Page 61 of Whispers

“But—” Claire said, rising.

“I’m not fooling around. Push me and you’ll be on the next flight out of Portland.”

“I love him!” Claire announced, shaking as she faced her father, defying him for the first time in her life. Miranda wished she could kick Claire under the table. This wasn’t the time to push it with him. Give him some time to cool off.

“You love him,” Dutch muttered. “Love? And I suppose he loves you?”

“Y-yes,” she said, swallowing hard.

“Is that why he’s still sniffing after the Forsythe girl?”

“What?”

“Dutch, don’t,” Dominique said.

“She should know who she’s dealing with. I’ve had one of my security men watching Harley Taggert because I suspected something like this might be coming down.”

Miranda felt cold as death.

“That’s right. And your precious Harley, the hypocrite who gave you that damned ring, has been two-timing you.”

“No!”

Dutch shook his head at Claire’s naïveté. “Of course it’s true. But you’re too much in love to see the writing on the wall. As for Weston,” he said, eyeing his youngest daughter, “he’s about as faithful as a mangy dog around a bitch in heat. That boy can’t keep his pants up to save his life, so both of you, stay away from the Taggerts.” Finally his gaze landed full force on Miranda. “You, at least, seem to have some sense when it comes to boys.”

Miranda withered inside. She was the hypocrite. Her sisters didn’t resort to sneaking around, but she was seeing Hunter on the sly, afraid of her father’s reaction, tired of walking that thin good girl line.

“Girls. Shit.” Shaking his head, Dutch held his tongue, but Miranda knew what was on his mind. She’d heard the argument that had simmered between their parents for years. Dominique had failed Dutch by bearing him only daughters. No sons. He’d begged her, pleaded, screamed, and demanded that she bear him another child—a boy child—but she’d refused, claiming the last pregnancy had nearly killed her. She’d risk no more of her health bearing Holland issue.

The fights had never been in front of the girls, and, Miranda supposed, as she pushed peas around on her plate, until tonight Tessa and Claire didn’t know their father’s deep disappointment at the sex of his children. Miranda had not had that luxury, as her room shared a wall with her parents’ bedroom. There was no large bathroom or closet that muffled the sounds of their fighting, or their lovemaking. Fortunately the latter was infrequent because the thought of her mother and father rolling around on the bed and panting—actually doing it—especially after one of their fights, made Miranda sick. For years, she’d heard her father’s complaints and Dominique’s challenge that their family’s sexual makeup was his fault. He obviously wasn’t man enough to spawn sons in four tries. Even their first child, a baby miscarried early in the second trimester, had been a girl.

When she’d been younger, Miranda had felt guilty, as if the fact that she’d been born a woman was her fault, and she’d tried to please Dutch, to gain his favor, to be the son he’d never had. She was smart, excelled in school, was captain of the debate team, worked on the school paper, gained entrance to several elite colleges, but, damn it, she couldn’t grow male parts of her anatomy, and for being a woman she would be forever punished.

At eighteen, she was just beginning to understand that she would never please her father. No accomplishment would make him proud of her, and so she’d quit trying to satisfy him and was now trying to please herself. With Hunter.

She watched as Dutch slammed one of the French doors behind him, rattling the glass panes and sending the chandelier swaying, so that the light from the hundred small candles swirled against the walls and reflected in teetering pinpoints in the windows.

Dominique cast a glance at her husband’s silhouette and sighed with the patience born of years of living with a volatile man. Spooning a ladle of cheese sauce over her sliced potatoes, she said quietly, “Just let him blow off a little steam. It’s his way, and there’s nothing we can do to change it.”

“He’s a pig.” Tessa, forever wearing her heart on her sleeve, couldn’t control her rage.

Dominique raised both eyebrows. “He’s your father. We have to deal with him.”

Tessa glowered and fiddled with her water glass. “I don’t see why. You could divorce him.”

“Tessa!” Claire hissed. “You don’t mean it.”

“Sure I do. It’s not a sin, you know.”

Secretly Miranda wondered why her parents stayed together.

“I said ‘until death do us part’ and I meant it,” Dominique said without a smile. “We’re a family.”

“So that means we do anything he wants? He tells us what to do and we just go along. Claire should give up Harley and I . . . I should give up my life?” Tessa ran angry fingers through her hair and glared at her father, who was leaning on the railing, staring out at the water, the tip of his cigar glowing an angry red in the darkness.

“I’ll run away before he sends me to any school in Europe.”

“That was just talk,” Dominique said. “Let him cool off.”