Total pages in book: 20
Estimated words: 18480 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 92(@200wpm)___ 74(@250wpm)___ 62(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 18480 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 92(@200wpm)___ 74(@250wpm)___ 62(@300wpm)
“She’s ignoring me.” I pause, not sure what she wants me to do about that. Petal hasn’t been great about responding to me either. If I had some special power to make her do so, I would. For now, I’m giving her the space she needs to finish out her last semester. Then we’ll go from there.
I have plans in motion. I'm just not sure of how she will handle them. They have always been coming. No matter how much I tried to push them to the back of my mind. Each time they persisted, moving front and center, making me feel like a dirty bastard.
“She’s at school.” I know my response is the wrong one when Mom folds her arms over her chest. She’s not buying what I’m selling. She might not know the details, but she knows something is off.
“You did something. She’s been different since she went back to school.” She glares at me. I drop my head, sucking in a deep breath. I did do something. I can’t bring myself to regret it.
“Mom.”
“Fix it” are the only words she says before allowing the silence to stretch. I know she’s not going anywhere until I give her some plan on how I intend to make things right with Petal.
“I’m not sure you want me to fix it.” I speak honestly.
“That’s where you’re wrong. We’ve been waiting for you to fix it for months.” My head snaps up, her words surprising the hell out of me.
“What does that mean?” She rolls her eyes at my question.
“That girl is in love with you.” Her words hit me hard, right in the chest.
“She thinks she’s in love with me,” I correct her.
“I swear you’re the smartest stupid person I know.” When I look up at her this time, she’s wearing a look of pure frustration.
“Tell me how you really feel.” I drop back down into my chair.
“No, I think it’s you that needs to be telling someone else how you really feel. She deserves to know. And you both deserve to be happy.” Leave it to my mother to hit the nail right on the fucking head. “The scars they—”
“What of them?” I cut her off. “There is nothing wrong with her scars.” Those scars show she fought to survive. That’s how I’ve always looked at them.
“I know that, and you know I do. It’s her. I worry she thinks that—”
“I told her to stop covering them.” My mom’s brows lift. I’m not sure if it’s because that’s the second time I’ve cut her off. It’s not something I typically do. Or if her reaction is because I told Petal to stop hiding her scars. I’m guessing it’s a bit of both. Some of the anger fades from her expression.
A knock sounds at my door before Carter pops his head in. “Sir, Zane Dassault is here.”
“Dassault?” Now my mother is smiling.
“Send him in.”
“Why is my son in need of diamonds?”
“You know why.” She tries to keep pretending she’s mad at me, but I can hear the smile in her voice.
“So you were planning to do something about this mess you’ve made.”
“You know how this is going to look, don’t you? The fallout that it will bring with it?” I remind my mother.
“If we’ve learned anything from what happened to us, it’s that life is short. You need to live every moment of it and do the things that make you happy. And since when did you ever care what people thought?”
“When what I did started affecting Petal.” My mother is right about me not giving a shit about what people thought of me in the past. But all of that changed when my decisions began having consequences for Petal.
“What you are doing already is clearly affecting her. She has only applied to one college. I thought she might tell me she was taking a year off and that she wanted to come stay with me, but nope.”
“She’s not going back to the Coopers’. That family is a bunch of bloodsuckers.”
“Then give her a home, Vaughn. That’s what she wants.” My mother makes it sound so fucking easy. I don’t think she understands the things I want to do to Petal. How I want to sink into her and never let go. To feel every fucking breath she takes until I draw my last one.
“Vaughn, I think you’re going to love what I put together.” Zane comes into my office. One of the two guards with him uncuffs the case from his wrist before they exit. “Judith, it’s been awhile.”
“You should speak to my husband about that, not me,” she teases him.
“Show me.” Patience is not my strong suit. Zane sets the box down on my desk. My mom moves closer, wanting a peek for herself.
“I brought a few I put together, but I think I know which one you’ll want going off the details you gave me.” He opens the box and pulls out one ring. A ring I’ve been thinking about in my mind for some time now.