My father slammed his palm onto the table. The silverware jumped. “Do not lecture me about clarity. Do you know what you’ve done? Do you understand what kind of position you’ve put us in?”
There it was. Not pain. Not betrayal. Position.
I remembered the phone call in the corridor. I remembered Grant’s stare. I remembered Paige wearing my grandmother’s bracelet, the one my mother always said was locked in a safe.
“What position?” I asked quietly.
My mother looked at my father, warning him with her eyes.
But he was too angry to stop.
“We had obligations,” he said. “Temporary obligations. Your brother needed help with the restaurant investment, and your mother’s charity gala deposits were due, and I had a bridge loan structured around incoming family liquidity.”
Incoming family liquidity.
That was what I was. Not a daughter. Liquidity.
“You planned to use my inheritance,” I said.
