Raw Power by Jackie Ashenden (8)

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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?

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. Fuck 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.

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.”

“Senator?” The voice came from behind her father’s back, deep and rough, and familiar. “Sorry to interrupt, sir, but there’s been a disturbance out in the front of the museum. I’m afraid it’s no longer safe for Miss Hawthorne to be here.”

Jack. Jack was here.

A pulse of something that felt horribly like relief made her knees momentarily weak, though she refused to let that show either. No weakness, not yet. And certainly not when Jack might have been the one who’d betrayed her.

Fury glittered in her father’s eyes, hot and bright, then it was gone, his usual easygoing smile firmly in its place. He straightened and let go of her wrist, turning to face Jack.

“Disturbance?” he asked mildly. “Really? I thought my security was better than that.”

Jack’s attention was wholly on her father and for some reason it pleased her to see that Jack was taller than he was. “It’s being handled, but no security is a hundred percent foolproof.”

“Certainly, but is it really necessary for my daughter to leave now?”

Jack’s expression was impassive. “I believe it is, sir.

Her father made a huffing sound, then turned to her, that fake smile still on his face. “Well, you heard the man, Callie. I guess I’d better let him take you home. Don’t want to be accused of putting your safety at risk, hmmm?”

Her wrist throbbed and her anger throbbed along with it, but she gave him his own fake smile back at him. “No, we definitely don’t want that, Dad.” She couldn’t quite keep the edge out of the words and she knew her father had heard it, because she saw his anger flicker again.

“Please come with me, Miss Hawthorne,” Jack said, nothing but authoritative. “We’ll get you to your car.”

Part of her didn’t want to run, because leaving now was definitely running. Part of her wanted to stay and do battle with her father once and for all, get rid of all the years of rage she had bottled up. Show him that she was strong, that she had a mind and a will of her own, that she wasn’t some doormat that liked being bossed around and told what to do.

But Jack was moving toward her and arguing would only give her away to her father even more, and besides, she didn’t want to be forced. She wanted this to be her decision, so she turned in the direction of the doors before Jack could reach her and started to walk.

“Remember what I said,” her father said quietly as she passed. “Call him tomorrow, no arguments. Unless you really don’t like playing that little guitar of yours.”

Shock nearly made her stop, but she forced herself to walk on, to ignore him.

Those cameras in her house had been his after all. As she knew they would be.

She left the corridor and walked back out into the party, the music and noise swamping her. But she ignored it. She felt icy cold and yet burning up all at the same time, rage and fear twisting and coiling in her gut.

“Callie,” someone said in her ear.

She ignored the voice, heading straight back out of the party and into the entrance area of the museum. The front doors were ahead of her and she walked right out, the icy night air caressing her skin, reminding her that she’d left her wrapper behind.

There was a limo pulled up to the curb ahead of her and she moved toward it without hesitation, trying to ignore the storm of emotion that sat inside her, the rage and frustration and, beneath it, the fear.

Jack was suddenly there, opening the door for her, and she got in, sliding over the soft leather of the seat, the warmth of the car’s interior against her cold skin making her shiver. Except, as Jack got in and shut the door after him, she couldn’t seem to stop shivering and the harder she tried to get herself under control, the more she shook.

She could feel Jack’s green gaze settle on her, watching her, and she didn’t know what to do with herself. She wanted to be calm, to pretend like he hadn’t just walked in on her father threatening her. She wanted not to feel humiliated or as if she’d been rescued. But it was too late for that now, wasn’t it?

Jack knew now what her father was like. He’d seen it with his own eyes and she didn’t know whether to be glad or to be frightened.

Callie clenched her hands into fists. “I don’t see any disturbance,” she said, trying to defuse the tension, her voice uneven. “What were you talking about?”

Jack, sitting on the seat opposite her, his expression unreadable, didn’t answer immediately. Instead he hit the intercom button and ordered, “Take us to Miss Hawthorne’s place.”

“Hey, this isn’t your goddamned car,” she snapped, anger and fear leaping high. “You can’t order my driver around like that.”

Ignoring her, he reached out and before she could stop him, he’d taken one of her hands in his, turning it so the underside of her wrist was visible.

Trembling, Callie tried to jerk her hand away but his grip was unbreakable and anyway, it hurt.

He said nothing, staring down at the darkening purple bruises on her skin.

Rage burned inside her, hot and formless. Years of frustration and anger, years of helplessness and fear, all combining into a toxic, acidic mix in her gut. Making her feel like screaming or crying, or smashing her fist straight through a wall.

Then Jack raised those sharp green eyes to hers and she felt like he’d sliced through the top layer of her skin, exposing raw nerve endings. Exposing her pain and her weakness.

She didn’t want him to see it. She didn’t want him to see how emotional she was. Because she knew that if he discovered the depth of her anger, he’d also discover the depth of her fear, and even she didn’t want to know that.

She’d been running from that knowledge for years.

“He did this.” Jack’s voice was flat, the rough edge in it pronounced. “He hurt you.” It wasn’t a question.

“It’s nothing.” Callie tried to pull away from him again, the blood pounding loudly in her head.

Except he wouldn’t let her. His fingers were holding her securely and pulling against him only made her wrist hurt worse. But somehow she didn’t mind that. Somehow it turned the pain from something that had been done to her, into something she chose.

“It’s not nothing.” This time his voice was full of gravel and the look in his eyes was full of blades, cutting her open. “He’s the one you’re afraid of, isn’t he?”