Crazy about Cameron: The Winslow Brothers #3(20)

Margaret’s eyes widened as she basked in this rare moment of approval.

“Helping with the family business, not wasting your trust fund allowance running after some ne’er-do-well Frenchie.” He took a loud slurp of his soup. “Settling down with a good, solid, respectable businessman.”

A slight chill went through Margaret as her father’s shrewd blue eyes connected with her dazed brown ones. He wore a satisfied smile on his face, overconfident and puffed up, and something inside Margaret started to panic as the words settling down resonated like a gong in her head.

She vaguely registered the rustle of Shane moving his chair beside her, and turned—in horrified slow motion—to find him kneeling on the floor, an open ring box sitting in his flat, upturned hand.

“Margaret,” he said softly.

“Shane!” she gasped, leaning back from him. “What the hell are you doing?”

“Now, Margaret!” thundered her father. “You’ve no cause for that sort of language!” His tone gentled a little as he nodded toward Shane. “Listen to what the man has to say.”

She jerked her head to look at her father, her eyes filling with tears as she raised her chin in protest. “You knew.”

“Well, of course I did. Think Shane would pop the question without my permission?”

Margaret leaped to her feet, still staring at her father, the heavy weight of Shane’s kneeling form like a boulder behind her.

“Shane shouldn’t be popping the goddamned question at all! Unless he’s popping it to you!”

“Is that right?” asked her father, throwing his napkin on the table and leaning back in his chair with angry, narrowed eyes.

“That is right!” she exclaimed. She balled up her napkin and threw it down on the table, just like her father.

He pointed a stubby finger at her, his voice almost a growl. “You will sit down, Margaret Anne, and you will listen to what Shane has to say.”

“I. Will. Not.”

Margaret winced at the memory, sliding under her comforter to burrow into its warmth and hide. Her eyes filled with tears as she remembered the helpless feeling of being flanked by her father and her nonexclusive non-boyfriend, feeling trapped in a situation that she’d never even solicited.

Shane had snapped the ring box shut, and she turned to find him standing up behind her.

“Are you crazy?” she gasped, blinking furiously to hold back tears of anger and humiliation. “We’ve barely dated. We’ve never even . . .”

She stopped herself before blurting out “slept together,” cutting her eyes to her father’s furious face before clenching her teeth together and facing Shane again.

“It’s out of the question,” she whispered, barely registering the sheepish look in Shane’s eyes before stepping around him. She didn’t stop until she reached the powder room just outside the dining room and closed the door firmly. Then she’d braced her hands against the sink and let her tears of frustration and embarrassment flow freely.

Sighing deeply as the sunlight continued to bathe her face in morning light, Margaret wondered, was this what Shane had been droning on about in the car last night while she’d been daydreaming of Cameron Winslow? Proposing? Marriage? How could Shane be so insensitive, so stupid, so ridiculous, to think she’d accept him after two months of lukewarm dating?

The answer came swiftly and turned her empty stomach: because her father had assured him she would.

After cleaning herself up, she’d slipped out of the bathroom only to have her arm practically yanked out of its socket as Priscilla pulled her into the adjacent coat closet and quietly closed the door, leaving the sisters alone together in the dark.

“Did he do it?”

Margaret raised her foot, made her best approximation of where Priscilla’s bare foot would be, and slammed her heel down as hard as possible.

“Ouch, Meggie! What the f*ck?”

“You knew? God, isn’t there anyone in this family willing to let me live my own goddamned life?”

“Shit, that hurt.”

“Traitor! How could you let me walk into that without a warning?”

“Because Shane was standing right behind you,” her sister whined. “Why do you think I was speaking French? I was trying to figure out if he understood. He understood enough to know what I was saying about Xavier, so I couldn’t tell you.”

“Instead you jumped ship like you always do and let me walk into the lion’s den alone. Great, Pris. Thanks.”

“I came back, didn’t I?”

Some keys rustled in the darkness, and Margaret felt the cold metal slip against her arm.

“Take my car. Get out of here.”

The darkness hid her sour expression. “Oh. Just like that. Just . . . leave.”

“You got a better idea?”

Run away. Just run away. Honestly? It sounded like heaven. And why shouldn’t she? Why should she be pleasant, dutiful Margaret when her father and un-boyfriend were trying to bulldoze her into a loveless marriage for the sake of business?

She reached for the keys. “What are you driving these days?”

“BMW, clean diesel.”

“Of course you are.”

“Just go, will you? I’ll . . .”

“You’ll what?”