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Thankfully, the song ended after that, and a fast song took its place. Gareth let go of me after that, and I immediately took two steps away from him, not bothering to hide my glare. He held my stare with a smirk on his face, almost like he was enjoying this.
He probably was, the asshole. God, couldn’t my mom have found literally any other rich guy to latch onto? Why Alistair? Now this prick was my stepbrother, and I’d never be able to get away from him.
I turned away from him and went back to my seat, keeping any other comments to myself. When I fixated my eyes on my mom and Alistair on the dance floor, I found Alistair’s eyes on me—but only for a moment. They flicked over to Gareth soon enough.
God. I hoped that didn’t mean he’d seen the whole interaction over my mom’s head. Obviously, if Gareth and I clashed and fought, he’d choose his adoptive son over his new stepdaughter any day. And if it got real bad, he’d divorce my mom. My mom would make my life miserable, and I didn’t doubt the Montgomerys would get my mom fired from the gallery and have her name blacklisted everywhere so she couldn’t get another decent job.
I had to suck it up. It was senior year. I’d just turned eighteen not long ago, but I couldn’t make it out there on my own. I didn’t want to join the hustle culture just yet. The only thing I really enjoyed in life was art… and once I graduated high school, I’d have a lot less free time to partake in all its beautiful forms.
No. I had to play nice. I had to be good, not only so my mom stayed off my case, but for myself, too.
Chapter Three – Gareth
I’d been with my uncle for six years. You’d think, by now, the man would know what I liked and what I didn’t, but apparently that wasn’t the case.
I liked a quiet house. It’s why we only had a housekeeper on the weekends and no chef. Well, one of the reasons. I also liked being alone—it was so much better to be alone than it was to be miserable and aggravated with someone else’s company. I’d never seriously dated because of it, so my new stepsister had been right about that.
A stepsister. I still couldn’t believe it. I couldn’t believe Alistair was doing this. What he thought this would serve, if he thought it would help me, stop me from getting into trouble with my passions…
Well, he was wrong. An irritating girl wouldn’t make much of a distraction. I could snap my fingers and have her gone, just like that. Her mother, too.
Her mother wasn’t anything special. A middle-aged woman clinging to whatever hope she could that she was still pretty and useful to men. I didn’t doubt the moment Alistair showed interest in her, she latched onto him like a fly on a pig in the summertime.
I wondered what she’d do if she knew that Alistair hadn’t done it for her, if she knew the truth.
It wasn’t about love. Alistair didn’t love anyone. It’s why he’d never married before now. He was like me, in that way: cold and aloof, content in taking matters into his own hands whenever he could. I liked to think I was more like a son to him than I ever would’ve been to my actual mother and father.
My father had died so long ago I didn’t remember him, and my mother… it’d been six years, and her face was starting to get blurry in my head. I didn’t care, though. I never loved her, not like a son should. Never respected her. She’d been weak.
I hated weakness.
That was, fortunately, something my uncle had none of. He was stronger than most, though he preferred to hide his strengths behind his money. Couldn’t blame him for that. Money had protected us on multiple occasions… plus the fact that we basically owned every single business in Eastcreek in one way or another. The town simply couldn’t run without us. We were like kings there, and anytime we came to the big city, our name was known and respected.
But, back to my new stepsister.
I probably shouldn’t have said what I’d said or done what I did. Holding onto her like that had riled her up, but it showed me what kind of person she was. She had never been beholden to money or the power that came with it, so she didn’t respect it yet. She would soon enough. She’d learn that if she wanted to have a roof over her head and food on her plate for dinner, she had to play nice.
It all came back to the truth of this wedding, the real reason behind it.
I wasn’t stupid. I knew my uncle had been worrying about me and my passions. The things that kept me up at night. The things that commanded all thoughts when I was awake and even my dreams.
Brianna thought she was different than everyone else, but she did not know true distinction. She couldn’t. She wasn’t like me.
I meandered back to my seat, staring at her all the while. She huffed and puffed from our little dance, staring holes through the table in front of her. Her arms were folded over her chest as she fumed.
She was, I suppose, pretty enough… though I did wonder what she was thinking with that hair color choice. Blue and pink streaks, unnatural to say the least. I was surprised her mother let her look like that, given how much her mother wanted to kiss everyone’s ass.
She didn’t like me. I knew it from the moment she first saw me. She’d made a split-second decision in her head, decided who I was, and chose to hate me for it, before I’d even said a word.
And, fine, I knew I wasn’t the kindest person out there. I wasn’t calm and collected in the way my uncle was. I didn’t stop myself from saying the wrong things; I said whatever was on my mind. I already knew I could come off mean and rude and even cruel, but I didn’t care. Why would I care when I was so much better than everyone else?
Brianna had been pretty spot-on in her description of me—slightly infuriatingly so, actually—but I was fairly sure I’d hit pretty close to home with my description of her, too.
All the while, Alistair had tried to slyly pay attention to my interaction with Brianna. His new wife was so thrilled and overjoyed at the mere prospect of being a wife to someone like him that she didn’t even realize none of this was about her.
Alistair didn’t need a wife. He could have women when he wanted them, pretty much whoever he wanted. No, this wasn’t about finding happiness in the arms of another.
Call it conceited, but here’s the truth: it was aboutme.
