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And the words have barely left my lips when I glance over his shoulder for a split second. I see a couple turn as they dance, a moment that lasts less than a second. But that’s when I see it.
The face I haven’t seen since I was a teenager. The slack features, the watery eyes with the anger always lurking, the nose and cheeks flushed pork-pink with booze.
I see Richard Thornton’s face in the crowd of dancers, and I’ve been looking for him for years, and I came here for the express purpose of finding him, and then I see him, and it doesn’t feelat all how I imagined. It feelsnothinglike I imagined because I imagined I would be so cold and calm and ready.
But all I can do is stand frozen, heart a pit, skin brittle crystal, and the only thing I feel is pure, crushing black fear.
44
Scar Kink
Luca
It’s an inexplicable thing,watching Willow Lynch stand with my father’s arms around her, shining her arrogant smile into his face. I know my father must be tempted, how could he not? Willow is the sort of poison that could tempt the devil himself into tasting it.
A hand rests on my shoulder as I stand by the windows, the cool wind at my back. I turn to look at my mother’s face, her pale eyebrows raised.
“You do realise she’s just provoking you, don’t you?”
My gaze flicks from my mother’s face back to Willow and my father, edging further into a dimmer corner of the dance floor. I turn back to my mother.
“Does it matter why she’s doing it?”
“It depends, Luca.” My mother shakes her head slightly. “Who’s in control—you or her?”
“Neither of us will appear to be in control if we let this continue.”
“Appearances can be deceiving. I have always been in control and will continue to be. Your father could take that girl right here in front of everyone present, and you would never see me so much as flinch. BecauseI’min control.”
I look at my mother. I see the truth behind her words—I know the nature of control and power, I understand it well.
And yet it doesn’t matter. My mother is correct. If I were in control, I could watch Willow in my father’s arms and feel nothing at all.
But how long has it been now since I’ve not been in control?
I walk away from my mother without another word, and she doesn’t try to stop me. All I hear is her rueful laughter as I walk away, piercing right through the dance floor without a care who I bump aside on my way. All that matters right now is ripping Willow out of my father’s arms and reminding her, forcefully if I must, of whose contract she’s signed, whose mouth she’s bitten raw, whose cum is still probably dripping from her cunt even as she tries to fuck my father.
By the time I reach them, I don’t even care that I’m causing a scene, that people are watching. I take my father by his shoulder and tear him roughly away from Willow.
“That’s enough.”
My words cut cold and clear through the air. I don’t even raise my voice. I don’t wait for my father to make a reply; I seize Willow by her wrist and drag her with me past the arches of the windows, plunging us into the darkness of the balcony.
The night is blue and starlit and full of the fragrance of early summer blooms, but the serenity of the scene is belied by thestorm raging inside me. A hurricane of noise and emotions filling my head, making it impossible for me to think clearly.
“I specifically asked you not to fuck my father,” I bite out.
Willow answers with an absent, distracted tone. “I haven’t fucked your father.”
I draw closer to her, willing her to look at me. “Youtried.”
“Youdaredme to.”
“I changed my mind.”
“That’s not my problem. You made the bet. You forced me to meet your parents. I didn’t ask you to show me off.”
“I wasn’t trying to show you off. I was trying to show you up.”
