as I stand from my seat that both of them have no other option but to look me in the face.

“Rachel—” my father starts to interject, but I hold one hand up in the air.

“I’ve had enough.” I grab my messenger bag from the floor and sling it over my shoulder. “I’m a grown woman, and I will not sit here any longer while the two of you discuss my life as if I don’t exist.”

“Rachel—” Ty tries, reaching out his hand to grasp my arm, to stop my momentum, but I yank it away without a second thought.

“No. You two can stay here and fight it out for as long as you want. I’m done.”

Out the door of my father’s office, I stride as quickly as my legs will take me. And I don’t stop on my way down the stairwell and out of the English building. And I don’t stop on my way off campus. And I don’t stop then either.

I need away from my father. Away from Ty. Away from all this fucking bullshit.

To a place where I’m in control for good.

Ty

Every cell inside my body wants to run after Rachel, but I don’t. Instead, I stay here, where I know the buck starts and stops.

Rachel is right to be upset with me. She’s right to feel disrespected by my timing in telling her that I love her, and she’s right to feel like a third wheel in a very important conversation.

But Nate Rose’s influence on the way she views how to love and be loved is invasive. It claws at the shell of her heart and sits like lead at the bottom of her stomach. Without a change in her relationship with Nate, she’ll never be ready for something else—for the amazing thing we’ve managed to find within each other.