didn’t walk in on a pool of blood and nearly faint.
If being her puppet will allow me to keep her, I don’t mind. That’s why I never, ever antagonise her. Since the divorce, I’ve learnt to bottle all my thoughts and feelings inside, put on a mask, and move along.
It’s been the safest choice for everyone.
Just not for me.
The same wave from earlier is about to hit me again, and I have no confidence that I’ll be able to hold it in when Mum is around.
As much as I want to protect her, sometimes I hate it. I hate that I can’t sleep at night, thinking about what she could be doing, or that I have to call her first thing in the morning and five times a day like a clingy boyfriend.
I’m not supposed to have had these bursts of anxiety on a daily basis since I was freaking eleven.
“I’m going to get the camera from Papa’s office,” I tell her.
She says we don’t need that since my pretentious father has paid a ton of photographers, but I deflect and leave the scene anyway.
I ignore all the chaos in the house and smile at Papa’s friends, accepting their congratulations. I slip out of their usual questions about who would I vote for if I was given the choice between Papa and Mum.
As soon as I’m inside Papa’s office, I close the door and lean my forehead on the cool surface.
My shoulders shake and my head is about to explode from the pent-up thoughts crowding inside it.
“Why can’t this day end already?” I mutter under my breath.
Then the voice that comes from behind me shuffles all my cards, “Bored already, Butterfly?”
13
Silver
You can run, but you can’t hide.
I didn’t believe in that saying until this moment.
Over the past weeks, I’ve done everything to run away from Cole, avoid him, not look at him. I even went as far as feigning exhaustion to not stay in the same room as him.
But here I am, trapped with him in Papa’s office.
Sure, I can go outside. I can open the door and run again, but that will look cowardly and I’ll never do that.
Taking a deep breath, I slowly turn around and see Cole for the first time today, like really see him, instead of pretending to while I avert his gaze.
Cole sits on the edge of Papa’s conference table, reading from a book titled The Rule of Law by Tom Bingham.
The dark blue suit pants mould to his muscles and tighten at his strong thighs with his sitting position. He’s only in a white shirt and a black bowtie, the jacket lying neatly on the chair beside him.
His chestnut hair that has darkened over the years is styled back, showcasing his forehead and the sharp lines of his face. His green eyes fall on me as his lean fingers hold the book — fingers that were inside me a few weeks ago. Fingers that brought me to a height I’ve never experienced. Fingers that —
No.
That was a mistake. We’re siblings now. A family. That nonsense will never happen again. It’ll destroy my parents’ careers and even Helen’s.
Cole and I are over.
Completely, utterly over.
And we didn’t even start yet.
“There you are.” He smiles, and it’s flat, bland, almost menacing. “Were you avoiding me or was I imagining it?”
“Imagining it.” I fold my arms, adopting my firmest, most unaffected tone. “Why would I avoid you?”
“I don’t know. It might have something to do with how you ran away from me the last couple of weeks.” He flips a page, even though he’s not reading. It’s like he’s absentmindedly keeping up with his usual pace. “You do realise you can’t avoid me forever.”
“As I said, I wasn’t.”
“You’re such a liar, Butterfly.” He strokes his fingers over the edge of the book. I want to look away, but I can’t. It’s like he’s cast a spell on me and now all I can think about are his fingers and my thighs and —
Focus, Silver.
“Why would I even need to lie to you?” I raise my nose. “You give yourself so much credit, Cole.”
“Then what are you doing here?”
“I came to search for Aiden. We have pictures to take.”
He remains silent for a beat too long, watching me in that unnerving, quiet way that makes me want to snap out of my skin or hide underneath the carpet.
Cole has always had that effect on me. I’ve denied it, I’ve run away from it, but it doesn’t disappear.
Just because