What happens when two people of terrible pride fall for each other?
Terrible things.
Destruction. Chaos. Pain. Sorrow.
War.
“You’d have to ask him,” I finally responded. “It was his idea.”
“Well, he’s a fool then. Want to know who isn’t a fool?”
I was outright grinning at him over my shoulder. “Do you want me to guess or are you going to tell me?”
With a boyish smile, he pointed at himself. “This guy.”
The coffee was finished, and I poured us both a cup. “Good to know,” I said, turning and handing him his.
His smile died suddenly and he glanced around as though making sure we were alone. “Seriously though, I wanted to ask you about something that’s been bothering me for a while.”
I shrugged. “Go for it.” Worst case scenario, if I didn’t like the question I wouldn’t answer it.
“Have you ever wondered why Leo and Adelaide never got divorced?”
I shrugged. “I’ve no idea.”
“They despise each other.”
“Yeah. They seem like a perfect match. They’re both pretty easy to despise.”
“True. But I’m starting to get the distinct impression that things are even more messed up than they appear. I think Adelaide has something bad on Leo. I think she’s blackmailing him and has been for a very long time.”
Was I surprised? No. Was I disgusted? Yes.
“Nothing that woman could do would surprise me,” was my response, “but I don’t know one way or the other. Why did you think I would? Adelaide hates me more than anyone. I’d hardly be the one she’d tell her dirty secrets to.”
He shrugged. “I figured it was a long shot, but you’re one of the few people associated with this crazy family that might actually tell me the truth. I thought maybe if Dante knew something that he might have confided in you at some point. Because you know he’d never tell me anything.”
“He never gave you a fair shot,” I said absently, my mind on Adelaide and blackmail. That woman was capable of anything.
It was terrifying.
“He didn’t, but there’s still time. Maybe I’ll grow on him. And I get it. All he ever wanted was our father’s approval, and being the firstborn and legitimate it must have felt particularly demoralizing to be treated the way he was. What he’s never understood is that our father only sees our mothers when he looks at his sons. We get treated, loved or loathed, based on whatever connection he had with the women he impregnated.”
I thought about that, and it added up perfectly. It was so horribly simple for something that had brought so much sadness to a young Dante. “And he loathes his wife,” I murmured.
He nodded.
“You’re a good guy, Bastian. I hope someday you and Dante can find some middle ground.”
He smiled but it was weaker than his other efforts. “I keep hoping.”
“It’s strange that your father never had any daughters,” I added, watching his face.
“There’s always that rumor that Durants only have boys.”
I knew firsthand that rumor was absolute rubbish, but I nodded. “There is that,” I said evenly.
“But that’s only a rumor. I think my dad probably has at least a few daughters. He just never bothered claiming the girls.” He saw my face and his mouth twisted. “I know. Believe me, I know. My dad is a piece of shit. What can I say? You don’t get to pick your father.”
“What’s with this cozy fucking scene?” a familiar voice boomed from the doorway of the kitchen.
Bastian and I had been huddled close together. It was completely innocent. Well mostly. We just hadn’t wanted to be overheard. But at the sound of Dante’s voice we sort of jumped apart guiltily, which didn’t look innocent at all.
Because I liked Bastian, in fact, I liked him more the longer I spoke to him, I set down my coffee and moved forward as Dante did, intercepting him before he got close to his brother.
I pushed into his chest, getting his immediate angry attention for myself.
“Are you fucking kidding me with this?” he raged, pointing a finger at his brother. “You’ve still got a whole night’s worth of my fucking cum inside of you and you’re already, what the fuck was that, rubbing up against my brother?”
My brows shot up. Wow. He’d gone full out crazy without much provocation. Bastian and I hadn’t even been touching when he walked in. Had it looked like we had? I tried to picture the angle he might have seen as I said, “Calm down. We were talking and you’re acting like a nutjob.”
For that he pointed his furious eyes at Bastian. “I’ll show you a fucking nutjob. She is off limits. Do you fucking hear me, brother?”
Bastian looked completely unfazed, which somehow just made me like him more. “I’m well aware of how you feel about her, brother,” he shot back, holding his coffee mug in both hands like he sensed no threat at all.
I pushed at Dante’s chest. He didn’t budge but that hadn’t been the point. Getting his attention back to me had been, and it worked. He turned his gaze on me, and I could tell he was about to lose it. “You need to take a walk, Dante. Walk away. Remember your anger management steps.”
He didn’t like that, but he responded to it, backing away and glaring at me.
When he was gone, I retrieved my coffee. It wasn’t hot enough anymore, so in silence I poured it out and fixed another.
“It never made sense to me, the way it went down with you two,” Bastian said quietly.
I could feel his eyes on me, but I didn’t look at him as I shrugged. “Didn’t make much sense to me, either. Well, anyway, nice chat. I’ll see you around, yeah?”
“Yeah. Take care, Scarlett, okay?”
“I always do, not that it helps me a damn bit. You take care of yourself.”
“I will.”
I started to leave, taking my mug with me.
I was at the doorway when he spoke again. “Will you do me a favor?” he called out.
I stopped and looked at him. “Sure,” I said lightly before I even knew what it was. I must have trusted him. That wasn’t like me.
“Ask Dante sometime, if you can, what he thinks about his mother and blackmail,” he said, his voice so intense that I found myself staring at him. Was he referring to Adelaide and his father, or something else? I couldn’t tell, but the words he was saying felt directed at me very pointedly.
I kept steady eye contact with him when I answered, “I’ll do that.”
“Good. Very good. Keep me posted.”
CHAPTER
THIRTY-THREE
PRESENT
I couldn’t seem to help myself. I followed Dante, tracking him down in his room.
I knocked, he didn’t answer, but I could tell he was in there, I heard him moving, so I just opened the door.
It’s a fucked up fact that I can’t resist him when he’s angry. I love it when his fury turns him savage.
I love to watch him fight and rage. Wipe blood from his lip, his eyes seeking me out, the rage in them bleeding harder.
Dante more than anyone knows this about me.
He started shaking his head when he saw me.
I shut the door behind me and approached him.
Licking my lips, I reached up and touched his shoulders.
He flung my hands away. “Don’t touch me!
Nothing he could say would have drawn me to him faster. I was in his space, rubbing against him, completely ignoring his words and concentrating on his body.
“Stay away from me,” he ground out.
I leaned forward and kissed the soft cotton covering his chest.
He backed away, eyes wide.
“You’re freaking out for no reason,” I said calmly. “You’re imagining things. There is nothing going on between Bastian and I. We were just talking. You are overreacting.”
“Why were you huddled so close? Why did he have you backed into the counter like that?”
&nb
sp; “We were exchanging sensitive information.”
He moved further out of my reach, going to sit on the edge of his bed. “What information?”
“I’ll tell you when you’ve calmed,” I said, following him. While he watched, I stripped off my shirt, then my bra. I tugged off my thong but left my skirt on.
I straddled him there, standing against him where he sat.
Groaning, he buried his face between my breasts, one hand going to cup my rear under my skirt, the other working at the button of his pants. With jerky movements he freed himself.
He cupped my breasts, pulling me down until I was on top of him, bending to follow my nipples as they sank down out of his reach.
I rode him like that, on the edge of his bed.
After, we fell into a heap and went to sleep.
I woke up curled into his chest, his hand stroking over my hair.
“How long did I sleep?” I asked him.
“A couple hours.”
“I don’t know what I was thinking. I need to get ready for my flight.”
“You’ve got time.”
“Oh? Is it a late flight?”
“Hmm,” he said, and I thought it was an affirmative noise, but I glanced up at him suspiciously. He sighed. “You can’t leave yet. The reading of the will is tomorrow.”
“I’m not staying for that.”
“What if she left you something?”
“If she left me anything, have it donated to that charity she set up for Grandpa.”
No, I wasn’t insane. I just would not, could not, profit off her death.
Sure, I was broke most of the time. I’d lost track of the times I’d spent my last twenty on a tube of M.A.C. lipstick, or maxed a credit card on a cute pair of shoes, but that was my problem and there was no reason someone else should bail me out of it, even if that someone was Gram.
“My God, you are as stubborn as ever.”
“Are you surprised?”
“Not remotely.” He paused. “Tell me about Anton.”
I’d completely forgotten about that. And of course Dante had known his name all along, the fucking stalker. “You’re never going to drop this, are you?”
“Never,” he agreed.
I sighed. It was too ridiculous to keep up the pretense. “He’s just a friend. A good one. Demi called him my boyfriend because she’s a sweetheart and that’s what friends do when one of their girls is locked in a room with her ex.”
He was stroking my hair, kissing the top of my head. “You were messing with me,” he breathed.
“Are you surprised?” I asked him, nearly laughing. Didn’t he know how this fucked up little song and dance went?
“I shouldn’t be, that’s for sure.”
We lapsed into silence, him stroking my hair over and over and, likely because I was sated and sleepy, it soothed me. And I let it.
I don’t know why precisely it came to mind. Because I was feeling vulnerable, I suppose, and spiteful, as usual. Also, we hadn’t talked like we had for the last few days in so long, since before the breakup.
Tiffany was still after him, and I didn’t mind giving him another reason to hate her.
“That day,” I began, my voice small. “When that cop pulled me out of school.” I would not, could not describe it in more detail than that.
He’d gone stiff as a board, but he nodded that he knew which day I meant.
Of course he did.
“I saw her on the way out. Tiffany. I said something to her, because she was the only one I saw. She was supposed to tell you that I was leaving with him. Did she?”
I was only telling the truth and asking a simple question. Had I known it would do some damage?
Well, yes of course. That had been the point.
Had I known he would lose his mind?
No, I actually hadn’t.
But he did. He lost his ever-loving mind.
First he started to shake. Top to bottom, shake.
His trembling hands lifted me off him, he stood, and buck naked, strode from the room.
I didn’t follow him, but when I heard things starting to break, I didn’t have to wonder who was breaking them.
With a sigh I got dressed and went to investigate.
Ah, that made sense. He was in the guestroom Tiffany had been occupying but, lucky for her, she wasn’t occupying it now because as I stood there she approached.
She was holding an ice pack to her nose.
That made me smile.
Bastian was behind her, Leo behind him.
“What the hell is going on?” Leo’s voice boomed through the hallway.
I almost rolled my eyes. “What, did you get interrupted in the middle of screwing one of the maids?” I asked him in a taunting, baby soft voice, “Does that make you grumpy?”
I’d always had a problem with Leo, dating back to childhood when I’d first realized how he treated Dante. Any chance I got, I antagonized him.
Bastian stifled a laugh. I smiled at him.
“You,” Leo hissed. “You’ve been nothing but poison in this family since my mother dug you out of the trash.”
My brows went up. Usually it took more to get a rise out of the old lech. “Yeah, cause otherwise you’re all just a bunch of teddy bears.”
Bastian was outright laughing now.
“Can you two stop bickering and tell me what is going on in my room?” Tiffany butted in.
“That is not your room,” I said, not even looking at her. I was in a hell of a mood, every boom and crash I heard behind the door I guarded was only egging me on. “That is a guestroom that you insisted on staying in, even though no one wants you here.”
“Oh for Christ’s sake,” Leo muttered, striding to the door. “I want to know what’s going on.”
I blocked him, moving to stand in front of the knob. “Dante is having a moment, and everyone needs to leave him the fuck alone.” I looked at Tiffany. “Especially you. Trust me when I say that you don’t want to get near him right now.”
“Me?” she pointed at herself, doing her usual innocent routine. “What did I do?”
I rolled my eyes. “What, you want me to make a list? Please. Save it. No one here believes your act. Take it somewhere else. Somewhere far away from Dante unless you feel like getting strangled today.”
As though to punctuate that, something very large broke with a screeching crash in the room behind me.
“Oh forget it,” Leo muttered, turning around. “That boy is as melodramatic as his mother, I swear.”
“That’s right, princess, don’t worry your pretty little head about it. You just go back to screwing the housekeeper!” I called to his retreating back.
He flipped me the bird and kept walking.
I enjoyed getting a low class rise out of his privileged ass, and so that made me smile.
“What happened?” Bastian asked me. “What can I do?”
“Nothing, he just needs some time.” I pointed at Tiffany. “And it would be best if he doesn’t set eyes on her.”
I could hear him breathing in there, hear his ragged panting breaths as he struggled with what I’d told him, and I actually started to feel guilty.
Such a little piece of information, but I knew I should have kept it to myself.
“I’m not going anywhere,” Tiffany huffed.
As though he’d heard her, Dante opened the door, or as I liked to call him when he got like this, Hulk Dante.
Except even the hulk wore shorts.
His entire naked, agitated body was vibrating with rage as he caught sight of Tiffany. “You,” he snarled, tossing a suitcase clean over my head and into the hallway.
It hit the floor and clothes went flying everywhere as it busted open on contact.
“What on earth?” she exclaimed.
“Get out!” he shouted at her.
Even I was a little wary to approach him when he was like this, but I did it, setting a firm hand in the middle of his chest.
??
?Dante, you need to calm down,” I said, trying my best to be a soothing presence, though soothing had never been a strength of mine.
I was much, much better at agitating.
The current Hulk Dante was a case in point.
He just kept staring at her, thick black hatred pouring out of his eyes in menacing, palpable waves. “Get the fuck out of here!” he shouted at her. “I don’t ever want to see your face again!”
She looked like she’d just been slapped. She swayed on her feet. “What? But, why Dante? What did I do now?”
In answer he disappeared into the room, reappearing a beat later with another suitcase, this one smaller.
It received the same treatment as the first. And then came her purse, shoes, a blazer, a dress.
I looked at Bastian.
“I guess I’ll go ahead and load up her car,” he said helpfully, and proceeded to gather a huge armful of clothes into the large suitcase, and holding it closed, he lifted it and started down the hallway.
“Thank you,” I called to his back.
After Hulk Dante had emptied the guestroom of every one of her possessions he came back to hover in the doorway.
No further, because I was blocking the way, acting as a barrier between him and the object of his rage.
He let me. I was tiny compared to him, minuscule, but he let me hold him in his place with just my will alone.
“What don’t you understand about get the fuck out?” he screamed at her, the sound of it booming through the house like the roar of a lion.
Her chin trembled. “What did I do?” she asked, and started to cry.
“What did you do? What did you do? What didn’t you do? You think I don’t know? You think I buy your innocent act? You and my fucking manipulative bitch of a mother ruined my life!”
“I’m going to tell your mother about this. I’m going to tell her everything I’ve seen here.”
“You do that, but you do it fast. Because if I have to look at you for one more fucking second—" He took a step toward her, but I was in his way, shoving into him, cutting off his tirade and pushing him back into the room.
He was a brick wall of a man, but he let me do it, let me distract him.
As much as I loved to watch him rip into her, as much as I’d love to see her throttled, I couldn’t sit idly by as Dante got himself into serious trouble.