“Yes, I can,” he shot back. “If that man thinks he’s going to get to me through my daughter, he has another think coming.”
“He doesn’t even know you’re my dad.”
“Ha! So, it is him!”
I waggled my finger at him. “Don’t you dare. I’m a grown woman. I don’t need you trying to fight a battle that doesn’t exist. This is none of your business. This is my life.”
“You are my daughter.”
“Yes, I am,” I said. “I hope you will be a part of our lives, but you can’t try and ruin this. You can’t hold this against Lukas. Let me handle my own business.”
“This is unacceptable,” he said. “You’re letting that man ruin your life.”
“My life isn’t ruined,” I said.
“Your career is.”
I raised an eyebrow. “Are you telling me this as my father or as my boss?”
“How are you going to raise a child on your own and work?”
“Women do it all the time,” I said. “All the time. I can do this. I would appreciate your support.”
“I can’t believe you are just going to give up everything you worked so hard for.”
“I’m not giving up anything,” I told him. “I’m an artist first and foremost. If you’re trying to threaten my job, I will remind you there are laws that say you can’t.”
“I’m not threatening your job. I need time. I can’t believe you let this happen. I thought you were more responsible.”
“If there is nothing else you need, I have to get to work,” I said. “Stay out of my mail. I will make sure my address is changed.”
I walked out of his office. I refused to let him see me cry. I threw open the door and headed back across campus. If there was ever a chance for me and Lukas to have some kind of a relationship, my father was going to ruin it. I thought about calling Lukas and warning him. Maybe there was a chance Dad would just leave it alone. He was stepping into some pretty messy territory if he tried to punish Lukas for something done in our personal lives.
Everything was going to hell in a handbasket. I was devastated. It was like the worst possible outcome. I knew my father. He was going to make this horrible for Lukas. I knew how important his career was to him. He was going to hate me for ruining his career. He had a goal. He was working so hard to try to get tenure. He was never going to forgive me. There was never going to be a chance he wanted to be with me.
I made it to my art studio and closed the door behind me. I needed to have a good cry. The hormones were making me extra emotional. I went into the small storage closet and let the tears flow. Once I was certain I got it all out, I cleaned up my face and got back to work.
22
Lukas
I was no longer worried about running into her. If our paths crossed, so be it. She said she didn’t care and neither did I. Things were just not meant to be. It wasn’t like I expected anything to happen between us. I didn’t go to the mixer expecting to find someone to call girlfriend or anything else. That chapter was closed. End of story. The River saga was over.
But then I found myself looking for her in the halls. I looked for her in the cafeteria and anywhere else. I managed to catch a glimpse of her a couple of weeks ago, but it had been fleeting. I tried to get her attention and then I remembered she told me to stay away. That was just a little blow to the ego.
I turned on the lights in my office and took a seat. The semester was winding down, which meant the students were panicking. This was the time when they all had that sudden realization there weren’t going to be any more chances to raise their grades. I was fielding emails left and right from those that were trying to prepare for the final. They were inundating my university email with stupid questions. I already knew which ones were going to fail. Some of them had no business counting money let alone trying to manage it.
There was a knock on my door. I sighed with frustration. My office hours were clear. Before I could answer the door, it was thrown open. I jumped to my feet. “Dean Miller,” I said with surprise. “Come in.”
He glared at me. “Are you alone?”
I looked around the obviously empty office. “I am. Do you want to sit down?”
“No!”
“Is something wrong?” I asked.
“How dare you?” he seethed.
“Uh, how dare I what?” I asked.
He was pissed. I didn’t think this could be about River. It had been months. This had to be something else. There was no reason for him to be pissed if he did happen to find out about River and I hooking up. He might be disappointed, but furious seemed a little over the top.
“I made my rules very clear,” he said. “Very clear. From the very beginning, I made it very clear what I expected from my staff. I have high standards. I knew it was going to be a problem for some, but I thought you were dedicated to making a run for tenure. Those rules were set in place because of this exact thing. This is why we can’t tolerate this kind of behavior. I was under the impression you were serious about this job.”
“I am,” I said. “I’m very serious. I do want tenure. I’m working to get it.”
“Ha! A man that is dedicated knows to follow the rules. What board would grant tenure to a man that blatantly breaks the rules?”
I had no idea what was going on. He was talking about rules, but he wasn’t being specific. I wasn’t going to volunteer information in case I guessed wrong. “Sir, I’m not sure what you are talking about, but I promise you, I’m very serious about earning tenure. I’ve been working on my essay. I have some great ideas about what we can do with my department.”
“You should have thought about that before! How dare you thumb your nose at me? At the university? At all the faculty who have worked so hard to maintain the utmost respect for their roles here at the university.”
“Dean, I assure you I have as well.”
He glared at me. I could feel the anger rolling off him in waves. “Really? You’ve followed all the rules that you agreed to when you signed that contract?”
I was afraid to say yes. He obviously knew something I didn’t. “Yes,” I said with zero conviction.
“Why don’t you ask River why she’s taking a sabbatical?” he snapped.
“River? River Owens? The art professor?”
“Don’t act like you don’t know her. Talk to her and then come and tell me again you followed all the rules.”
He turned and walked out. It felt like I was in a vacuum and he just sucked all the air out of the room. “What the fuck?” I asked aloud.
If he happened to find out about us sleeping together months ago, I couldn’t understand why he thought it was worthy of this kind of a tantrum. There was no way we were the only ones to fall into this little trap. We were young and single. This shit happened all the time. It didn’t affect our jobs. We were both still good at what we did.
The dude was being a little weird about things. Then again, she had been just a little paranoid about the dean finding out as well. “Oh shit,” I groaned. I hoped like hell I didn’t step into a strange May-December thing.
I was going to ask her. I left my office without bothering to pack my things. I knocked on her office door first, but no surprise, she wasn’t there. I headed for the studio and found her sitting on the floor with a yellow pad in her hand.
“River,” I said.
She whipped around. “Lukas?”
I walked toward her. “The dean just paid me a visit,” I said.
“He did?” she gasped and struggled to get to her feet. She looked pale all of a sudden, which said guilty to me.
“Yes, he did. He just laid into me about breaking the rules and violating my contract. He said to ask you about your sabbatical. Does he know? Did you tell him about us? What the hell is wrong with this guy? Were you guys a thing?”
Her mouth dropped open. “No! Gross. No!”
“He seems to be pretty concerned about you and you were freaking out about him finding out
about us. That seems to be more than the standard professional relationship.”
She covered her face with her hands. “He’s my dad.”
I blinked. “What?”
“Dean Miller is my father,” she said.
“But you’re an Owens,” I said with confusion. My eyes widened. “Shit, are you married? Divorced?”
She rolled her eyes. “No. I use my mother’s name because I don’t want to use my father’s name. I don’t like the idea of nepotism. I wanted to get the job on my own merit. I wanted people to respect me for the work I did and not for who my father is.”
“Holy shit,” I breathed. “You could have mentioned you were the dean’s daughter.”
“Would it have mattered?” she asked.
“Fuck yes! You could have told me the stakes were that much higher. You lied to me!”
“I didn’t lie to you,” she shot back. “You never asked me if he was my father.”
I threw my arms in the air. “I didn’t know that was a question I was supposed to ask. Am I supposed to go around asking everyone I take to bed who their father is?”
It was ludicrous. How could she possibly turn this on me? “Did you tell him about us?” I asked. “Is this some kind of revenge? Tell me why you would do that.”
“Why would I want revenge?” she scoffed. “I’m the one who told you not to say anything. I’m the one that told you we couldn’t do that again. Why would I tell anyone?”
“You told him.”
“No, I didn’t. I told you he heard rumors. Someone told him they saw us together. Trust me, I did not want him to know.”
I shook my head. “Why wouldn’t you warn me? If you were upset with me about something I did, you should have come to me. We could have worked it out. You put my entire career in jeopardy for what? What did I do?”
“I didn’t do anything!”
“Your daddy certainly thinks otherwise. He’s pissed. He might fire me. What the hell am I supposed to do if he fires me? Two nights with you and I just threw away everything I worked for.”
Her mouth dropped open. “I will talk to him,” she said. “He doesn’t know anything. I never actually admitted to anything.”
“Talk to him?” I scoffed. “Yeah, I think we’re past that. I just don’t understand why now? Why wait until now to fuck up my life?”
“I didn’t do anything to fuck up your life,” she said. “Trust me, all of your secrets are safe with me.”
“What is it you want?” I asked her.
“Excuse me?”
“Your dad told me to ask you why you’re taking a sabbatical,” I said. “Why does that matter to me? He blames me for you taking off. Why?”
“Just go,” she whispered. “Please. I’ll talk to him. I am not trying to ruin your career. I don’t control him.”
“If you would have told me from the very beginning who you were, I never would have gotten involved. You lied. Why me? Out of everyone there that night, you could have chosen someone else.”
She looked down. “You’re right.”
“You manipulated me,” I said. “Why? What were you hoping to gain from this?”
“Nothing. Not a damn thing, Lukas. Trust me, I want nothing from you.”
“This didn’t just come up for nothing,” I said angrily.
She leaned forward. Her eyes flashed with anger. “You know what, Lukas? If I wanted something from you, I would have told you months ago that I was pregnant, but I didn’t. I was trying to protect you. I didn’t tell anyone because I knew how worried you were about your career.”
I blinked several times. I was certain I must have misheard her. “What?”
“Get out,” she ordered.
“What did you say?”
She didn’t give me anything more. She turned and walked out without looking back. I stood in her art studio looking like a complete moron. Feeling like a complete moron as well.
There was no way. Two times.
I slapped my hand to my forehead. “The fucking condom,” I mumbled.
I thought things were okay. She never mentioned it. How could I have known? She couldn’t be pissed at me. I didn’t know.
“I didn’t know!” I shouted and ran out of the room to track her down.
She was gone. I went back to her office, hoping to catch her there. The door was locked, and the lights were off. She wasn’t there. “River!” I called out, just in case she was trying to avoid me.
She didn’t answer. I went back into my office and flopped in my chair. Pregnant? Could she really be pregnant? I didn’t understand why she didn’t tell me. If she was really pregnant, what did that mean for us?
She couldn’t just drop a bombshell like that and expect me not to have questions. She had to talk to me. I gathered my things and left the office. I didn’t have time to track her down right now. I needed to get to class, assuming I still had a job.
“Pregnant. A baby.”
I couldn’t get my head around the idea. It just didn’t fit into my life plan. Her father was the dean. That certainly caused a bit of an issue. If she was pregnant and it was my baby, her daddy was not going to be happy with me. The chance of me getting tenure was slim to none.
All because I got a little drunk one night. This was a mess that was going to take some time to figure out. I couldn’t worry about it right now. I had to salvage what was left of my career. If I was going to be brushing up my resume, I needed to make sure I closed out this last semester with a bang.
23
River
Hiding in the bathroom was not going to do me any good. I sat on the toilet with the lid down and the stall door closed. Seeing his anger made it all so real. I should have told him. I knew he was going to have some kind of opinion, but the unbridled anger I saw was difficult to deal with. He was furious. I understood why, kind of.
My dad had no right to do that. He butted his big nose in as usual. He was so certain his way was the only way. Like he never committed a sin. Like he was a saint. How dare he screw this up for me? I would have told Lukas eventually. I would have given him some time to come to terms with the baby situation. Then maybe there would be a chance he and I could raise the baby together.
That idea was shot to shit now. There was no way he would want to spend any time with me. He might still want to have some kind of relationship with his child. I took a deep breath. I said I was going to do it on my own. I knew going into this I was going to end up doing this without his help. I couldn’t get all worked up because that’s what was happening now.
But I could be pissed at one person. I splashed some water on my face and headed for the admin building. I didn’t really have anything else to lose. I was certain I lost the one thing that really mattered.
“Is he in?” I asked his assistant.
“He’s on a call,” she said.
“Too bad,” I snapped and walked past her. I pushed opened the office door. He was indeed on the phone. “We need to talk!”
He cleared his throat. “Jim, I’ll need to call you back.”
“Why would you do that?” I asked. “You had no right to tell him!”
“What are you talking about?”
“You went to Lukas and threatened his job? Why, Dad? He didn’t know who I was. He didn’t know about the baby. That was not your place to tell him.”
“So, he is the father.”
“Yes, Dad, he’s the father.”
“Why didn’t you tell him?” he asked.
“Because Lukas is a good man,” I said. “He has his heart set on getting tenure. He’s very good at his job. He’s one of the best professors you have on staff. He does not deserve to have his career derailed because my overprotective father is using his position as the dean to get personal revenge.”
“I’m doing no such thing!”
“Did you threaten to fire him?” I asked.
“I didn’t threaten to fire him,” he said. “I merely pointed out the fact he violated one of the rule
s. He signed a contract. You all did. This fraternization is frowned upon because it causes problems. I am trying to protect you and him and everyone else that works here.”
“You can’t fire him,” I said. “If you do, he’ll never be able to get another job. You can’t do that to him. He doesn’t deserve to lose everything. It’s not his fault this happened. It takes two to tango. Isn’t that what you always said? You’re blaming him for this. It isn’t just him.”
“I don’t understand why you would throw away everything you worked for,” he said. “Stop thinking about him. What about you?”
“I really should have taken the job at the community college. You squashed that too. Your control over my life is getting old. I took this job here because I wanted to be in the same city as you. I wanted to teach. I didn’t want to have to move across the country. I had no idea you were going to be this controlling.”
“I’m not controlling!”
“Ha!” I spat. “You can’t stop yourself. You have always been sure you knew the best way. I have always gone along with what you said because I didn’t want to argue. I didn’t want to push you away, but dammit, Dad, this was important. I should have known you would never let me make my own decisions.”
“I’ve let you make plenty of your own decisions,” he said. “I’m trying to make sure you do what’s best for you and your future.”
“I have to make my own mistakes,” I said. “My mistakes are how I find my happiness.”
“You shouldn’t have to suffer the consequences of a mistake if I can prevent it,” he said.
“No, Dad. You can’t prevent everything. You are far too controlling. I used a different name because I wanted to break away from that control. I wanted to find my way. I should have taken the job at the community college. It would have been so much better. Now I’m going to lose the man I love because I let you dictate every facet of my life.”
“I’m trying to help you,” he insisted.
I shook my head. “No. This is not help. Lukas and I had something really amazing. I know we could have been happy together. He is the first man I have ever wanted to see again and again. The only reason I didn’t go out with him was because of you. You ruined what could have been something really good.”
Our Little Secret Page 14