Sutherland’s Pride by Kathryn Brocato

you of the opportunity to follow me around for two weeks or so, screaming at me in public and interrupting my dates with other men.”
    When he said nothing, she gave him a brilliant smile. “I’m a very fair person,” she finished.
    “Yes, I can see you are.” Flynn picked up his own fork. “I suppose I have no right to complain about that.”
    “You can’t think how glad I am to hear you say so.” Pride made a great effort and managed not to throw her napkin at him. “All right, Flynn. I’m here tonight because you’re supposed to explain to me, in terms I can understand, all about the multi-million-dollar inheritance I’m about to come into.”
    “Did I say multi-million? It’s more like two-million.”
    “Come on, Flynn. Daddy was too busy judging people to play the stock market, or whatever he did to make all this money.”
    “He invested in the stock market,” Flynn said. “Quite well, as it happens. You own a lot of stock in growth industries, like computer companies and trash-removal companies.”
    “Trash removal companies?”
    “It may be inelegant, but you have to admit, it’s a growth industry.” Flynn paused and regarded her over his wine glass. “There will be taxes, of course, but you’ll receive a tidy estate once I’ve finished all the paper work.” He smiled. “Are you really going to Bermuda?”
    “Actually, it was a joke. Gloria and I laughed all the way to Anahuac about what we were going to do with the penny Daddy left me.”
    “I think he was depending on me to make you understand that he wanted to apologize for the past.” Flynn studied her. “I’m sorry, Pride. If I had been able to get to the hospital right away, I might have been able to find out what he wanted to say.”
    “There’s no need to feel sorry.” Pride found herself unable to think about her father just then. “If Daddy had wanted to make amends, he could have written me a letter anytime.”
    “Did he know where you were?”
    “It wouldn’t have taken much work for him to find out.”
    Flynn looked annoyed, as if he didn’t believe her when she pointed out that her whereabouts shouldn’t have been difficult for Alan Donovan to discover.
    “He was probably afraid to face me,” she said.
    “Why?”
    She hesitated, while she expunged from her mind the fact that Alan Donovan knew she hadn’t miscarried. “Perhaps he was afraid of admitting, even to himself, that I was his daughter. Especially after I went off and got myself into trouble.”
    Flynn winced. “No one makes a big deal out of unwed motherhood these days.”
    “Except self-righteous men like my father.”
    Flynn wisely changed the subject. “You’ll be able to afford to pick and choose your freelance assignments now. Maybe you can even start the great American novel.”
    “I’ve never had any aspirations as a novelist. I’m more of a nonfiction type.” She looked at her empty cocktail dish thoughtfully. “Actually, I do have an idea in mind for a book.”
    “I’d like to see you write a book,” Flynn said. “What will it be about?”
    “I’ll have to think on it a bit more before I go telling people about it.” She was not about to tell Flynn about the book outline she had already completed. “Did you tell everyone ahead of time that you were about to quit your dad’s firm and strike out on your own?”
    “No.” Flynn smiled wryly. “Everyone was aware of it all the same. You could hear Dad shouting for three blocks.”
    “He seems resigned to your absence now,” she commented.
    “Even he recognized the force of my arguments when I pointed out that I wasn’t particularly useful to the firm in my position as his understudy. He was going out of his way to keep me from doing any actual work.”
    “I remember,” she murmured.
    Flynn had been trained in business and law in preparation for taking over Sutherland Investments one day, but when he went to work for the firm, Morgan discovered he was nowhere near