As a family.
He was out of his damn mind.
We weren’t a family, not really, but that wasn’t what mattered to him. It was all about his image, and I had already done enough to tarnish that. He made sure I remembered that fact too.
"After what happened with Beckham, I can’t afford any more bad attention where you’re involved. Everyone will want to know why you aren’t there. You’re coming."
"I did nothing wrong." I could feel my pulse racing. I had heard my dad talking about what happened between me and Beck, about the video, a million times, but he never spoke to me about it.
It was as if my opinion on the subject didn’t matter.
It had never mattered to him.
"Did you see that damn video, Josie?" His eyes that matched mine were filled with so much anger and fury.
Of course, I had seen the video. I had seen it far too many times to count, and I hated, I fucking hated, that he had seen it as well.
I didn’t even know how much he had seen, but even one second was too much.
"Yes. I saw it." I squared my shoulders and waited for whatever he would say next.
"Then you know what everyone who saw that video saw. You know what they think of you."
I felt like he had slapped me. My heart raced so fast that I felt like I would never be able to slow it down. "What exactly do they think of me?"
I wanted to hear him say the words. I wanted to know exactly what he was thinking, exactly how he felt about me.
"You look like a whore," he roared, and I couldn’t stop the way my vision became foggy with unshed tears.
I had promised myself a long time ago that I was done wasting my tears on a father who didn’t give a shit. I had made myself that promise on the third birthday in a row that he had missed. I was eleven at the time.
But I couldn’t stop them from forming now. It didn’t matter what I told myself or how badly I wanted to be unaffected by him, the truth was that his opinion mattered far more than I should have ever allowed it to.
He mattered regardless of how badly I tried to prove otherwise.
"I…" I stuttered over my words because I had no idea what to say to him.
I wasn’t a whore. I wasn’t even close, but I knew that was what he saw when he saw that video. He had seen exactly what Beck had wanted everyone to see.
"So, why do you want your whore daughter at the event then?" I took a small step back from him. "If that’s what everyone thinks, then I want to stay as far away from them as I can."
I knew the kind of people who would be at any kind of event that my father was attending, and I didn’t want to be around any of them. I didn’t care what they thought of me.
They were all as vile as he was, and I had no interest in flaunting myself in front of them and pretending like I was a perfect girl with a perfect life.
I was no such thing.
"You are going to go because I refuse to allow the Clermonts to tarnish
our name the way they have. I refuse to cower because some teenage boy got it in his head that he could play God."
"And what about Lucas?"
My father’s gaze snapped to mine.
"What about him?"
"You’re fine with what he did? You just choose to pretend like Beck didn’t have a reason to do what he did to me?"
My father’s rage filled the room, and I knew that if I said another word, I would feel his wrath like I had never felt it before.
But I didn’t care.
He had to know that I knew what Lucas had done, and more importantly, that I knew what he had done to help Lucas get away with it.
"You have no damn clue what you’re talking about." His voice was eerily calm. "I don’t know what Beck Clermont has been telling you, but he doesn’t know shit."
"Beck’s not the one who told me." I shook my head. How he could just sit there and continue to lie for Lucas made me feel sick to my stomach. I couldn’t understand how even a man like my father could be okay with what Lucas did. "It was Cami."
My father was completely still as he assessed me. I could feel him calculating exactly what he would say to me next.
"What happened with Lucas was unfortunate, but I’m not going to damn the boy simply because he made a drunken mistake."
A mistake?
A fucking mistake?
"He didn’t make a mistake. He assaulted her."
"That’s her word against his." His gaze was so damn cold, and I knew that I didn’t know anything about my father. Not really.
He was as much a stranger to me as he was to everyone else.
"So you just take his word? Even though you saw the video? Even though he released a video just like Beck had?"
"And what would you have rather I done, Josephine? Let him go to jail for a mistake? Prosecute him for letting his friends share that video of them?"
"Yes!" I was practically screaming. "He should have been held responsible for what he did."
"And what about Beck?" His knuckles were turning white from his grip on the counter. "Do you want me to press charges against him for what he
did?"
My heart lurched into my throat. "No." I shook my head. Of course, that wasn’t what I wanted with Beck. "But Beck didn’t assault me. What I did with him was my choice."
"And it’s a choice you’re going to have to live with. It’s something that will haunt you for years to come."
"Because I’m a teenager who let a guy touch me?"
"Because you let a Clermont touch you. You let him touch you when I told you to stay away from him and look what happened."
Deep down, I knew he was right. I knew that he had warned me to stay away from Beck, and even if his reasoning was shit, he was right. I should have stayed as far away from Beck as I could.
But every part of me screamed to defend him against my father. Even though he had given me absolutely no reason to.
He deserved everything my father thought of him, but I couldn’t make myself truly believe that.
Even if I knew I should have.
"Why should it matter? Why should I listen to what you have to say?" I knew the moment I said the words they would only infuriate him further, but I didn’t care. I had no reason to care about his reputation and how these damn people saw him or me. I saw him exactly for who he was, and it was about time that everyone else did too.
"Because you are my daughter. And as such, I expect you to act a certain way. Regardless of if you don’t want to listen to what anyone else has to say.
Their opinions are important to me." His words were low and slow and precise, and I knew that he wasn’t telling me simply what he expected out of me but what he demanded.
"You can continue to act however you want to, Josephine, but there will be consequences for your actions."
"Like what?" My blood ran cold in my veins. Lucas hadn’t had consequences for what he had done, but he would punish me?
"Like your mother’s shitty old house and that measly bit of money she left you."
"You can’t do that." I didn’t care about the money, even if it was the only thing I had once I left this place, but I did care about her house.
I wouldn’t let him take it from me. I couldn’t.
"I can do whatever I want. You are a minor, and I have full legal control
over your assets until you turn eighteen." He actually had the nerve to look sympathetic about what he said next. "Your mother didn’t have anything in place like she should have before she passed. I can take everything if I want it."
He would do it too. I had no doubt, and he knew how much that house meant to me. I had fought tooth and nail not to leave it when he was granted custody of me.
And I knew it was just a damn house, but it was the last piece of my mother that was still tangible. It had still smelled like her when I left.