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I turned and propped my ass against his desk. “I’ll talk to him.”
He took a drink. “Not a denial.”
I swallowed and held his stare. Was he expecting me to lie?
He took another drink, draining the contents, then set the empty glass on the cabinet. “All right, then.” He took in and let out a deep breath as he walked back over to where I stood. “You leave in the morning.”
I stood up straight. “Wanna tell me where I’m going? Should I pack my swimming trunks?”
“Ayelswick.”
I damn near choked on my saliva. “Europe? Because I fucked a girl and beat up her brother?”
He gritted his teeth, then grabbed me by the shirt and slammed me against the front of his desk. Papers scattered and pens rolled onto the floor. “Because you fucked thewronggirl then mutilated her brother.”
The hatred between the Donahues and Huntingtons was as deeply rooted as the feud between the Hatfields and McCoys, the Montagues and Capulets, Road Runner and Wile E. Coyote. The Huntingtons had always been in politics. It was their bread and butter as far back as anyone could remember. Until my great-grandfather decided being an oil tycoon and real estate mogul wasn’t enough for him and ran for the New York Senate. He beat out old man Huntington and started a war. It was the first time in history a Huntington wasn’t in office. Gramps eventually got bored and stepped down to let Huntington have his seat back at the political table, but not without bruising his ego in the process. Ever since then, it was their mission to make our family’s life hell. Every time we turned around, Huntington was proposing some bill restricting fracking in the U.S, shutting down pipelines, or imposing ridiculous taxes on people like my dad. Every time, Dad wrote him a check to keep him in line, each with more zeros than the last.
And I just fucked his daughter.
Dad let go of my shirt and took a step back. “It’ll be good for you. You’ll go to college, learn the ins and outs of business and finance. It will be better for everyone in the end,” he said, calm and collected, as if he hadn’t just looked like a rabid dog two seconds ago.
I steadied my breath. “Europe? Columbia University wasn’t good enough?”
He brushed his hands over the front of his tailored suit, hands that I swore then and there would never touch me again. “That was the deal. You get as far away from here as possible.”
“You made a deal with Huntington?” I huffed a laugh. “Un-fucking-believable. And if I don’t agree?”
“You’ll agree.”
“But if I don’t?”
He walked back over to the windows. “There are two flights leaving in the morning. Either you’ll be on one going to Europe or Tatum will be on the other going to Saudi Arabia.”
Saudi Arabia. I should have known Malcolm Huntington cared more about his pride than his daughter. He was probably waiting for her to screw up, so he’d have an excuse to ship her off to the highest bidder. Right now, that bidder was Khalid.
I raked my fingers through my hair, massaging away an impending headache. “She’s sixteen! What the fuck is wrong with you people?”
“Yes, and you’re twenty. That’s statutory rape, in case you were wondering. Throw in an assault charge, and your life is one big fucked-up mess.” He looked over his shoulder at me, his eyes ablaze with fury. “I will not let you ruin decades of progress for some pussy, no matter how young and tight it is.”
Anger boiled within me, feral and hot. I closed the space between us in a heartbeat. Then I grabbed my father by the lapels and shoved him against the closest bookcase.
I leaned in, stopping centimeters from his face. His eyes darkened with his own rage. It was time to show him what Hell looked like when it was disguised as a human. I’d had enough.
“I’ll go to Europe. But if you ever talk about Tatum that way again, you’ll be eating through a tube and shitting in a bag. What I did to Lincoln will look like child’s play. Am I clear?”
He shoved me off and straightened his suit jacket. “You think you’re the first person to ever threaten me?” He laughed. “You’re lucky you’re my son. Now, go pack your shit.”
The only thingluckyabout being his son was carrying the Donahue name. I walked to my room smiling to myself, knowing that this would all be over in less than five years. I just had to keep my mouth shut until then.
The only thing I knew about Ayelswick was that it was a ridiculously wealthy, medium-sized country somewhere around England, Ireland, and Scotland. It was also one of the few places in the world that still had a monarchy. When I unlocked my phone to check the weather there before I packed, the news app lit up my screen.
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