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Instead, he leans back in his chair and crosses his arms over his chest, making himself comfortable. “Let me explain something to you, sweetheart.”
Oh boy, here we go.
“I’m rich.”
I thought he might come out with some new threat, but I can scarcely keep the disdain off my face whenthat’shis argument for letting him have his way. “Congratulations.”
“No, that wasn’t the end of the story. I was also born very comfortable—not rich, exactly, but I wanted for no material things growing up. We had a nice house in a nice neighborhood, I got a brand-new car the day I turned 16. I went to private school and when I graduated, I had a bloated college fund waiting to pay my way through the best school I could get into.”
“It sounds like you’ve had a dreadfully hard life,” I say flatly. “I can see why you turned out the way you did.”
He shakes his head. “Still not finished. Now, my mom did society wife things—social engagements and fundraising benefits—but she didn’t have a dime of her own money. When she took my dad home to her parents and told them she was marrying him, they forbade her right there in front of him. They told her if she left with him that night, she was no longer their daughter. She did, and they disowned her. She hasn’t seen them since.”
My eyes widen. “Wow. That seems… harsh.”
“It was, but they knew what she didn’t—my dad was a fucking prick and he would treat her like shit for the rest of her life. I assume they either couldn’t watch it, or they wrongfully imagined if they literally stopped speaking to her, she would come to her senses and not marry him. That didn’t happen. My mom is a sweet, gentle woman and she was only 20-years-old. My father started controlling her the moment they met and never stopped. She didn’t know any other way.”
“That’s… terrible,” I murmur.
He nods casually. “If you asked my mother, she’d say he loves her. She lives in denial—not willfully, it’s just the way he has conditioned her all these years. He’s more intelligent than she is and she trusts him, so it’s not that difficult for him to trick her into believing things. If you asked him, he would insist he loves her, too. See, there’s a reason he’s such an asshole. When he was a kid, his mother was a difficult, often cruel woman. It seems she was senselessly capricious. Maybe it was mental illness, maybe she was just mean, no one I've spoken to knows, but whatisknown is how cruel she was to him. There was no physical abuse, but she picked on him so mercilessly that he would stutter anytime she was in the room. It was only when she was around. After he moved out, he never stuttered again until he saw her at his wedding.”
He doesn’t seem terribly fond of his father, but I can’t help feeling sympathetic toward the little boy who must have felt so unloved by his mother. Before I can think what to say, he goes on.
“As a result of living with his mother, my father learned to hate women. He doesn’tknowhe hates women. If you asked him, I’m certain he would insist he doesn’t, but he does. Heloathesthem, wants to punish them and make them suffer just for being what he hates. He ‘loves’ my mother for being low-maintenance and gullible. He can do horrible things to vent this hatred he won’t acknowledge, cheat on her with her own friends—and he gets away with it. There’s no price to pay for his behavior. She’s not angry or even hurt because she wholeheartedly believes him when he tells her that they’re just being jealous bitches if they say something to cause trouble, trying to get between them because they’d like him to be available so they could pounce on him themselves. And for all that my father claims to love my mother, for all the years they’ve spent together, if she ever stopped being his doormat and stood up for herself, he would abandon her in a hot fucking second and have her replaced within days. Women are completely disposable, replaceablethingsto him, even ones he claims to love.”
I feel my face twisted in lines of disgust. I felt sympathy for the damaged boy his father was, but it sounds like he grew up to be a rather repugnant man.
Giving up his relaxed position, Calvin leans forward and meets my gaze. “I despise my father the same way he despised his mother. He has spent a lifetime mistreating the kindest woman he ever met, and she has always deserved better. She’ll never get it, though. Not while he’s alive. Even once he’s dead, she won’t know how to let someone actually love her because she’s used to him. She’s his prisoner—has been for most of her adult life, and she doesn’t even know it.” Irritation flickers in his gaze. He grabs his wine glass and takes a sip. By the time he puts it back down, he is composed again. “So, when I turned 18 and had the easy path already paved and waiting for me to coast down it, do you know what I did?”
I shake my head no.
“I rejected it. Didn’t take the money for college because fuck my father. Took a sales job, got a roommate, paid my own way through school. At the end of the day, I didn’t want my father to be able to take any credit for where I ended up. I should also mention I’m their only child.” He points at me. “That’s relevant.”
“Got it.”
“My father, he was a scientist—isa scientist,” he amends. “He’s still alive, just not to me. Anyway, he started a tech company a long time ago, got in on the ground floor. The company became enormously successful. He expected me to take it over once I finished college and spent enough time working there and learning the ropes. Legacy is important to him, and he wanted to build something for his only son.”
I have an idea where this might be going.
“Iamthe CEO of a massively profitable tech company, Hallie, but do you think it’s the one my father built for me?”
Pressing my lips together in a grim line, I shake my head.
“No,” he agrees. “It’s not. Because what I wanted more than wealth was to wound my father, so I put myself through school and then went to work for his biggest competitor. Once I learned the ropes there, I got promoted, and I kept getting promoted until I was right there at the top. When the CEO decided to retire, trade in the long nights for a board seat, I’m the one he chose to take over the running of his company. It’s my company now, and I crushed my father’s years ago.” Sitting back in his seat, he gazes at me, “So you see, Hallie, I’m not afraid to put in a fuck ton of effort to get what I want, even if there’s a much easier option available. We only get one life, and I’m going to spend mine havingexactlywhat I desire.”
Our gazes are locked, mine guarded like an animal in the presence of a predator, his calm because in his mind this is just a dance. Losing is an impossibility to him, and I guess I can see why. With enough money and power, there’s not much you can’t make happen, and he is clearly strong-willed if he’s not even tempted by what’s easy and chases what he wants with such single-minded determination. This is not a man easily deterred once he sets his mind to something, and if his sights are set on me… I’m not sure how I can change that.
“Can I ask you something?” I ask softly, knowing there’s a good chance I’ll piss him off if I do.
“Of course.”
I lick my dry lips, then take a drink of the wine that remains in my glass. That’s not what I needed, so I quickly take a sip of water, then bring my focus back to Calvin, patiently awaiting my question. “You seem angry at your father for… stealing your mother’s life, essentially. For imprisoning her—that’s the word you used.”
He nods, following me so far.
My heart beats a little faster. I know I’m walking a potentially dangerous line. “But aren’t you willing to do the same thing to me?” His whole face freezes. His eyes widen slightly as if he can’t quite believe my gall, then go cold in a way that sends a chill straight down my spine. Scrambling for purchase on this increasingly slippery slope, I stammer, “I—I mean, you said that you would kidnap me and lock me up in your bedroom until you’re finished with me. You said you’d destroy me if I didn’t give you what you wanted—”
His chair scrapes the floor as he stands and shoves it back.
