“More of a promise.”
His grin twitched, arrogant and amused as I casually stole the mug back.
“Let’s talk terms.” He was waking up surprisingly fast for how early it was, even factoring in the coffee. “You can go first.”
Fine with me. I’d come prepared. “Thirty days, you and me. You can torture me to your heart’s content, but if I make it to the end, you’ll leave me, my brother, and the rest of my family alone. You’ll release a statement through every media outlet under 6Queue’s umbrella—including Gossip Gorilla—admitting that the smear campaign you initiated against Adrien was fabricated bullshit. Then you’ll issue him a public apology—one that I sign off on.” I paused, letting the silence linger for a moment before I went for the kill. Keeping my tone calm and measured, I said, “And lastly, I want to talk to Rosie. In person.”
His amusement waned at that, replaced by something hostile and unpleasant.
“She doesn’t want to see you.”
“I want to hear that from her.”
My family had made several attempts to get in touch with Rosie and talk things out over the last eight years to no avail. And I had a strong inkling Dominic was the reason why.
“And if I don’t agree?” he asked.
“Our lawyers can fight it out,” I said.
I wasn’t sure if there was anything they could do about Dominic manipulating my professional life from behind the scenes, but they could try. And once my parents found out he’d also gone after their other child, even Gampy wouldn’t be able to stop them from taking action.
By then, there’d be so much legal red tape involved that Dom and I wouldn’t be able to exchange a single word for years without lawyers present. And he knew it.
I offered him a wicked, knowing smile. “But what fun would that be?”
A cage match was much more his speed. Thirty days of free rein to inflict as much pain and humiliation on me as he’d been dreaming about since we were teenagers. What more could he possibly want? “Besides, you don’t think I’ll make it through the first twenty-four hours, let alone an additional…”
“Six hundred and ninety-six.”
My grin twitched. Such a nerd. “Let alone an additional six hundred and ninety-six of them.”
I was weak, spoiled, and easy to break. He had absolutely nothing to worry about. Nothing at all.
He studied me for a few moments, contemplating. “If you quit before the thirty-day mark, you’ll admit that you set her up.”
I’d have to be on the brink of death for that to happen—and maybe not even then—but sure. I took another sip, giving him space to continue.
“You’ll give a statement, outlining how you planted the jewelry in her car, snapped a picture, and falsely accused your housekeeper offourteen years—the woman who loved and treated you like the daughter she never had—of an offense that could have put her behind bars for a decade. Not because she was guilty, but because your family could afford a better legal team than the woman who scrubbed their toilets.” The longer he went on, the thicker the disdain in his voice grew, until it was nothing but gravel and char. “You’ll post it on every social media account you’ve ever created, and I’ll make sure it catches enough fire to go viral so that everyone will finally know what a vile, self-centered little witch the so-called mysterious and elusive Cloutier Princess really is.”
The coffee suddenly tasted too bitter to keep down. I placed the mug back on the end table, ignoring the aching tightness of my chest as I focused on maintaining control of my expression. “Fine.”
The tendons in his neck grew taut, and it took him a few seconds to calm down enough to say, “As for the job, you’ll do everything she did.Everything. I’ll draft you a task list with her old schedule, and you’ll have until midnight to complete whatever is due for that day. Failure to do so will count as forfeiture on your end.”
I nodded, swallowing through the clump of emotion gathered in the base of my throat. “But afterward, we’re done,” I said. “No more of this. We’ll leave each other alone. Permanently, this time. You won’t have anything to do with me, and I won’t have anything to do with you. We might as well be strangers.”
The sense of wrongness and unease that trailed the stipulation was gut-wrenching, but I smacked it away. I didn’t entertain delusions or fantasies about vicious, underserving men. Rosie had taught me better than that.
He glared at me for almost a full minute before nodding. “Deal.”
I looked down at his outstretched hand, the knot in my stomach coiling tighter. I knew exactly what to expect when I took it, but the warm sparks still made my pulse trip. Even eight years later.
“Deal.”
5
Gampy told me this morning that he doesn’t think hell is a real place. When I asked him to explain where taranchulas and Loch Ness had spawned from then, he just laughed.
Like I was joking.
