being knocked around and had the nerve to hit back—he appeased her by giving her a vacation to the Mediterranean. That was his way of keeping me under his thumb once I got too big for him to beat the shit out of. He sent me away.
I was Whitman Rose’s punching bag, she was his trophy wife, and he kept her supplied with pills and booze on the off chance she finally grew a backbone and attempted to stand up for her only child—something she’d never do.
From the outside, I looked like everything Shane had accused me of being: a rich, entitled asshole. I was an asshole, but only because I didn’t know any other way to be. I’d had the hell beaten out of me for so long that the only time I felt good was when I was inflicting that kind of pain on someone else. At least with those assholes at my school I knew I’d win. And I was never the one to start any of those fights. They’d push and push, knowing I’d snap, and when I finally did, all I saw was red, all I felt was this twisted exhilaration. Each fight was like an out of body experience. I’d lose complete control, only stopping when someone else stepped in to break it up, usually having to pull me off the bastard I was pummeling.
Everything about my life that all those other kids envied was all for show. I had the nice ride, the nice clothes, my own credit cards, all that shit so no one on the outside would look too closely. My old man couldn’t risk anyone seeing behind that perfectly crafted facade.
Being judged by someone who didn’t have a clue what the truth was had never bothered me before. But for some reason, knowing the girl with all that long, dark hair and those sweet, honey-colored eyes thought I was a piece of shit made my stomach twist violently. I didn’t know what it was about her that set me off, but from the moment I saw her standing inside my bedroom I knew I wanted her. It was a feeling I’d never experienced in my whole life. I’d had plenty of girls. Girls who got off on being with a bad boy, girls who thought they could “heal” me, girls who were after my family’s money. But I’d never wanted to make a single one of them mine in the way I wanted to make Shane.
Walking into my room, seeing her standing there, my gut reaction was to be pissed someone was in my personal space. Then I heard those words come out of her mouth, insulting me without even knowing me, and that pissed melted away, replaced with humor.
However, when she turned and looked at me everything changed. She was as bright as the sun. When those eyes hit me, they lit everything up, her glow cutting through the darkness and chasing away the shadows. And when she threw attitude, giving as good as she got, when she didn’t waver or seem impressed or intimidated by me, that need for her only grew.
She was the only thing I’d ever wanted that wasn’t handed to me on a silver platter—aside from a loving family—and the fact that she couldn’t stand me, that she thought the same things about me that everyone else thought, left me feeling raw and exposed, like a sanding block had been dragged over my skin.
Curling my hands into fists and clenching my jaw, I climbed the stairs to the old man’s second floor office.
I hated that fucking office. I hated the whole fucking house. But mostly, I hated the people in it.
Knowing it would piss him off, and unable to stop myself from pushing his buttons, I twisted the knob and threw the door open without knocking. I didn’t have any control over my own life, so I made outlets for myself. I banged any willing girl who threw herself at me, I got into fights with assholes who were just asking for it, taking my aggression out by pounding their faces into a bloody mess. And I stuck it to my folks in little aggravating, childish ways like not knocking, leaving my room a mess, and behaving like a punk every chance I got.
“You summoned?” I snarked as soon as I stepped into the room, looking to the huge monstrosity of a desk he stood behind, looming over it like a king surveying his kingdom.
His