Chapter Seven

___________

 

Leah

 

 

 

My dad was calm as I walked into his office, and that’s how I knew he was still furious. His normal demeanor was expressive and animated, but when he was really pissed, he became a picture of still, brooding silence. Until his words unleashed, that is. Then he didn’t hold back. Out of some stupid defiance, I sat on his leather couch instead of at his desk across from him, but this turned out to be a bad choice because he immediately rose and walked over to stand in front of me. He wasn’t an especially tall man, but he had some weight on him that was at least part muscle, and he was intimidating on a good day. Now that he was towering over me, red-faced and practically vibrating with anger, I felt two inches tall and completely defenseless. I tried not to brace myself as I waited for him to get it out.

Finally, he exploded.

“What the hell were you thinking, Leah? Do you have any idea how selfish you were, or how much everyone worried? Did you even care? No. You were thinking only of yourself, which demonstrates just how childish you really are. If you wanted me to trust you, to think of you as an adult, this was the absolute worst way you could have gone about it. I’m seriously considering pulling you out of school, knowing just how foolhardy and impetuous you can be. How can I trust you to live away from home when I can’t trust you to make responsible decisions?”

He went on that way for awhile, and I knew there was no talking to him when he was in this state. It would only lead to us yelling at each other and would end with both of us pissed off and frustrated. I didn’t have the energy for it. So I kept my mouth shut and let him tear into me, until he finally paused for breath and then asked, “Do you have anything to say?”

I briefly considered several things but passed on each one. “Not at the moment.”

“Then get out of here.” With those words and an angry swipe of one arm, he dismissed me.

I retreated back to my room and sank into my bed, pulling out my phone so I’d have something to focus on besides stuff I didn’t want to think about. I thumbed through my photos, stopping at a selfie I’d taken just moments after boarding the plane to L.A. I looked scared and a bit overwhelmed, but I was also practically beaming with excitement. It felt like ages ago. I’d had so much hope in my chest, and so much to look forward to. Now all I felt was numb.

On impulse, I jumped up and grabbed my purse to find the phone I’d bought in LA. It was miraculously still clinging to life, so I plugged it in and then went to the photo gallery. There were only two pictures on this phone: me in the crowd at the club, barely visible in the dark lighting, snapped when I’d been just drunk enough to have no self-consciousness about taking solo selfies in public. And then there was the picture of Dominic as he sat over his phone in the hotel room. He’d been looking at me with a resigned sort of tolerance, something wary and impatient, all at once. My feelings about him notwithstanding, I had to admit that he was really gorgeous. It was easier to acknowledge this looking at a picture, because he wasn’t talking or doing that thing where he acted like he was flirting with me so he could manipulate me into doing what he wanted. His hands rested lightly on the table, and the position of his arms accentuated his thick, defined biceps. I doubted my hand could fit around even half of his upper arm. His face was all angular, almost blunt edges, and his eyes were bright and searing in a way that caught you and didn’t let go, even when looking annoyed with you. Stubble colored his jaw line and chin a shade darker, tracing around his mouth and the bottom lip that was just full enough to add a sensual quality to his masculine features. He was hot, okay. Didn’t change the fact that he was an arrogant ass who was way too presumptuous and familiar with me, or that he was just another goon who did my father’s bidding.

I tossed that phone aside and grabbed my real phone, turning the camera on and directing it on myself from above. I snapped a picture of my unhappy face just as there was a familiar knock on my door. Two light taps, and then the quiet slide of the door opening, because Eleanor’s knock was an announcement, not a question.

“You’re taking selfies?” she asked with a mesh of disbelief and excitement, gliding over to lay beside me so she could look up at the camera. “Take one of us both.”

I did, and even tried to smile this time. The end result didn’t come out very well – for me, anyway. Elle looked amazing as always. My sister was seventeen and beautiful in a way that no high school girl should have a right to be. She was the opposite of me in looks: pale skin, blue eyes, blond hair. Tall and willowy. Her hair was constructed into loose waves that fell artfully down her back, and she wore black framed glasses over eyes that popped against her dark, precise makeup. She was naturally beautiful, but she took it to a new level with her talent in hair and makeup. That was kind of her thing. She even had a beauty vlog that she updated weekly, and it had a huge following.

Truthfully, I loved her more than almost anyone. And just then, in my quiet and dejected mood, seeing her was a comfort that instantly made things feel halfway normal again.

When we were done snapping selfies, she grabbed an oversized pillow and snuggled up to it, stretching out and getting comfortable. “So did Dad rip into you?” He wasn’t her biological dad, but she’d been six when he married her mom, and she adored him. He was her dad in all the ways that counted.

“You might say that. I let him get it all out, and now I plan on hiding in my room for the next two days.”

“Where did you go?” Her voice dropped into a hushed whisper, and her eyes begged for answers, for something exciting. I’d given Eleanor no real info about my plans before I left because I hadn’t wanted to drag her into it.

“My mom’s house in LA. It was pretty uneventful.”

Her eyes opened a little bit wider. “Wow. You haven’t seen her in…how long has it been?”

“Almost six years.”

“And…how was it? Being with her, I mean. What was it like?”

I don’t know if it was Eleanor’s gentle tone, and the way she understood how big this had been for me, but all the emotion I’d been suppressing over the last two days unleashed then. Before I could stop it, my throat closed and the tears came spilling out, and all at once Eleanor’s arms were around me in a hug that I melted into.

“Lee Bee.” Her nickname for me since she was a little girl. “What happened? Talk to me.”

“She was the worst,” I said around sobs, pulling back some and wiping at my face with the palms of my hands. “I mean, at first she was really cool. We talked and hung out around the house and we made plans to go on vacation next summer, and it was amazing. Then I caught her doing coke, and she had all these pretentious artsy assholes at her house all the time, and then she left a party with the guy I brought as my date.” Here, Eleanor’s eyes bugged out, and her glossy mouth dropped open into a perfectly round O. “They came back the next morning and it was obvious they’d been partying the whole night, and she acted like it was no big deal, but it was, and then I realized how full of shit she is. Everything we talked about, everything I thought she…just all of it. It was total bullshit.” With this out, a new torrent of tears came, and I sobbed while Elle held me and rubbed my back. I’d always pictured my mom out there somewhere, thinking about me, missing me, waiting until I was older and out of my father’s control so we could begin a real relationship. Now I knew that was just a fantasy I’d held onto to help fill the space she’d left in my life. It wasn’t real. It had never been real. As I cried to my sister, I felt like I was grieving. Grieving for something I’d never even had, but for something that I’d desperately wanted. Grieving for something I would never get. It was gone to me now, the hope of it completely wiped out.

 

 

I kept my vow to stay in my room for the next two days, and I spent most of the time lying in bed, reading books or mindlessly scrolling through sites on my phone. Then two days turned into three, and then it was a week, and I still had no motivation to leave my room. Eleanor snuck me food after my dad forbade everyone from bringing me any, because he wanted me to come down and eat with everyone else. My stepmom, Liz, came in to check on me several times, but I was mostly unresponsive and she didn’t really know what to say to me. She must have said something to my dad, though, because he finally came in with a burst of energy and a mouthful of loud, cutting words.

“Leah, get out of bed. Locking yourself away isn’t healthy and isn’t going to help the situation. If you don’t get out of that bed right now, I will drag you out. Don’t think I won’t.”

I rolled over to face him, and he must have seen something in me that caused him to hesitate, almost like he was taken aback. “Are you sick?” he asked then. “Do we need to take you to the doctor?”

I wordlessly shook my head.

“Then get the fuck out of this bed!” His voice rose to a volume that made me flinch. “Have you even showered since you’ve been back? No, I’m done dealing with this. You don’t get to act like the injured party after you ran away and left your family worried sick about you. You went clear across the country with no protection, into a city you don’t know anything about, around people you don’t know. Anything could have happened to you. Christ.”

I slowly sat up and rubbed some of the blurriness out of my eyes. “But nothing did. Nothing happened. I went to the beach and I met people and I danced at a club and it was fine. Nothing happened until you sent your asshole henchman to kidnap me.”

“Stop being dramatic, please. Is that what this is about? Did he do something to you? He was cleared by Thomas, but if he did anything to hurt you I’ll have him gone by the end of the day, just say the word.”

Suddenly I thought about the way he’d grabbed me in the hotel, holding his giant hand over my mouth to stop me from screaming, and then the horrible look on his face afterward. Panicked, almost. Remorseful. Piecing things together in a way that had made me feel raw and exposed. I thought about all the other things he’d said to me, how he’d handcuffed me, touched me like he had any right to, and I realized I could follow through with the threat I’d made in the bathroom. I could get my dad to fire him. The thought made my shoulders lift up a bit in something like validation, even as I knew I wasn’t going to do it. He may have been a dick who thought way too much of himself, and way too little of me, but I couldn’t get him fired.

I gave an annoyed exhale. “No. He was perfect. He did exactly what was ordered, like a good dog.”

Dad nodded, like he expected nothing less. “Then it was your mother. She did something. I knew it.”

“No. She didn’t do anything.” I don’t know why I was so desperate to keep my dad from finding out what had happened with her. I guess I just didn’t want to have to admit he’d been right about her. I wasn’t ready to give him that. “Look, I was fine there. I am capable of taking care of myself, you know. This is my last summer before I graduate, and I want to do something with it. You can’t keep doing this to me, Dad. You can’t keep me under lock and key forever.”

“We’ll talk about it when you get out of bed and start functioning like a normal person.” With that, he turned on his heel and swept out of the room, leaving the space where he’d been cold and empty in his wake.

We wouldn’t talk about it. We never talked about it. Our talks always had a way of him taking over and talking at me, over me. He was right about one thing, though. I couldn’t stay in bed forever. It was time for me to lick my wounds and move on. As I pushed the covers away and pulled my legs over the side of the bed, I saw my stupid list folded up on my nightstand where I’d left it. I picked it up and opened it, realizing there was another item I could now cross off. Number three, going to a club by myself, was done. I thought back to that night, a smile starting to curve my lips up. I’d never been like that before – bold and free, unknown but part of something.

Of course, then Dominic had shown up and ruined it. My smile morphed into a resentful frown. I still couldn’t believe he’d cuffed me to him like that. I’d lain awake for a long time that night. His body so close I could feel its warmth, his breathing deep and steady. He’d fallen asleep in about a second, showing his lack of discomfort in both the situation and the cuffs. I’d never slept in the same bed with a guy before, and it was a strange experience. Our forearms kept touching even as I tried to pull away, and his arm was hard and rough against mine. It had been impossible to relax, but eventually I must have fallen asleep, somehow. Once I woke up and my arm was fully touching his, laying straight against it, and my wrist was starting to hurt from where the cuff pressed into it. In my drowsiness I’d put my arm over his and then sort of hugged it in an effort to get comfortable before I drifted off again. I hated that he’d woken before me, that he’d seen me when I was sleeping and vulnerable. I hated everything about the way he’d continuously come out ahead against me.

Okay, so my trip to California had been a bust. So my dad wasn’t going to budge on the bodyguard issue, ever. He’d probably somehow manage to keep track of me from the grave. But the summer wasn’t over, and some of the stuff on the list was still doable. The only way my dad was going to let me out of his sight was if I was under protection, so I’d stop trying to fight it. With a new determination, I got up and headed into my bathroom to take a shower.

 

 

My dad was at the Manhattan office, but there was always at least one guard in the control room on the ground level of the house. Since my little escapade, my dad had stepped up my protection and now had someone sitting at the bottom of the stairs: currently O’Neil. He stood as soon as he saw me hopping down the steps, and then Thomas walked in from the back where the control room was located. And Thomas wasn’t alone.

“What’s he doing here?” I didn’t mean it to come out quite so bitchy, but I didn’t really feel bad about it, either. Dominic’s eyebrows merely raised at my rudeness, and he looked me up and down in what felt like a blatant dismissal.

“Good to see you, too, princess.”

Just the sound of his voice set me on edge, deep and dry and laced with subtle mockery.

Thomas addressed me calmly, ignoring the obvious tension in the air. “He’s part of the team, Leah. Are you going somewhere?”

I was fully dressed and had my purse, so it was an easy guess. “Yeah, I’m going shopping. I need to get out of the house.”

Thomas nodded once. “Dominic will get the car ready.”

“What? Why can’t O’Neil take me?”

He looked characteristically annoyed with me. “Because O’Neil is stationed here. Dominic is on rotation now. He’ll go with you.”

I was more than a little frustrated by this news. He was on rotation, which meant he was no longer bound to the office. He would have shifts inside the house, guarding me and my sister. My face settling into a glare as I looked back to him, I said, “Well, aren’t you lucky.”

“Yeah. I can still hardly believe it.” His tone was heavy with sarcasm, but there was something else there, too. He was genuinely not happy about his new placement. And he definitely wasn’t happy at the prospect of running errands with me. Slowly, my lips lifted into a smile. This could actually be kind of fun.

“Well, let’s go,” I said brightly, and his jaw clenched even tighter.

“Give us ten minutes,” Thomas said. “Wait here with O’Neil.”