my mother didn’t have the sense she was born with. Because if she had, she wouldn’t have left us alone with him.
Drew Wolfe isn’t just a cold man. He’s an entire arctic storm system. He’s all freezing rain, gale force wind, razor-sharp ice shards bound together by an unflagging stamina. I should have known he’d never relent. He wants his due, and he doesn’t care his daughter has to give her life for him to have it.
My legs, honed by years of carrying more than their fair share of emotional baggage, hold steady as I make my way out of the room.
“Elisabeth,” my father calls when I grab the door handle.
“Yes?” I don’t turn around. I can’t bear to see that cold nothing on his face.
“You should stop by the powder room, your make-up needs retouching.”
I walk out of his office, the mingled sound of his laughter with Dukes are daggers in my back.
I make it to my office and shut the door behind me. I stand with my back pressed to it, feeling around until I grip the handle so I can lock it.
I walk over to my desk, pull a compact out of my purse and take a good long look at myself. I worked so hard to fill her shoes, I’d sometimes look in the mirror and for a second see her face. It used to be a source of motivation. A reminder I was honoring her memory, doing my duty to my family. Now, all I see is the person who stole all of my dreams.
This morning when I felt so hopeful, so sure, feels like a lifetime ago. The well of despair filled to the brim with all the shit I’ve swallowed trying to atone and emancipate myself at the same time. I was prepared to work for my father’s company for the rest of my career, all I’ve earned was to be able to enjoy the part of my life I didn’t spend at work. I’ve been dreaming about drawing again. I’ve been apartment hunting and window shopping.
I’m well-qualified, I can get a job. Rich said he knew once I was in New York, I’d be snatched up by one of the big management firms. My father can’t blacklist me at every company that has an office in New York City. I need to keep my head in the game. If I let it out, the storm inside of me would destroy everything I’ve worked for.
But I have to release some of this pressure, I gather a wad of paper towels and shove them in my mouth and scream.
My makeshift gag muffles the sound, but the anger fueling it is blistering hot, and when I’m done, I’m exhausted and my throat is raw and my mind is made up.
Pleasing my father was a defensive stance, but I held it for so long I didn’t notice the collar he slipped around my neck until he yanked it.
He was trying to remind me who’s really in charge. But all he did was remind me that I know how to evade that collar. He only thinks he’s my alpha because I let him think it. I’m done.
10
Carter
Not ready
“You want me to call you a car?”
The girl lying naked next to me raises one of her prone hands and lifts the curtain of hair off her face and peers up at me in groggy confusion. “I thought I’d crash. It’s like…6am.”
I stifle an irritated groan when she burrows deeper into her pillow. “I can’t sleep with someone else in my bed.”
I pull the pillow she’s laying on out from under her.
“Hey!” She scrambles up to a sitting position, shoves the long sheet of hair out of her face and glares at me.
“I’ll call you a car. If you want, I’ve got some cash in the drawer by my door. You can take it on your way out. Thanks for a nice night.”
I lay back down and drop the pillow on my face.
“You asshole. She yanks the pillow off my head and throws it across the room before flipping the switch on the lamp on her side of the bed. "You got off, didn’t do shit for me and now you won't let me take a fucking nap?”
I grope on my bedside table for the sunglasses I’ve taken to keeping there and slip them on before I open my eyes again.
I sit up and prop myself against my headboard. I pick up the half smoked joint in my ashtray