Breaking Her (Love is War #2) (7 page)

I wanted to punch him right in his smug, drunken face.
 
I was shaking with the urge.
 

"You're sick, old man," I sneered instead.
 

"Don't tell me you're queer."
 
Something bright entered his eyes, and he smiled.
 
"Actually, that would be just fine with me, as long as you can still manage to produce an heir.
 
My God, that would be justice.
 
Adelaide would lose her cunt mind."

I'd been rolling my eyes pretty hard, but he didn't seem to notice, so I finally just interrupted his strange tirade.
 
"I'm not gay, and I don't want a whore for my birthday."
 

"I wasn't offering you a whore, son."
 
In spite of everything, my heart jumped a bit when he called me son.
 
It was pathetic.
 
"I was offering you a room full of them.
 
An
apartment
full.
 
I was offering you as many different whores as you could stick your squeaky clean dick in between now and your next school day."

"No, thank you.
 
I have a girlfriend."

"So?
 
Is she here now?
 
Grow some balls, boy, or at least get yours back.
 
Gotta be a man sometime."

"Even if I didn't have a girlfriend, I'm not interested in prostitutes," I sneered.
 

That had him lifting a brow and calling, "Heather!
 
Get in here."
 

"Why does
she
need to be here?" I asked him.
 
I had no reason to like his longtime mistress.
 
Just the opposite.
   

He grinned and it was unpleasant.
 
"You're not interested in whores."
 
Heather walked into the room, looking unfazed.

Well, dead behind the eyes if I was accurate.
   

The things she must see on a daily basis, I thought.
 
I should have more pity for the woman.
 

"Heather, Dante says he's not interested in whores, but I still owe him a birthday present."
 

I still didn't catch on until she started to strip, her dead eyes on me.
 
I was more naive than I'd realized.
   

"What are you doing?" I asked both of them, backing up a step, then another.

"Her tubes were tied after she had Lorenzo, so you don't have to wear a condom.
 
You're welcome."
 

"You're disgusting," I told him.
   

"Is he gay?" Heather spoke for the first time.
 

Leo shrugged.
 
"You prefer anal?
 
Go for it.
 
Heather's up for anything."

"Fuck no.
 
Fuck you."

"He always was a brat," Heather noted.
 

This from the woman that had tried to smother affection on me in front of Leo when I was a child, then had shown me nothing but cruelty when his back was turned.
 

I gave my despised father the coldest stare I could muster over my rage.
 
"I said I'm not interested in prostitutes.
 
Get her out of here."
 

She left in a huff, like I'd deeply offended her.
   

"I'm going to tell Mother about this," I told him when she was gone.

I hated that I sounded like a child as I said it.
 

"Ha!" He got a real kick out of that.
 
"Go for it.
 
You think she doesn't know what I'm up to?
 
I can't divorce the cunt, but she sure as hell doesn't get to tell me where I put my dick."

I stared at him, glared, and hated that aside from the eyes, I was the very
image
of him.
 
Only on the outside,
I told myself.
 

It cannot be stated strongly enough—I
hate
my parents.
 

"I'm going to Gram's for the rest of the weekend.
 
Any objections?"
 

He shrugged, waving me off.
 
"Whatever.
 
More for me.
 
Have my driver take you."

One good thing came out of the weekend:
 
He never insisted that I stay with him again.
 

CHAPTER FIVE

"If love is the answer, could you please rephrase the question?"

~Lily Tomlin

PRESENT

SCARLETT

It wasn't an easy drive to get to my friend Gina's house.
 
It would've taken a solid hour without traffic, which was a laughable assessment.
 
There was
always
traffic.
 
It was an hour and a half if traffic was good, two and counting if it was the alternative, which it almost always was.
 

I loved driving, loved going fast, even in my shitty old sedan I wreaked havoc on the streets like I was racing every stranger I passed.
 
God help me if I ever actually owned a car that could perform to match my mood.
 

I loved driving, yes, but no one loved driving in
this
town.
 
It was a chore to get to my dear friend's house, but when she called, I answered.
 
When she asked, I came if I could.
 

It was a one-sided kind of friendship.
 
I never called her, never asked or invited myself.
 
But some friendships are just designed that way.
 
It's unavoidable.
 
A give and take that we
need
even if it's not what we
want
.
   

Some people are put into our lives at just the right moment.
 
Of this I am certain.
 

And the why of it was this woman.
 
Gina.
 

Gina was the kind of nice that made everyone around her uncomfortable.
 
If I so much as mentioned a hardship I had suffered, even a casual one that was years old, her eyes would water as though it was a fresh wound.
 
There was nothing I despised more than receiving someone else's pity.
 
It literally made my skin crawl, but I knew that she couldn't help herself.
   

Eugene, her husband, was not much better.
 
He was more in touch with his emotions than a Care Bear.
 
And not in an annoying way.
 
Well, not completely.
 
He had a method of disarming that was rare.
 
He brought out the soft side in everyone, asked just the question that let you know he was in tune with your mood.
 
That he cared, that he felt.
   

He was one of those sensitive men that had more of a hard-on for Adele than Angelina.

I secretly loved that about him, and I tried my best to behave when I came over to visit.
 
I kept the more acidic side of my tongue to myself.
 

Mostly.

They lived in a mansion in the hills.
 
A dream house beyond even my overinflated dreams.
 
They were both successful entertainment attorneys that came from money, and everything about their life was a bit of a fairytale, but that didn't make me jealous or covetous.
 
Unworthy, perhaps, but never jealous.
 

No one deserved a perfect life more than they did.
   

They greeted me as a pair at the door when I arrived, opening it before I could knock.
 
Gina pulled me into a tight, long hug.
 
She was a short, heavy blonde woman with a pretty face and at least fifteen years on me, though I'd never been so ill mannered as to actually ask her age.
 
"How are you, gorgeous?" she said, beaming as she let me loose.
 

"Hanging in there," I said with a rueful smile, my best version of looking at things on the bright side.
 

Eugene gave me a warm hug.
 
He was a big man with a soft voice.
 
"You've lost weight.
 
Luckily I made pasta."
 

I tried not to groan in dismay.
 
The last thing I needed was carbs.
 
I fucking hated carbs.
 
They made me feel bloated and sleepy.
 
And fat.
 
"Yum, my favorite," I said, trying, as always with them, to be a good sport.
 

"Had any interesting roles or auditions lately?" Gina asked politely as we stepped into the house.
 
She was always very interested in my career, or lack thereof.
 
She'd been the one to connect me with my agent, years ago.
 

My mood brightened slightly.
 
"Actually, yes.
 
I had an audition last week that felt like it went really well.
 
I've got my fingers crossed."
 

She clutched her hands together, face brightening like I'd just made her day.
 
"That's wonderful!
 
What sort of a part is it?"
 

I shrugged.
 
"It wasn't really clear.
 
Some kind of a character role.
 
I wasn't even sure if it was major or minor, but the director is Stuart Whently, so I'm pretty excited."
 

"Love his movies!" Gina exclaimed.

"We
love
his movies!" Eugene chimed at the same time.
 

I smiled nervously and found myself ringing my hands.
 
"Well, cross your fingers.
 
He was at my audition—it was a call back—and we actually hit it off pretty well.
 
He said some nice things to me and it felt like, I don't know, like he at least
wanted
to hire me."
 

"That's awesome!"

"Brilliant!"

I smiled ruefully.
 
I imagined that this was what it felt like to have your mother compliment you.
 
I appreciated it, even if it didn't mean anything.
 
But even so, I felt better, enough so to elaborate.
 
"He said I had defining characteristics.
 
That I would give the movie panache.
 
Like I said, it felt like we hit it off."
 

They overreacted.
 

Eugene made me give him a high five as he congratulated me as if I already had the part.
 
Like I even knew what the part was.
   

Gina put both hands to her cheeks and teared up.
 

It made me feel silly, like I'd overstated things, even though I had actually understated them.

These people were way too nice to me.
 
It made me so uncomfortable that I felt awkward in my own skin.

I tried not to let it show and allowed them to fawn over me.
   

We went straight to the dining room.
 
I was just in time, and I knew that they'd have dinner ready.
 
They were always very prompt, never taking too much of my time when we had these dinners.
 
It was ironic that they valued
my
time when they were both worth much more per hour than I was.
   

But they did value it, I knew.
 
I was equal parts flattered and baffled by that.
     

Their daughter, Mercy, was already in the dining room.
 
They had a house that was elegant and extravagant enough to have come straight out of a magazine, but they let their precious little girl have the run of it.
 
Currently she was finger painting on a child-sized easel, her colored fingers dripping generously onto their expensive marble floor.
 

Neither parent so much as scolded her.
 
They were doting to a fault, which wasn't at all surprising, since they even doted on
me
.
   

Mercy was the most beautiful child I'd ever seen. She just was.
 
It wasn't any one thing about her face that made her so, but the way each feature fell together like poetry.
 
To describe her was to do it no justice.
 
Masses of streaky, dark blonde hair with just the right thickness and wave to it that it fell in a perfectly arranged waterfall down her back.
 

Big blue eyes, again something that sounded so plain, but made stunning on her.
 
Thick lashed, almond shaped, and heavy lidded.
 
They were bright and fathomless at once.
 

Her cheekbones were high and colored as though someone had taken blush to them, though I knew her mother, of all people, would never do such a thing to a child.
 
Her lips were a perfect little rosebud, her nose small, straight, and shaped appealingly.
 

"Scarlett!" she said excitedly, rushing at me.
 

Her mother caught her halfway, guiding her toward the powder room.
 
"Oh no you don't.
 
First, let's wash up for dinner.
 
Remember what we talked about?
 
That not everyone likes paint all over their clothing?"

"But it's purple!" the little girl returned.
 
"Purple is pwetty!"

Her parents both cracked up at that, and I tried my best to smile with them.
 

Mercy rushed to hug me when she was paint free, throwing her little arms around my waist.