CHAPTER 4
STEPHANIE
My father didn’t start lecturing me right away as I expected when I perched on the couch he used in front of his desk, as opposed to guest chairs. Instead, he went straight to his office liquor cabinet and said, “Let me pour you a drink.”
Not wine—which was the only thing I’d been permitted to drink before officially turning twenty-one—but several fingers of the thirty-year-old Glendaver Bourbon he only brought out for special guests.
“Happy Birthday,” he said, handing the bourbon to me in a crystal tumbler.
So, this talk was about wishing me a private happy birthday, not about yelling at me. I let out a grateful breath of relief before gulping the whole thing down like it was a shot and I was at a Greek party.
The fine bourbon burned my throat, but I managed to c
