Unfinished (Historical Fiction) - By Harper Alibeck Page 0,4

his features a mask of horror, a guttural, yet silent, scream trying to come out. If her father, the richest man in Toronto and one of the richest in Boston, learned he'd slept with his daughter, not only would Jack lose his job, he'd likely be blackballed forever. Yet he wanted her still, a fact that warmed her. No one had dared make advances on John Stone's daughter. She'd been the one blackballed, rejected for her too-strong opinions and for the random event of being the gateway to a billion-dollar fortune that simultaneously attracted and repelled.

“Lilith!” Jack hissed.

“Kiss me,” she said, shifting her head to the right, the light from a gas lamp on the upper balcony spilling over her forehead and eyes.

Jack stayed still. Her heart dropped.

Lilith looked up without thinking, her head bent back, and met her father's eyes. The shock made her go slack, a chill running through her, driving all arousal from her as if she'd jumped off the Titanic in a fit of panic.

Seeing her wiped the smile off his face. Red coals of anger ignited in his eyes. He whipped around and stomped off the balcony.

Jack pulled away from her and began tucking his shirt back into his pants. “Your father! He heard us. What was I thinking? What were you thinking? I was drunk. You, you...tricked me!” Jack hastily made up his clothing, buttons half done and jacket askew. He wouldn't meet her eyes and she hardened.

“How did I trick you? Did I cast a spell and force you? Poison your drink? Make your penis attempt to enter my vagina?” She arched one eyebrow and now viewed him with disdain that – she hoped – covered her humiliation. For all she'd thought she would feel about losing her virginity, she'd not expected to find the man she'd nearly slept with to be so mousy. Cowardly. Relief filled her; she'd narrowly avoided giving herself up to this disappointment.

The relief battled an overwhelming vulnerability.

Sarcasm won out.

His nose wrinkled and his upper lip pulled up to reveal extremely crooked teeth as a look of revulsion passed over his face. “That's a vulgar way to put it!”

“And having sex with me in my father's open garden isn't vulgar?”

Jack's features had been of no importance when Lilith chose him, but now his eyes were a bit too deeply set, his chin a shade receding, and though he could do nothing about the crooked teeth, his brown hair needed a good haircut. It looked like his mother put a bowl on his head and cut, then piled lard from a homegrown pig as a pomade. She sniffed. Smelled like it, too.

She shook her head and turned, not waiting for a response. The hurt would flood her later, the pain of being used would sink in. But right now the only safe response was cool, calm rejection. Reject him before he could strike first. She could cry and feel and mourn and rejoice later. Right now, she needed to regroup.

The obstacle would remain intact, and right now she was a conduit only for her father's anger.

“My God, Lilith, what were you thinking?” her father roared. She'd seen a lion at the Bronx Zoo many summers ago, and he did, in fact sound like a lion. His beard and hair, both in need of a trim, added to the appearance of the African animal. John Stone looked a bit like an unkempt Andrew Carnegie, though taller and broader in the shoulders. He exuded disappointment in the world and in every human being he met, the waves as pungent as body odor. No one could please him, yet so many tried.

Lilith had decided long ago to stop trying to please him and, instead, to keep him in a constant state of irritation and horror regarding her activities. She knew she'd gone too far this time, though.

“You...that was an abomination against nature! Looking at me while you...” his voice trailed off into a low growl that ended in a spitting gesture.

A knock on the door startled them both.

“I've called for a review of your grandfather's trust,” Stone announced, a smug expression filling his jowled face.

“You can't do that!” Lilith replied. A cold flush ran through her arms and legs while her chest heated with a red blush, her hand creeping to her clavicle, fluttering there, transmitting the rapid heartbeat that took her during moments of conflict. Usually with her father.

“The provisions are quite clear,” she continued. “I inherit when I turn twenty-five. Should