Fraud (Antihero Inferno #2) - Lily White Page 0,126

I approach.

His voice is a whisper of sound as I step past him.

“Please drive carefully on your way out, Mr. Dane. And if you want what’s best for Miss Callahan, I suggest you forget that you know her.”

Turning to lock him in my stare, I watch as he slams the door in my face, the muscle in my jaw jumping once before I walk across the porch and down the stairs.

Maybe I’m not the biggest fraud in this state. Ivy’s father just proved himself to be worse than me.

Ivy

My father releases me as soon as the front door slams and Harrison appears at the entryway into the sitting room.

“Shall I prepare her room, sir?”

“My room?” I spin to face my dad. “Are you fucking kidding me? I’m not staying here. I’m a grown woman. You can’t-“

Dad’s lips pull into a smirk, his dark eyes stabbing mine. “You’ll do whatever the hell I tell you to do. And I just showed you why. I’m not playing around with this, Ivy.”

He glances above my head at Harrison. “Prepare the room, and then let Mrs. Callahan know I’m ready to go.”

Harrison nods his head and steps away, my jaw slamming shut so hard pain rattles down my jaw.

“You would never leak that tape. How do you even have it? And why am I just now finding out about it?”

Voice a boom of sound that bounces off the walls, my father yells, “I’ve had it since the night after you torched my pavilion. It was just another one of the messes I had to clean up for you, and it’s the primary reason you were shipped off to an all-women’s college. You’re too stupid for your own good. Even now, you keep making decisions that can ruin this family, and I’m not standing for it anymore. Do you have any idea what I had to do to bury that tape?”

“That was ten years ago,” I argue, tears leaking from my eyes that are real this time.

“I’m well aware of when you decided to try and sink my career,” he shouts, spittle flying out of his mouth, his brows tugged together so tight that his face is a mask of anger.

“The only thing I don’t know is why you did it. Although I don’t think I need to ask. Everything you did back then had something to do with Gabriel Dane. I felt it safe to assume that stunt was just like all the others. Getting you away from him was the best thing I did as your father. And now you think you can waltz in my house and announce you’re marrying him? Think again, Ivy. He’s using you to get to me. He all but proved it by walking away just now.”

“He walked away to protect me,” I scream in return, because that’s the one thing I inherited from my father. His hair trigger. A temper that, when tripped, can terrify a normal person.

“You gave him no choice by threatening me. If anybody is using me right now, it’s you. How can you not see that?”

I hate that the tears leaking down my cheeks are real. Both anger at my father and fear that what Gabriel said to me was truth and not just another one of his lies.

On the drive over, the words he used broke me down and rebuilt me all over again. They were as unexpected as they were sincere. There is no way in hell Gabriel is using me, and for my father to claim that is a knife in my gut.

Yes, the engagement is fake, but for some fucking reason it feels real. And I refuse to let my father stand here and tell me I’m being used.

“I’m leaving-“

He snakes his hand out to grab my face, his fingertips digging into my cheeks so hard, I know they’ll bruise. Lowering his face to mine, my father sneers.

“You’ll do as you’re told if you know what’s good for you. I won’t tell you why because it’s none of your fucking business. But what you should know is I’m cleaning up another one of your disasters before you have the chance to ruin everybody’s life because of it. I tried a different approach with you by taking everything away. I gave you the chance to fix this and realize just how awful that boy is. But what did you do? Ran straight to him. Your entire life, Ivy. That’s how long you’ve chased after Gabriel, and if you think nobody