He’s not asking me, although I do remember that idiot. My grip on the door handle tightens. Any other woman wouldn’t cower. She would face him and remind him that he’s asking questions that are none of his damn business. A braver person would ask him to leave and not return until he learned how to treat someone like a human being. And a stronger person wouldn’t put up with such disrespect.
But when it comes to my father, I’m not brave, or strong, or grown. I remain that fearful child battered by his words, terrified he’ll hit me, and reduced to nothing.
My mother’s voice rings in my head. Don’t cry. You’ll make your father mad, it tells me.
I don’t want to think about her, or what she did to herself because of him, or that she left me when she left him and never looked back. So I think about my father, because he’s here, and awful, and hurtful. Just as he’s always been.
Get out, I want to say. You ruined me. Get the fuck out of my home.
“Farrington Blake,” Father repeats, growing more irate. “My former investment partner.”
But this isn’t your home, I remind myself. And he’s the one who can kick you out. Sweat slicks my palms. Two months. You’re free in two months.
“I asked you a question, Contessa.”
Two more months.
“Are you that dense?”
Just two more.
“Contessa.”
Jesus. Two months seems like an eternity. I shut the door, not bothering to flick the deadbolt. “What do you want?”
His hideous scowl, the one that ages him, deepens at my words. My tone is feeble, but hits him as if I shouted. “How dare you?”
“How dare I what?” I slap my hands against my sides. “Question your behavior? There’s clearly something you want, or need, or desire. Tell me what it is, but don’t treat me this way.”
He storms up to me, his fury darkening his complexion. “Do you remember Farrington or not?!”
I want to tear my hair out. “Yes. What about him?” I mean to scream, but his looming presence has me shrinking away.
Although he’s angry, a certain satisfaction plagues his sharp features. He enjoys watching me squirm, and it makes me sick. “He saw you last night, stumbling intoxicated out of some pub downtown,” he accuses. “He said you were clinging to a man, barely able to keep your feet under you.”
I blink back at him, stunned. “I wasn’t drunk. I was laughing and—”
“That’s not what it looked like to Farrington—nor to the other investors in Spencer’s campaign he’d been dining with.”
Like I give a damn what those men think of me.
“Who is he, Contessa? Who is this man you chose to parade before my associates and embarrass me with?”
Father and his “associates” are everywhere. Even when he isn’t with me, there’s no escape from his presence. My mouth tightens. Curran is the one thing I have that’s all mine. Our relationship is sacred—no, he’s sacred. I don’t want my father to know anything about us.
Yet as I take in his anger, and sense my own flare, I know I may no longer have a choice.
“Was it that police officer—the one who watches you?” He scoffs when I keep my mouth closed. “Will you bed the trash collector next? Or is he too good for a woman of your repute?”
My breaths release in painful bursts, and my body turns unbearably rigid. I can’t take his verbal thrashing. But I also can’t stay quiet. “His name is Curran. He’s Declan O’Brien’s brother.” Father straightens. “He makes me happy,” I admit, my voice shaking. “And he makes me laugh. Last night, he made me laugh so hard I could barely walk.”
“Declan O’Brien has a brother?”
He doesn’t care what Curran means to me, and he still doesn’t appear to remember him. His thoughts fixate on something else, not that it should surprise me.
My happiness doesn’t matter to my father. It never has. “He has several brothers,” I answer. “All professionals who have invested wisely.”
Oh, look. He’s not impressed. The distaste puckering his lips makes that clear enough. “But aside from Declan, none are known, have sought prominence, or engaged among the elite. None. Correct?” he points out.