Necessary Cruelty: A Dark Enemies-to-Lovers Bully Romance (Lords of Deception Book 1)

by Ashley Gee

  “I barely got her to say yes in the first place.” The lengths it took to get that yes from her are already a sore subject. “Don’t worry about it. Zaya will do what I want her to do eventually. She always does.”

  “Getting her to play mute for a few years is one thing…” He snorts and just lets the words trail off with a shake of his head. If he ever indulged in humor, the dick would probably be laughing his ass right off. “I’m looking forward to watching this explode in your face.”

  “I’m not worried.”

  My best friend does laugh at me then, a single guffaw that rings off the rafters before he is back in control of himself. “You sure as fuck don’t fight like you’re not worried. I can’t remember the last time you tried to break my jaw.”

  Was the stress of this really getting to me?

  No. Zaya will do what I want. It just might take some time for me to figure out the best way to go about making it happen.

  But the expression on Iain’s face is more mocking than ever. He looks at me like he knows exactly what I’m thinking and finds it patently hilarious.

  “What do you suggest I do then? If you know so damn much.”

  He seems to actually consider that for a moment. “No way you’re getting that girl to agree to a baby. Not until she finishes her degree in accounting, or whatever the fuck, and is at least five years into her first cubicle job.” His lips quirk again in what almost looks like a smile. Guy is just giddy today watching me squirm. “Probably not even then, if she has to have the kid with you.”

  “I assume all these words of encouragement mean you have a suggestion.”

  “More of an observation.” He watches my face for a few seconds, as if trying to decide how I’m going to react to whatever it is he plans to say next. “The only way a girl like Zaya Milbourne gets pregnant is if it’s an accident.”

  “I’ve never gotten near her without a condom.”

  “Condom. Safety pin.” He holds up his hands and mimes jabbing one into the other. “Works like a charm, if you trust daytime soap operas.”

  My mouth opens and then closes again. It doesn’t surprise me that Iain would think of something so devious.

  Or that the freak watches soap operas.

  What surprises me is that I’m actually considering doing it.

  Then I come to my senses. I’m a bad guy, but this would be terrible even for me. “She would never forgive me.”

  “Because you care about that.”

  Considering the things I’ve done, that’s a fair point. “I can’t force her to carry a baby to term, and eventually she has to for the codicil to be fulfilled. She would just end the pregnancy.”

  “It’s amazing to me that you can be this obsessed with a girl and not understand her at all.” He easily dodges when I swing at his head. “Zaya’s mother abandoned her when she was still in elementary school. All she wants to be is the opposite of what everyone in town says her family name makes her. She isn’t going to get an abortion. The girl would never be able to live with herself.”

  “You think I should trick her into getting pregnant on the wild assumption that she will feel compelled to carry the baby to term.”

  “Essentially.” Iain’s expression changes as he turns toward the doors, moments before I hear a clatter in the hallway. “Someone’s out there.”

  I shrug it off. Nobody around here is going to involve themselves in my business, much less go running back to Zaya telling stories. “I don’t know if I can do that.”

  “I’m not telling you to do anything, just pointing out that you only have two options.” He picks his gym bag off the ground and slings it over his shoulder. “Either tell her the truth and watch her walk away. Or make walking away from you impossible. I’m sure you’ll make the selfless decision.”

  My bloody lip aches. I lick it clean as I watch him go, relishing the flash of pain from the cut.

  Everything worth having comes with at least a little bit of pain.

  Twenty-Five

  There is only one person whose opinion of my upcoming nuptials matters to me at all.

  Emma isn’t just surprised to see me parked in the pick-up lane of her fancy private school, she acts like I’m a soldier who has been away at war. Her face lights up with hope when she sees the shiny red Maserati. When her gaze moves to where I’m leaning against the hood, she starts running down the hill, long hair flying out behind her like a banner.

  I’d sent her driver and nanny away, letting them know I’d get my sister home myself. Emma isn’t the only one who has an employee, not a parent, picking her up from school but the idea of it still bothers me. My Maserati stands like a blood stain on white silk among the orderly rows of town cars and sedans.

  “Are we going for milkshakes?” she asks as a greeting, coming to a stop just before running right into the side of the car.

  “Or tacos?” I ask because I know it’s her favorite.

  “We had tacos in the lunchroom today.” She pauses, thinking about it for a second. “But that doesn’t matter.”

  “We can do whatever you want.” I open the passenger door and raise the seat so she can climb in the back. “I’ll even try to find a place that has milkshakes and tacos.”

  “That’s gross.” She hesitates with her hands on the frame. “Do I have to sit in the back?”

  “It’s the safest part of the car, so yes.”

  “Nanny Oona lets me sit in the front when she picks me up from school.”

  “Are you trying to get Nanny Oona fired? Because this is how you do it.”

  With a dramatic sigh, Emma flops into the back and slings her scruffy pink backpack onto the seat beside her. The bag looks like it’s spent the last ten years buried underground. Like all her supplies, I know it was purchased this school year, so it’s shabby appearance is deliberate. Emma probably dragged it through the dirt to hide the offensive color.

  If Giselle isn’t careful, her daughter is going to grow up dressing all in black with Goth makeup just out of spite.

  “You can’t protect me from everything, you know,” she whines as I settle into the driver’s seat.

  “We’re gonna agree to disagree on that, kid. I’m watching your every move until you’re thirty.”

  She raises a blonde eyebrow. “And what happens then?”

  “That’s when you’re allowed to date. And the upstanding young fellow I choose can pick up where I’ve left off.”

  “You are so stupid, even for a dude.”

  “I love you, too, bubblegum. Now, buckle up.” I gun the engine and swing out of the pick-up line, waving to the stay-at-home moms who glare at me as we drive by. “Where are we going?”

  “Sweethaus for milkshakes, and then you’re taking me to Ricardo’s for the all-you-can-eat taco bar.”

  “You got it.” I don’t even care that she’s trying to be difficult because she thinks I treat her like a baby. And I definitely do, because I’m going to protect her from the entire world while I still can. “Are we doing double chocolate or Rocky Road with extra marshmallows?”

  Emma crosses her arms over her chest, expression smug. “Both.”

  “Done.”

  The drive-through at Sweethaus is full of the after school crowd, and I spend the time listening to Emma describe all the drama going on within her friend group. She has already forgiven me for being heavy-handed, but I know more moments like that are coming. Her thirteenth birthday is only months away, and it’s already obvious she will grow up to be a heartbreaker. As much as I want to lock her away so she never meets a guy anything like me, I’m reasonable enough to know that the countdown on her childhood is running out.

  But for now, she is still a girl who gets excited about having milkshakes with her big brother, and I’m going to take advantage of that for as long as possible.

  “I can’t be friends with Lily anymore, because she has gone totally boy crazy,” Emma tells me as I hand her one of the milkshakes. “All she wants to talk about is
kissing. It is so gross.”

  Thank fuck for that.

  Over tacos, I finally broach the topic that compelled me to butter her up with her favorite foods. “There’s something I need to talk to you about.”

  Emma takes a huge bite of her taco and replies with her mouth full. “Did you get somebody pregnant?”

  “Jesus.”

  “It wasn’t that Sophia girl, was it? You being with her seems a little sad, I don’t know why.”

  I put down my own taco before I crush it in my fingers. “No one is pregnant. And this has nothing to do with Sophia.”

  “I heard dad saying something about babies the other day and I know Mom isn’t pregnant, because she refuses to ever go through that again.” She shakes her milkshake and then slurps up a large mouthful. “What is it, then? Must be something big if we did Sweethaus and Ricardo’s in one day.”

  This girl is too smart for her own damn good. Or mine. “Some things are happening, and I want you to hear about it from me first.”

  Emma just stares at me, expressive blue eyes that are big as a porcelain doll’s give absolutely nothing away. She learned her poker face from me, so there is no way to know how she might react. “And?”

  “And I have to get married.”

  She blinks. “To Sophia?”

  “God, of course not. To a girl I don’t think you’ve ever met. Her name is Zaya.”

  “Why?”

  “It’s complicated legal stuff, but we’ll lose a bunch of money if I don’t. When Dad married my mom, there were a bunch of rules that her father insisted on making. Me getting married is one of them.”

  Lifting the cover off her cup, Emma stirs what’s left of her milkshake before looking back up at me. “Are you mad about it.”

  “I was, but I’m getting used to the idea.” The world has tilted on its axis, and now up is down, right is wrong, and Zaya Milbourne is the next Mrs. Cortland. “Are you upset about it?”

  “Nah.” Emma lifts the cup to her mouth and tilts it up to slurp out the last bit of milkshake. When she sets it back down, there’s a ring of chocolate around her mouth. “As long as you and her move into the house with me so I’m not alone all the time.”

  A pang of unease shoots through me. That house is like an altar to all of my worst memories. Every time I’m within its walls, an itch starts up under my skin, and it’s hard to breathe. “I’ll let her decide.”

  “You’re not usually nice like that to girls.” With her fingers, Emma picks up the last bit of meat and cheese that had fallen from her taco and pops it in her mouth. “Do you love her?”

  Every time I try to pretend that my sister is still just a little girl, she hits me a with a gut shot. I can’t lie to her, because she’ll see right through it. But I can’t tell the truth, because I haven’t figured out what it is yet. “No idea.”

  “I think it’s going to work out,” she says, with all the certainty of a girl still in middle school. “She’s like Cinderella, and you’re Prince Charming. It can’t possibly go wrong.”

  Except, Prince Charming didn’t climb into Cinderella’s window, hold her down, and fuck her like a whore before the ball.

  Maybe in the German version, who knows. The Brothers Grimm got freaky as hell with some of those stories.

  “You’ll like her,” I finally say, even though I have no way to know whether or not it’s true, but realize I’m nearly positive it is.

  “If you do, then I know I will.”

  But that’s the problem with leaving parts of your life to chance — you can never be certain what might be coming for you next.

  Twenty-Six

  I wake up with the not so unique feeling that I’m being watched.

  But unlike every other time this has happened, it isn’t fear that shivers down my body when I sit up.

  Vin sits in the corner of the room where he has so many times before. Even though only the whites of his eyes are visible in the darkness, I know he’s staring straight at me.

  The air between is charged with electricity, evidence of the coming storm.

  I tried really hard not to let it bother me when he left me on my doorstep this afternoon, not even bothering to look back as he jumped into his car to drive away. The urge to invite him in had come up my throat like bile and been swallowed back.

  The peace between us is fragile and probably temporary.

  Our relationship, no matter how good it feels at times, isn’t actually real.

  I need to remember that, even when his smile widens and heat races over my skin. When he smiles, I can almost convince myself that we are something different than we are.

  It would be a lie.

  But it’s hard to remember that when his eyes flash in the dark and he stands up from the chair.

  I wait for him to decide what he is going to do, but it quickly becomes clear he has no interest in climbing into bed with me. He doesn’t make a move toward me, even once I’ve completely sat up and we’re just staring at the outline of each other’s faces in the dark.

  When he finally speaks, his voice is suddenly loud in the dark and silence.

  “Are you ready to go?” he asks.

  I struggle out from under the comforter that seems too heavy on my overheated body. “Go where?”

  His lips quirk, but he gives nothing away. “It’s a surprise.”

  “It’s also the middle of the night and we have school tomorrow.”

  “Like I give a shit. You shouldn’t either because there’s barely a month left of senior year.” He holds his hand out to me. “Let’s go.”

  The smart part of me wants to ask what he has planned that requires leaving my bed in the middle of the night, but if he had any intention of telling me, then he already would have. No, my only option is to go with him willingly or put up a fight.

  “I’m not dressed,” I point out, half-rising from bed.

  His gaze skims over my bare legs beneath the sleep shirt that hits me well above mid-thigh. “You have five minutes.”

  Vin sweeps out of the room, not even bothering to turn on the light.

  I want to fight him, regain some of the power I lost when I agreed to all this. He can take his mysterious nighttime adventure and shove it up his ass. Whatever he has planned can’t be more important than my education.

  But eventually, curiosity wins and I climb out of bed.

  There isn’t anyone else in the house. Less than an hour after I got home, medics in starchy white uniforms arrived to transport Grandpa to the care home. I was happy to see him go, because I know it means he’ll get the care he needs, but it was strange to fall asleep in an empty house.

  None of the neighbors will come running if I scream. There isn’t anyone or anything to stop Vin from doing whatever he wants with me.

  At least, that’s the excuse I give myself as I pull on a wrinkled pair of shorts and follow him out my bedroom door.

  Vin isn’t outside where I expect him to be when I reach the bottom of the stairs. Instead, he is in the small office off the living room that is so crowded with boxes and plastic trash bags full of junk that the beaten up desk inside is impossible to reach.

  “What are you looking for?”

  Vin doesn’t bother to look up as he rifles through the filing cabinet. “Your birth certificate.”

  “What do you need with that?”

  He shuts the drawer hard enough that the cabinet almost tips over with the force of it. “You’re a smart girl, I’m sure you can figure it out.”

  Pressure swell ins my chest, making it difficult to breathe.

  I’ve always hated guessing games, because the surprise is never the one I want. “Just tell me.”

  The look on his face is almost pitying, as if he hears the note of tension in my voice and assumes it is spurred by fear. Pulling out a manila envelope from a drawer in the desk that I could have sworn should be locked, he makes a triumphant sound as he dumps the contents onto the battered surface of the desk.

  I kn
ow this situation is rapidly spinning out of control, but it was stupid for me to worry about that. Standing awkwardly a few feet away from the fully stocked kitchen, on the floor that no longer creaks because Vin had presumptuously had it repaired, I have to admit that none of this has ever been under my control.

  But I still want to hear him say it.

  “What do you need my birth certificate for, Vin?”

  He looks up in surprise, as if only just realizing he hadn’t bothered to answer my question the first time. His full lips turn down in a frown, preparing himself for resistance.

  “We’re getting married today.”

  I expect Vin to drag me to Vegas.

  Just like Sin City, everything about our arrangement screams trashy and fake with a veneer of slime.

  And greed.

  I’ve been bought and paid for, no different than the escorts who work the clubs on the strip.

  But Vin doesn’t drive us in the direction of the place where the sanctity of marriage goes to die. Instead, he takes Highway One up the coast, which gives me little idea of where we’re headed. Most of California is to the north of us.

  Even though it was still dark outside when he woke me up, it isn’t as early in the morning as I originally thought. Predawn light has escaped over the horizon, casting the sky in pretty pinks and blues that blend with the receding darkness like a painting done in ombre.

  I could almost enjoy it if I weren’t terrified.

  The first time I ask him where we’re headed, Vin cranks up the radio and sings loudly along to some top 40 ballad. I’m shocked that he knows the words, but not enough to forget I want an answer.

  When I turn off the radio and start to ask again, he rolls down all of the windows. My words are lost to the rush of air that spins up my hair into a knotty mess and makes it look like I just stepped out of a wind tunnel.

  The third time, when it finally becomes clear that under our new paradigm he has to work a little harder to shut me up, Vin casts me a look that is darkly sensual.