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My stomach feels like ice. I want to get up and run because I know what he’s about to say. I was afraid of this—I’d hoped he didn’t know about the deal with the Scavo family, but Grandpa clearly beat me to him.
Daddy says, “I can’t live with myself, knowing the family is going to fall apart because of me. I can’t live like that, kiddo, I really can’t.” His eyes are damp and he’s grinning like he’s trying not to break down into sobs. I’ve never seen him so emotional before in my life. Grandpa would hate it. “You can fix it, can’t you? You can fix everything.”
“Please.” I glance at Sara. She can’t hear what he’s saying and she’s studiously looking at her nails. “I don’t want to talk about that.”
“Carmine Scavo can’t be that bad. I know he’s beneath you, and it makes me sick thinking about my daughter marrying a man like that, but we’re Rowes. We can handle arranged marriages, they happen all the time in our world. You know what we say. Rowes do what’s right. Did you know your mother and I were arranged? We had a choice back then, but we were introduced for that purpose, you know.”
“I don’t want to hear it.”
“Love can bloom from arrangements.” He brightens as he talks himself into this nightmare. “And even if it doesn’t, would it be so bad to do something that will save the family? Please, Brice. I love you so much. I hate myself even more. Marry Carmine Scavo.”
“Daddy, stop it,” I say and I drop the phone, shoving my chair back. I stare at him with wild eyes, my heart racing, and Sara looks at me with genuine surprise, glaring from me to Daddy and back again like she’s not sure what to do. Daddy’s saying something, over and over, and it takes me a second to read his lips.
Please marry him. Please marry him. I shake my head, freaking out, panic welling up in my body and I walk to the door, trembling.
Sara follows. Daddy sits there and shouts, and all we can hear is a vague noise like the ocean in the distance, but I know what he’s saying. I run out of that room, into the hallway, back through the metal detector, out into the parking lot. I keep going to the limo and Sara finally catches my arm. “The phones and IDs,” she says. “Wait in the car for me.”
I pull my knees to my chest when I’m in the relative safety of the limo. Sara returns a minute later and gives me back my things. I lean on her and she puts her arm around my shoulders, and the driver starts back to the mansion. Sara says nothing for a little while, but finally, she breaks the silence.
“I wasn’t listening,” she says slowly, like she wants to make sure I understand, “but I can read lips.”
“I don’t want to talk about it.”
“Marry who, Brice? What’s your family making you do?”
“I really,reallydon’t want to talk about it.”
She’s quiet for a moment. I suddenly wish I hadn’t brought her along. Of everyone, she’ll be the last one to understand. Robyn deals with her own family pressures. Cassidy’s got connections she doesn’t talk about, but I understand they’re deep and important. Sara’s brilliant and strong, and her family name means something, but her parents are both dead, her grandparents are gone, she has no aunts and uncles. She doesn’t understand what it means to do something terrible for your people even when you don’t want to all because that’s your duty. She’s never had anyone but herself.
Finally, she lets out a long breath. I steel myself for a lecture. Instead, she says, “Well, hell, at least tell me if you need a good lawyer or not. I know someone that will help. Not for free, but she’ll be cheap.”
I laugh gently, and that laughter breaks something in me, and I cry into her arms as the limo takes us home.
When I get myself under control, I send a single text to Grandpa.
Put me in touch with Carmine. I want to talk to him.
Chapter7
Brice
Isit with my back straight at the hotel bar with a martini glass in front of me, wearing my best cream-colored silk blouse, the one that makes my boobs look great but still somehow covers every inch of me from throat to wrists, an expensive pair of heels, and slacks that define my ass in ways that risk breaking the space-time continuum. My hair’s down, meticulously styled, and I have a ring on every finger in case I have to punch Carmine Scavo in the throat.
Under no circumstances will I end up alone in a bathroom with him tonight.
The hotel is a boutique place with a retro-futuristic theme. The bar’s crowded for a Saturday night. I’m right at the end of his week deadline and could not care less. I have my martini, I have my nice clothes, I’m wearing perfume that makes me smell like a perfect memory, and I am going to survive this.
Somehow. Probably.
Carmine appears at the entrance five minutes late. He’s in a black shirt, his suit slim and form-fitting, not bothering with a tie, the top two buttons undone to show his muscular chest and the black tattoos on his skin. It might come off a little scandalous and sleazy if it didn’t work so well on him. Heads turn as Carmine enters, looking around for me. My spine straightens, my chin raises. I am a Rowe, and Rowes do not slouch. Rowes do not feel fear. Rowes do what’s right.
Even though the only thing I’m feeling right now is deep, black horror.
With a strange undercurrent of something else. Something musky, animalistic. Desire, inhuman and intense.
That stupid bathroom. His stupid hand. The way he looked at me, his finger in my mouth, and those filthy, disgusting words he spoke like I was some common nothing girl he wanted to use and abuse.
And,god,did I want him touseandabuseme until I screamed his name.
