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I lean back in my chair. “Let me see.” She flashes me her shiny white fangs. I nod. “Definitely, but maybe add a diamanté so they know you expect the best of everything.”
She laughs, pushing her black-and-purple hair behind her ear. “I like my sex a little… different and I feel the fangs will come in handy.”
I nod, taking a drink of my straight whiskey. “Me too, Bethy.”
She raises her thick, arched-to-perfection eyebrow at me. “Oh, yeah?”
I sigh. “Yeah. Degradation, submission, bondage, the whole nine yards.”
Bethany leans in closer, trying and failing to whisper in my ear, “So, Jake is dirty, huh?”
I rear back, confused, but quickly gather it together. “Oh yeah, Jake is very dominating.”
“I am?” Jake’s amused voice from behind me makes me jump.
“Uh, yeah. You like to tie me up and stuff.”
He chuckles. Holding his hand out to me. I grab it as he leads me out to the dance floor. I drain my drink, tossing the cup to the ground. Completely out of character for me. He pulls my arms around his neck as we dance by the bonfire. “You look so sad, babe. What’s going on?”
I move my body against his. “Nothing is wrong.”
“Don’t lie. You’ve been mopey all week. Looking all sad and shit.” He twirls me, bringing me back to his chest and rocking us.
“Just life, Jake,” I mumble.
He lets me deny it, allowing the conversation to drop as we dance. Jake allows me to get lost in his company, dancing with me until the alcohol drowns my emotions and fogs my head until I get tired and ready to leave.
I take my shoes off, walking down the street as the cool ocean wind skates over my warm skin. The wet sand is soft under my feet as I sit, gazing at the black depths of the water leaving icicles on my feet as it rushes to the shore.
Do I love him or am I infatuated with him? Why are the two emotions so hard to differentiate? Love and hate feel simple—I’d be able to tell between the two strong emotions. But this? I can’t decide, or maybe I love lying to myself because I think I know which one I feel.
Either way, I wish I felt neither. Because then maybe this wouldn’t be so hard. Because in my most vulnerable state, I want to run to him.
And only him.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
I rise from bed,an ache in my chest. I’m not sure if it’s physical or emotional, but I’m blaming it on yesterday’s late-night run. The one where I followed her drunk bare feet home to make sure she made it. She was reckless and it infuriated me. But she told me to stop. The lethality in her words gave me pause. Made me wonder if somewhere along the way I crossed a line. That maybe I hurt her. I wanted to discipline her in the beginning, make her submit, give me full power of her bratty ways, but by the end, I just wanted to give her the raw emotional sex we had the first time. I crave it.
I’m a grumpy man, not someone who lacks emotion as the general population believes. I care about many things, I’m not a nescience to empathy. But maybe with Callum, I didn’t express that enough. I held her at arm’s length and expected her to stay around until I was done. Which probably would have been never.
We are playing a game of Russian roulette. Recklessly allowing ourselves to believe we can keep this a secret. One slipup and her life would have been changed. Because when your family owns the school, it’s never your fault. They would have kicked her out, stripped her of her achievements; even if I told them it was all me they wouldn’t have cared.
As much as I want to keep her, I must let her go. For her own good, not mine. Because it would have gotten out, I was already getting lazy with it, not giving a fuck who saw. But as much as I want to let her go, I have to have her just once more.
My phone rings and I snatch it off the side of my nightstand, bringing it to my ear. “Update me.”
The old voice sighs on the other side. “Lincoln, it’s still the same. We have the money transfer from the day of your dad’s death but without the confession, I don’t think we can prove it.”
“But we have the listing of the hit man. Have him making a transfer on the day of the car accident, why is that not enough?”
“Could be played off as coincidental or even a bank error. He covered his tracks well. I’ve been listening to the recording for months and he never even mentions your father. Maybe…”
“Don’t say it,” I hiss into the phone. “Don’t tell me to give up because I never will. I’m going to prove it and take back over the company as the sole heir. I’m going to get justice for my father.”
Henry sighs. “I know, son. I’ll keep trying.”
I hang up the phone, frustrated. My entire adult life I have been trying to take my stepfather, Derek, down. And every time I get close, we need more evidence. I don’t want to put him in jail, I want to break every single thing he’s ever built, burn it until the only evidence of his life is a pile of ash. And if I have to take my mom down with him, so be it.
