Page 15

She didn’t meet my eyes, studying her chipped black nail polish instead.

“Can I see my room?” she asked her mom after a moment, stepping away.

“We’ve met before,” I reminded her, wanting her eyes to meet mine again. That damn kiss played in my mind. No one so much as touched me without my permission, never mind kissed me. Kissing was off-limits. Too intimate. Too personal. Too hard to shake off.

Finally, those violet-blue eyes met mine.

She arched an eyebrow at me, waiting. She was far too fucking self-assured, considering she and her mother were the parasites moving into my home, about to suck my family dry. Her disinterest pissed me off. Didn’t she realize what kind of good fortune her mother had married into? She didn’t seem to, or unbelievably, she didn’t care, which didn’t compute at all.

“Last night, when you fell into the pool.” I once again waited for embarrassment to flood her cheeks, or at the very least, a few words to explain to her mother.

“You fell into the pool? Selena, you need to be more careful,” Marjory fussed over her daughter. “No wonder you look so bedraggled.”

Selena held my gaze, the pulse pounding in her neck the only sign she was annoyed. She had quite the poker face.

“Oh, that’s right,” she said. “I thought you were talking about the very first time… when I saw you fucking someone in the library.”

My father’s attention flew to me as Cal let out a snort of laughter, and Marjory slapped a hand over her mouth to hold in her shocked gasp.

I turned back to Selena and met her blue eyes. Her expression was striking. She wasn’t embarrassed, or ashamed, or nervous, or anything of the sort.

It was a blazing challenge, followed by the ghost of a smirk. She’d just dropped me in the shit with my father, and now, she was smirking about it.

My first impression had been confirmed. The newest addition to the family was going to be a problem.

Time to plan accordingly.

“Fucking someone in the library? What do you have to say for yourself?” My father’s voice was tightly controlled, his anger snapping at the end of a leash.

I blew out a breath and then shrugged. I knew the routine. I did something that my father deemed too irresponsible and immature for the Sinclair heir, and he had to teach me why I was an idiot, who’d never be as good as him at anything.

“First of all, in public? Where anyone could see you? Do you even know what the paparazzi would pay to get an image like that? Imagine the headlines! John Sinclair’s son fucking some random in a library, of all places.”

John Sinclair’s son. I didn’t merit a mention by my own name. Noted.

My father’s hand clenched into a fist and crashed down on his desk, his things jumping with the force of the impact.

“Second, so help me God, you’d better not have been inside the girl?—”

“I wasn’t,” I ground out quickly. “I don’t take those risks.”

Ever since I’d been fifteen and caught with the housekeeper’s daughter, my father had drilled into me that fucking someone wasn’t a risk I should take. Well, penetrative sex, that was. He was paranoid about holes in condoms and lies about the pill and scandalous secret baby articles coming out.

“Do you know what some money-hungry woman could do with your baby to use against us?”

“I should certainly hope not!” my father thundered. He loosened his tie. “If you’re not able to control your urges and you just absolutely need to bury your dick in some tight cunt, do what men of our caliber do, and get married to someone of your class, or go fuck a discreet professional.”

“Like you did with Marjory?” The words left me before I could stop them. “Is she a little of both?”

Stillness fell over the room.

“What did you say?” my father said in a soft tone that I recognized all too well.

“Nothing. It doesn’t matter. I understand what you’re saying.”

He stared at me hard and then grabbed a photo frame on his desk and threw it at me. I knew better than to flinch. Flinching was weakness. The edge of the sharp, gold rectangle collided with my lip before clattering into my lap.

“Without discipline, you’ll end up likeher. Is that what you want?”