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I smirk. “He always did struggle to listen to you.”
“I think he struggled because of the little witch he had manipulating him.” His eyes glaze over with a new dose of hate narrowing on me. “The last seven years without you saw him thrive. You were the rock weighing him down, and no one saw it but me. My relationship with my son is fractured, I’ll grant you that, but without you around, we had some semblance of a good bond. Now you’re back and he’s distracted. You’re going to ruin everything.”
I refuse to listen to this tirade again.
“This is nice and everything, but really, I don’t think you get to have a say in me being here and your son’s motives. Now, if you’ll excuse me.”
I sidestep him, not willing to engage this man any longer.
“I don’t think so.” He takes me by the wrist, forcing me backwards. “We’ve got a lot of unfinished business.”
“Ali!”
“What have I told you about calling me that?” He sneers, yanking me closer. “You always were a disobedient little bitch. I should’ve sorted you out long before now.”
“Yeah, well, look how last time went.”
I tug my arm again, but his grip tightens, fingers wrapping impossibly tight, locking themselves around my wrist.
“Your father took some persuading, but he definitely saw you for the worthless little girl you were.” He chuckles before fixing me with a serious look. “As if someone like you could run The Company. They’d walk all over you.”
Instinct captures me, and I land a firm hand on Alistair’s cheek. My palm burns, but my pride burns hotter. The silence is punctured, however, when he repays my action with a backhanded slap to the side of my face. My skin splits immediately under the force of his signet ring connecting with my lip.
“I tried so very hard to like you. All of your goddamn life I tried because you were my best friend’s daughter. The apple of his fucking eye. But you’re a disease the world would be better off without. It was a miracle the day he saw it.”
“You really should be disappointed in yourself for taking so long. Thick as thieves, right? Except for when his family came into the equation. Then you were always on the back burner.”
“You want to know why I wanted you to despise me so much?”
“Why’s that?”
I know the answer. I took away his power of having a worthy heir. The decree within The Company never stated if the heir had to be male, but while Nicolas had one, Alistair had to take a step back.
Alistair’s disdain for me was meant to be a bone of contention between Beckett and me, but I didn’t care for his father enough for that to work.
“Because if I couldn’t like you, I’d make you hate me.”
I can’t resist the snigger. “Well, good news, Ali. The feeling was mutual. I never liked you.”
He caves to a wicked grin, rubbing his jaw as he releases a loose bubble of laughter.
“Then what happened all of those years ago happened out of hate. Much like what’s happening with my son now.”
I feel something inside me trigger at hearing that.
“What happened all those years ago?” I ask rhetorically, sneering. “What happened all of those years ago never should’ve happened.”
He laughs. “But you just weren’t strong enough.”
He uses his body as a wall, forcing it against mine in a demeaning manner. He commands my personal space, and I feel something in me shake in response, but it’s not enough for me to let him succeed quite so easily.
“We’re not doing this.”
I push him a little, surprised that a man of his age still has the stamina and agility he does. His response is feral. Another crack of knuckles against the delicate skin of my cheek and I fall backwards, stumbling onto the bed. This time, my ears ring with the hit he caught against my cheekbone, and before I know it, I’m dazed and under his power.
This is a battle I can’t win.
His body shadows mine, so unlike his son ever has. The darkness it casts isn’t sensual. It’s malignant, spreading like a cancer metastasising throughout a body. I fight to sit up, but he forces me back down, a hand to my shoulder while the other passes under my blouse, and I recoil at the feel of him against me.
