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“Nora, can I get a minute with”…I clear my throat, turning to level my gaze at my father…“Mr. Stavrin?”
Nora’s brow furrows. But then she grins. “Oh, you mean Leo?”
My face turns even whiter.
Leo chuckles. “We rode up in the elevator together. I was telling Nora here what a great lawyer her big sister is!”
I go numb as he lays a hand on her shoulder, smiling fixedly at me.
“And she was telling me all about school. And herdancing, actually!”
“Nora…” I choke, hardly able to form words as I stare, terrified, at where Leo’s hand is resting on her shoulder.
“You know, Nora,” Leo sighs, “my wife was a dancer, too. She passed, sadly.”
I want to throw up. Or scream. Or stab him in the face with whatever even remotely sharp object I can get my hands on. Or all three of those things together.
Instead, I can only watch in horror as Nora’s face fills with sympathy as she eats up his bullshit.
“Oh, Leo, I’m so sorry—”
“Nora.” I bark her name way more harshly than I intended to. But it does snap her attention to me. “Sorry, but I do need a quick minute alone with Mr. Stavrin.”
Her brow knits, but she nods. Generally speaking, for all her teenage angst and occasional sass, she’s pretty great about respecting my work.
“Yeah, no problem. I’ll be outside—”
“Why don’t you stay here with my business associate?” Leo grins. “Your sister and I can talk business out on the balcony.”
Before I can say a thing, he surges toward me, wraps a hand tightly around my forearm, and starts to pull me after him toward the sliding door that leads out to the balcony off my office.
“Nora—”
“She’ll be just fine with Pascha,” Leo chuckles with an affable laugh as he slides open the balcony door. He tugs me through it and then slams it shut, leaving us alone.
I yank my arm violently out of his grip, snarling. “You stay thefuckaway from her!”
Leo laughs, grinning. “Oh, but there’ssomuch to tell her, Elsa.”
“What, like that she’s your goddamn daughter?”
His smile drops. “She’s not my daughter.”
I could cheerfully murder him. It’s the same shit he used to say to my mother when I was eleven and Nora had just been born. That since my mother hadn’t been “putting out enough” for him, Nora was obviously some other man’s child.
The accusation was absurd. My mother was stuck on Leo. Sick with him, like a disease, despite all of his cruelty, violence, and womanizing.
But the one silver lining to Leo’s suspicions and accusations about Nora’s parentage was that it was the straw that broke his back. My sister wasn’t even one yet when Leo finally up and left for good.
It’s the nicest thing he ever did for us.
“I’m not doing this with you again, asshole,” I hiss at him.
“Sheisn’t, Elsa,” Leo snaps back. “I’m sorry if the truth hurts, but she—”
“Oh my God, you just don’t ever stop—”
“Your mother was a whore!”
