That argument they’d had about him tidying up after her had been dumb, but she was the one who’d pushed, who hadn’t been able to stop. She’d been reckless with it, loving the way he refused to give in to her, full of that wildness she only ever felt when she was listening to music or dancing. But now she’d felt it with him.
She shouldn’t have liked that. Shouldn’t have liked his strength or his hardness, or how he’d pulled her away so easily, as if she was nothing but a small thing he could easily manipulate. But she had liked it, that was the problem. She’d liked all of it.
Maybe there was something wrong with her.
Or maybe you simply like the feeling of being safe.
It was dangerous to think that, even more dangerous to believe it. But she couldn’t deny it. She didn’t want him around, hated him looking over her shoulder all the time, hated how his very presence reminded her of how much a prisoner she was. But the fact was, she did feel safe with him.
“So,” Callie said, suddenly sick of the way she kept avoiding the subject. “You promised me that we’d talk about that kiss.”
If Jack was surprised by the topic, he didn’t show it. “Do you want to talk about that kiss?”
“Not really, no.” She had to be honest. “But you were very clear you wanted to talk about it and . . . well. You haven’t yet.”
“Now is not the time.” His voice was flat and as he spoke, the car began to slow, pulling up outside the museum. “Also,” he added. “Your father is waiting inside. You’re to join him immediately.”
Callie swallowed. Yeah, okay, so her timing wasn’t great. They were a little late anyway and lingering to have a discussion about kisses would be a mistake. Her father would already be irritated that she was a couple of minutes late; any longer and he’d be furious. Not a good start to what was already going to be a ghastly evening.
“I’m not sorry,” she said as the car came to a stop, not even realizing she was going to say it until it came out. “Just so you know.” Because now that she thought about it, she wasn’t sorry. Not one bit. It had been her first kiss and one she’d initiated herself. And she liked the idea of that, she liked it a lot.
He said nothing, pulling open the door and getting out, then waiting to hold the door for her.
Okay, fine. If he didn’t want to discuss it then he didn’t want to discuss it. And he was right, now wasn’t the time. But let it be known that she had been the one to both initiate the kiss and the discussion. She wasn’t afraid of dealing with hard stuff, not at all.
Slipping from the car, she shivered as the icy air chased goose bumps over her skin, the fur wrapper her father had sent along with the dress he’d wanted her to wear not really enough to keep her warm.
She straightened, gathering the wrapper more tightly around her shoulders, conscious of Jack’s intense gaze on her. She met it head-on, the night making his eyes seem dark and almost black.
“For the record,” he said very, very quietly, “I’m not sorry either.”
Callie blinked as what he’d said penetrated, a curious kind of shock going through her. But there was no time to talk about it or ask any more questions, because then one of the museum staff was approaching her and leading her inside. The party was due to start any second and she had to be there when it did, since her father wanted her to help greet his guests.
And then she couldn’t even think about what Jack had said, let alone talk, because her father was there, his blue eyes glittering coldly as she and Jack entered the Shapiro Family Courtyard. The space was huge, vaulting, with big glass walls on either side, giving a glimpse into the icy night.
Down one end were limestone walls that had been lit up especially for the evening while other small lights on strings crisscrossed overhead. A bar had been set up right in the middle of the massive space.
“You’re late,” her father said, with a smile that didn’t quite reach his eyes. Always a bad sign, since he was usually very careful with how he showed his temper in public.
Shit.
She forced the cold feeling in her stomach away and gave him her usual smile, the careful one he couldn’t find fault with. “Sorry, Dad. Couldn’t find my purse.” She turned her attention to the small woman standing at her father’s side. “Hi, Mom.”
Her mother was looking fragile and elegant in a classic blue Valentino gown, her golden hair twisted into an elegant knot on the top of her head. She made no move toward Callie, though she gave her a vague smile. “Callie, darling.”
Judging from the size of her mother’s pupils—the black almost edging out the deep blue of her iris entirely—and the slight slur in her voice, she must have taken a little something to calm herself down. But then again, that was her mother, wasn’t it? She’d rather take the easy route than actually have to do anything.
Her father looked at his watch, then glanced at his main assistant, who was standing by, ready for orders. “Okay. Showtime.”
And he smiled.
As if he wasn’t a monster all the way down to his soul.
CHAPTER 8
Jack stood with his back to one of the big glass walls, his attention fixed on the small knot of people who stood not far away from him. Callie, elegant in a strapless blue silk gown that followed her figure in a way that was sexy without being obvious, was chatting with a preppy, clean-cut-looking guy, who couldn’t have been more than sixteen. Okay, so he was probably older than that, but Jack wasn’t in the mood to grant concessions.
Beside Callie stood the senator, white-haired and handsome, smiling and chatting easily with them. He’d just introduced his daughter to the guy, and Callie had smiled and taken the man’s proffered hand, laughing as he’d bent and gallantly kissed it.
Prick.
It was clear to Jack what was going on. The senator clearly had plans for his daughter that included clean-cut, preppy-looking assholes and judging by her smile, Callie appeared to be lapping it up.
In fact, she appeared to be lapping everything up this whole evening, smiling and being gracious as her father led her around, introducing her to people and generally keeping her close. The media, not to mention the guests, seemed to like it too, taking lots of pictures of the “close-knit Hawthorne family.”
Except he knew for a fact that Callie actually wasn’t enjoying any of this, and he knew because he hadn’t taken his eyes off her all evening.
She’d gone stiff the moment her father had laid his hand on her back as he’d guided her to meet the first lot of people, and she hadn’t relaxed since. Her shoulders were slightly hunched and her knuckles where she clutched that little beaded purse were white. She smiled at people, talked easily to them, giving the impression of graciousness and friendliness, but there were times when he heard a slight sharpness enter her voice and a shrillness echo in her laugh. Also, the moments her father looked away, her face would go curiously blank.
Her behavior reminded him of someone and no matter how hard he tried to dismiss it, he couldn’t escape the knowledge that sat deep inside him. Callie was behaving just like his mother when his father was around.
The similarity was disturbing and he found himself looking for reasons to discount it, because if it was true, then the picture the senator was presenting to the world, that of a happy family with a loving wife and daughter, was a lie; that something else lay beneath the façade.
And you know what’s beneath that particular façade.
Ice settled in Jack’s veins as he stared at Callie, watching as Mr. Preppy Asshole leaned in close toward her and she tried to take a step away, only to be stopped by her father’s hand at the small of her back.
“My daughter’s feelings on the subject don’t interest me, King. . . .”
The fear in Callie’s eyes, the knowledge that sat inside him that something was going on, something terrible. It was her father, wasn’t it?
First the weird request to put back those cameras and not tell Callie about them, and now the tense way she was holding
herself. Those moments of blankness on her face. The flat look in her eyes, the beautiful sea blue gone almost gray.
Yeah, he knew it. He knew it like he knew he needed air to breathe.
The thing Callie was afraid of was her father.
A vast, consuming anger gripped Jack by the throat, a vicious animal he normally kept chained, and he had to fight to stop himself from grabbing the piece he had at the small of his back and pointing it straight at that fucker’s face.
Because he knew men like him, knew them all too well. They didn’t deserve to live.
Murdering a senator at a fund-raiser isn’t exactly the way to a long and happy life, dick.
Jack gritted his teeth, fighting his rage with everything he had, watching as the preppy asshole whispered something else in Callie’s ear and she stiffened even further. She laughed, but there was a familiar and angry spark in her eyes. She smiled and shook her head, saying something that Jack couldn’t hear over the buzz of conversation and the music. Preppy asshole shrugged, as if it wasn’t a problem, yet Jack didn’t miss the briefest look of annoyance cross the senator’s face. Obviously, whatever his daughter had said had irritated him.
Jack wanted to go over there and grab Callie’s arm, pull her away. Get her somewhere away, somewhere safe where she could tell him exactly what was going on. But he had a feeling that would simply make the situation worse.
Christ, he should have dealt with this the previous day, like he’d intended, but when he’d gotten back to her apartment, she’d been curled up on the couch with a pair of headphones on her head. Her eyes had been closed and for the first time since he’d met her, she looked relaxed. Happy, almost.
He hadn’t had the heart to push her to talk about things that would upset her. Later, he’d thought. But then the day had gotten busy and there hadn’t been time.
Shit.
He had to get her out of here somehow. Because if the situation was similar to the one he’d grown up with, then he couldn’t let that stand. He knew how that had ended: in devastation.
Callie turned her head in his direction, smiling. But that smile wasn’t for him, and it didn’t reach her eyes. She didn’t hold his gaze, meeting it only briefly before she looked past him, out through the giant windows at his back. Yet he recognized the glitter in those sapphire depths.
She was afraid.
* * *
“I want to talk to you,” Callie’s father said in her ear, his voice taking on that horrible, flat quality it only got when he was really angry.
She gripped her champagne flute tightly, her mouth aching from the perpetual smile it had been twisted up into.
No need to wonder what he was pissed about. It was because she’d refused Michael’s date request. Not that it was really a request. She could already tell from her father’s tension as he stood beside her that he wanted her to say yes. That Michael Booth, from a very old and no doubt well-checked-out family lineage, was someone he had in his sights as a suitable partner for her. Because he wouldn’t have introduced him to her otherwise.
Michael seemed nice, though his kiss on her hand had made her cringe, but she didn’t actually want to go on a date with him. He was tall and good-looking, and his smile was pleasant, but she resented every bit of the fact that she was being forced into it. He wasn’t her choice. He was her father’s choice for her.
It’s only a matter of time before he starts matchmaking, you know that.
And that didn’t make it any easier. It felt like the walls of her cage were closing in, like she was slowly being suffocated, and she’d looked in Jack’s direction for reasons she couldn’t even begin to name.
He’d been only a yard or so away, by the wall, standing there tall and dark, and so dangerous people were giving him a wide berth. She’d met his green gaze, felt the shock of it hit her, and for some reason the intensity of him made her lungs fill with air. Like she could breathe again.
She didn’t know what that meant, she only knew that he made her feel safe in a way she’d never felt before. And he made Michael look like a little boy.
“Now, Callie.”
She tensed, the thinly veiled fury in her father’s voice scraping across her nerves. Fighting her fear, she turned, that fake smile plastered firmly to her face. “Sure, Dad. What did you want to talk about?”
Her father’s blue eyes were icy. “In private. Come with me.”
Callie felt her fingers start to go cold, her stomach dropping away. Okay, he wasn’t simply irritated with her now, he was very definitely furious, which wasn’t good.
Normally, she handled him by smiling and nodding and doing whatever he said. But tonight, for some reason, something defiant kicked inside her.
She didn’t want to do what she normally did. She was tired of being the good girl. She was tired of him intimidating her the way he intimidated her mother and she was tired of doing everything he told her.
For once she wanted to say “no” like she used to. Before she’d realized her father was taking out his anger at her defiance on her mother.
You think that’s changed?
No, but she couldn’t save her mother, could she? Not when her mother didn’t want to be saved. So what the hell did she have left to lose?
Taking care to move without hurry, Callie put her drink down on a nearby table and followed her father toward one of the doors that led off to the museum’s galleries. He opened it for her and she walked through it, her heart thumping hard behind her breastbone.
The corridor beyond was quiet, no one around.
Her father let the door shut behind them, closing out the chatter and music of the party, leaving them in relative silence.
Callie straightened her spine and lifted her chin. Looked her father in the eye. “Don’t tell me,” she said, keeping her voice level. “You want me to go out with Michael.”
“Of course I want you to go out with Michael. Why the hell do you think I introduced you to him in the first place?”
She folded her arms, as if that could stop the frantic banging of her heartbeat. “I don’t know, why did you introduce him to me?”
Her father’s expression twisted all of a sudden and in two steps he was right in front of her, reaching for her and grabbing her wrist. “I don’t like your attitude, girl.” His fingers tightened, his hold painful. “You think I don’t know what you’ve been doing the last couple of months? Flaunting yourself around at those clubs like a slut? But that’s going to stop and it’s going to stop now.”
Shock held her still. Of course he knew about her little outings, there had been those cameras, remember? But how could he have known she’d been at the clubs? Had someone followed her there?
Did Jack tell him?
That shock was even worse, making her feel sick. No, he couldn’t have. He’d promised he wouldn’t. Hadn’t he?
Her wrist hurt, but she refused to let it show, swallowing down her gasp of pain, pretending like it didn’t affect her in the slightest.
“You’re going to act like the daughter of a senator, Callie, even if I have to beat it into you myself, and believe me, I will.” He twisted her wrist hard and she had to bite her lip against the pain. “So, I’m only going to say this once. No more clubs. No more of this party-girl nonsense. And now you’re going to go straight back out there and tell Michael you’d love to go out on a date with him.”
Fear had hollowed out her stomach and the pain in her wrist was sharp. But it wasn’t as strong as the sudden rush of rage that filled her.
“What?” she demanded, taking a step closer to her father, refusing to back down. “You think that hurting me is going to make me do what you want? That hurting Mom will? Well, news flash, Dad. It won’t. Because I don’t give a shit anymore.” The fury felt volcanic, flooding her veins with lava, hot and raw. If Jack really had told her father about the club, she was going to kill him. “I’m not going to let you bully me and I’m not going to do whatever you say like a good girl. Fuck your orders. Fuc
k Michael. I’m done being your pawn.” She was trembling now, but it wasn’t with fear. It was all anger. And she braced herself for more pain because her father was going to hurt her more, maybe even break her wrist. Whatever, she was ready. She was tired of lying down and taking it.
She’d faced down a man as dangerous as Jack King. She could face down her father.
But instead, he simply stared at her, his cold blue eyes searching her face. “You really think a few profanities and a bit of spirit will make me change my mind?” He smiled, patronizing and unpleasant. “They won’t. You know, your mother started off just like you, cursing me and pretending she wasn’t going to let me push her around. But that didn’t last very long. And you know why?” He leaned in close, swamping her with his aftershave and the sour scent of wine. “Because secretly she loves me telling her what to do. She needs it, Callie. She needs a strong hand and so do you.”
Something fell away inside her in that moment, a doubt that had been seeded a long time ago, eating away at her like termites eating at the foundations of a house.
You liked Jack fighting you. You liked the way he grabbed your chin and forced you to look at him.
Her heartbeat was deafening and she wanted to jerk her wrist away from her father’s grip, wanted to spit in his face. But that would reveal how much those words had gotten to her and there was no way she was going to do that.
She forced out a laugh instead, knowing it sounded hollow yet doing it anyway. “You’re crazy. There’s no way I’m going to do what you say. No fucking way on earth.”
“Yes, you will.” His smile was so certain and patronizing she wanted to scream. “Because you owe me. Because if you don’t, there are plenty more freedoms you have right now that I can take away from you. Many, many more.”
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