Page 197 of Double or Nothing

Mum exhales, relieved.

Dad nods as though the matter has been sensibly concluded, even though my bottom lip is trembling.

“I’ll meet the wonderful Christopher Otley and smile like your sweet little daughter in front of his wonderful Otley family,” I say. “And maybe I’ll even walk down the bloody aisle.”

“I’m pleased to hear it,” Dad says.

The tears are still in my eyes when I face him.

“But I’ll hate you every single day of my life for making me do it, I swear.”

Mum gasps.

Dad’s face empties.

Not anger.

Not shock.

Something colder.

“You don’t mean that, Alice. Stop it.”

“Yes, I do mean it,” I say. “I mean every single word.”

I push my chair back and get to my feet. No roast fucking beef for me today. I’ve had enough.

“Sit down, Alice! Stay reasonable,” Dad says.

“No.”

I scrabble for my handbag beside the chair.

“Alice!” Mum says.

“Sorry, Mum. I can’t sit through lunch pretending this is normal.”

My voice sounds hitched. Weak. Pathetic.

“Alice Rose,” Dad says.

The full name.

My eyes sting when I look at him, but I refuse to lower them. I refuse to blink and let him witness the tears.

“You have potential,” he tells me. “But talent requires opportunity, exposure, contacts and funding. Every one of those came through this family in the first place, and they will only be increased through an alliance with the Otleys.”

My throat tightens.

I think of Bryce looking at my canvases as though my whole soul had finally found a language, and he understood it.

I think of Jack genuinely being impressed, even though he thinks abstract art is a pile of crap.

I think of the black line bending.

But that bend has gone now. Dad has hammered it back into the iron bar it always was. Straight and unyielding.

Seven days left.