by Lana Sky
“I’ve heard the horror stories,” he hisses near my ear with far more vitriol than a good daddy should muster. “But my God. You really don’t have any goddamn shame, do you?”
He lets me go in disgust. As his upper lip pulls back from his teeth, a part of me exclaims, Aha! There he is: the real Thorny I remember. The man with eyes like those stagnant pools of water left after a rainstorm. Dark, frothy things with plenty of unseen horrors lurking within.
“I don’t know what you mean,” I say softly, brushing my fingertips along my throat. “I really am allergic. One bite and I could die.”
He smiles ferally, which is something he excels at: making harmless gestures into insults. From him, a grin is a missile, loaded with double meaning.
“Tell me why I shouldn’t ship you back to Los Angeles,” he says, daring me again. “Give me a reason.”
I blink, fluttering my eyelashes so hard that my view of him is sliced into snippets. I can track every nuance of his expression in stages like this. His jaw tenses, tenses. Boom, he’s frowning and something makes me take a step back.
So he can see me better, the bane of his existence.
“One reason? Hmmm…” I tap my chin with my thumb. “How about: I’m sorry, Daddy?”
“You’re not.” He reaches out, snagging a fistful of my skirt. One tug yanks me closer to him. Close enough to breathe in the wine tainting his breath. “Lily told me she was missing clothing after you left,” he says, eyeing me through a narrowed gaze. “Dresses. Shoes. Jewelry. You know—” His grip tightens, but I dig my heels into the floor to keep my balance. The harder I resist, the more he tugs, until I’m forced to take a hasty step toward him anyway. “You may be seventeen, but she could still press charges against you.”
His eyes ignite with smugness. Poor Thorny. He doesn’t even know what game we’re playing. Rising onto tiptoe, I press my lips to his cheek. They barely make contact as he jerks out of my reach, letting me go.
“She won’t,” I tell him, confident of the fact. Smoothing my hands over my skirt, I cock my head thoughtfully. “But, even if she did, there are plenty of secrets about her and her husband I could spill in return. Wouldn’t that be just marvelous?”
He watches me, his expression unchanged. There’s no surly frown of defeat. No hint of curiosity. My stomach twists again and I grit my teeth. I hate this fucking feeling—not knowing what he’s thinking.
“Good night, Daddy,” I say. “Tell Mommy I’m sorry about dinner.” I blow him a kiss and turn to make my exit. Even he has to admit it now: I have the upper hand.
“One month,” he says, and my feet stop in their tracks.
Sneaking a glance back at him is too risky. My cheeks feel hot again. Inflamed.
“Hmm, Daddy?” I call over my shoulder.
“I bet you couldn’t last one month without fucking up.”
“You shouldn’t make wagers without naming a price, Daddy,” I tell him. Again, I start for the stairs.
“Our share of your inheritance,” he says. “I wager all of it if you can act like you have some damn sense. No mind games. No sarcasm. No silly little stunts. I’m not even suggesting you last the full three months because there’s no way in hell you would. Hell, I’d go as low as a week, but fucking up in one day would be child’s play for you. One month. You’d have your full inheritance—”
“And an apology for being so very doubtful of me?” I sound like I’m bluffing.
I’m not. Neither is he.
I can only wait for his response as my chest tightens against a heart that’s beating too fast. Bit by bit, my skin feels hotter. It’s only by the sheer grace of being near a window that I can blame the breeze for shifting away from him.
“Apology?” Thorny harrumphs. “I’ll write it on the fucking wall in my own damn blood if you want. In fact.” He laughs again, that maddening sound. I picture him throwing his head back. Maybe he’s not so averse to dramatics after all. “I’ll even throw in the car.”
I bite my lip to disguise my shock. He’d really part with his cherry-red status symbol? In theory. That’s how convinced he is I’ll fail.
Touché, Thorny. A part of me hums—impressed? No, more like…intrigued. Is Elaine’s happiness worth so much to him?
“And one more thing?” I turn, schooling every muscle I possess to meet his gaze without flinching. He’s stormy again, old Thorny. I’m sliced through like a peeled banana—but he doesn’t need to know that. “You give me Thornfield, too. I’d even let you live here…maybe.”
His upper lip quirks, but it’s in the wrong direction. Up, not down. Another fleeting smile catches me off guard.
“Done,” he says.
Or at least that’s what his words convey. His body language is a mixture of tense shoulders and flexing fingers that curl into and out of fists. Annoyingly, I can’t get a read on just what they mean. Nervousness? Anticipation?
“So, what does a good girl do, Daddy?” My finger creeps into my hair before I can stop it. By then, it’s too late. He’s watching as I twist a curl around my pinkie and another flashback unfurls from the mental crevice I shoved all Thorny memories into.
“She hasn’t stopped tugging at her hair since it happened.” Grandmama’s voice drifted through the doorway, gruff with perpetual disapproval. “The girl might go bald by the time of the funeral. Please…James. Just comfort her, if you can?”
I bit my lip, alarmed by her tone. Grandmama commanded. She never groveled. She never pleaded.
She was never refused.
“No,” Thorny said, his voice a disapproving baritone even then. “I can’t stay. I’ll ask Elaine to look after her.”
“Good girls?” the present-day Thorny wonders, still eyeing how my finger is nudging a lock of my hair around and around. He frowns. “A decent human being would go upstairs, change into something appropriate, and eat her goddamn dinner.”
He storms into the dining room without taking the time to gloat. Or snicker.
He makes me believe, if only for a second, that he could have meant the dare for real.
I have just seconds to decide whether or not to believe him. I know it. An invisible clock counts down every precious bit of time I waste staring after him. He’s lying, of course. I should go in there and overturn every platter of carefully prepared food. Scream. Shout. Cause a scene.
My throat contracts as I approach the staircase instead. Slowly but noisy enough that he can hear and call it off. You didn’t think I was serious, did you, Maryanne? Not stuffy, gruff me?
I rap my fingers loudly along the banister, listening to the echoing silence. I mount three steps. Three more.
He says nothing. Not even as I enter my room and yank my dress off. Something appropriate, he said. Like Elaine’s plain, pretty ensemble? I rummage through my ramshackle suitcase until I find a white blouse with a plunging neckline and one of my old plaid skirts from Whorton’s.
Decent.
I braid my hair and kick my heels off, leaving my feet bare. Hushed voices seep from the dining room as I return downstairs.
“...starting to wonder if this was a good idea,” Elaine says, sounding oh-so worried. “I mean, what if she—”
“It’s fine,” Thorny says, raising his voice. When I round the corner, I see why: he’s facing my direction and most likely heard me coming. His eyebrow arches at my outfit and his lips part, but I beat him to the punch.
“I want to apologize,” I say, mustering up my most contrite expression. I even bow my head in shame. It’s an Oscar-worthy performance, but no one claps. “I just find that all of this has been so overwhelming…”
“It’s all right,” Elaine says, regaining her strained grin. “I…I, um, found some things in the fridge and made you a sandwich.” She nods toward a delicate creation balanced on a porcelain plate matching the platters. At a glance, it looks to be a lovingly made watercress. She even cut the crusts off.
“Thank you,” I say, reclaiming my seat. With two fingers,
I nudge the sandwich aside. Then I drag the platter of spaghetti toward me, scoop a heaping pile onto a plate, and shove as many noodles as I can fit onto a fork into my mouth.
Elaine just stares, her smile frozen, her gaze constricted. Thorny, on the other hand, clears his throat—a warning.
So he meant it after all. Be a good girl for a month. He thinks I won’t. I bet I can, just for the hell of it.
Forcing myself to swallow, I pat my lips with a napkin. “It tastes marvelous, Ellie.”
“You think so?” Elaine turns her wide-eyed gaze to Thorny, who seems more interested in his bottle of wine than validating her culinary skills.
He pours a glass and takes a sip.
“Well, I agree,” Jeremy declares, coming to the rescue with that smarmy tone of his. Writers are supposed to be suave, they say. Good with words, but his always sound slimy. “It’s damn good spaghetti, Elle. It’s not every woman who can cook.”
“Thanks.” Elaine simpers, fighting a smile. “It’s a family recipe on James’s side.”
“Oh.” I nod with mock interest. “Maybe you could teach me? Since I’m family to James as well.”
Thorny clears his throat more deeply this time. Less a warning and more an outright threat. Enough.
A part of me twists like a piece of bait on a hook. Straining. Flailing. The threat is a leash, yanked at his discretion. Five minutes in and maybe he’s right. I couldn’t last a week.
“So, Maryanne,” Elaine says as if sensing the tension. Like any good housewife, she’s adept at changing the subject. “Are you excited to continue with school?”
“School?”
“Yes. You’ll be graduating soon, I hear? I know you’ll only be here a few months, but I’m sure you’ll finish out the year strong.”
Finish out the year. My brain seizes on those words and jumps to a dangerous scenario. “Am I going to Walden?” I look from Elaine to Thorny.
“No,” Thorny says after draining his wine glass. “You will be tutored by a professor from the school while you’re here.”
For however long that may be, his disinterested tone tells me.
“But…” I fight to keep my voice at an “appropriate” level. “Why can’t I go to the actual school?”
“It’s the end of the year, Maryanne,” Thorny says. But that’s just a lie. The way he meets my gaze directly imparts the truth: I had to get you an education somewhere, but that doesn’t mean near me.
Indigestion. That’s the name I give to the sinking, twisting sensation in my stomach. Mere indigestion and nothing more.
“It’s not like I want to go.” I roll my eyes. “But I’ve finished out the year at a new school before.”
Many times, in fact. My junior year of high school was spread amongst four different boarding schools and two stints of inpatient psychiatric treatment. I’m a literal expert at slotting myself into a desk and following along with a teacher’s droning monotone. You’ve been to one corporal prison for girls, you’ve been to them all.
“I can catch up,” I say.
“You can’t.” Thorny doesn’t even look up from the depths of his glass. The remaining coating of wine has his full attention, as if he’s hoping the last drops will float onto his tongue. “Besides, your grades wouldn’t allow you admission anyway.”
My teeth clench tight over the half-eaten noodles still in my mouth. I force a swallow down and loosen my jaw. “I have straight A’s.”
Thorny raises an eyebrow and shifts to face me directly. “Straight A’s,” he echoes. “And yet you’re so far behind that I’ll have to pay your tutor double just to give you a prayer of graduating on time. The answer is no.”
My fork sprays droplets of sauce onto my lap—I’m gripping it that tightly. “But—”
“The answer is no.” His expression all but dares me to challenge him: eyebrows knitted, mouth stretched into a long, flat line.
“Can… May I be excused?”
“No, you may not,” he says, reaching for his wine. “Eat your dinner.”
“L-look at it this way, Maryanne,” Elaine chimes in from her end of the table. “You’ll have way more free time. The tutor will only be here for about half the day. You’ll have the rest all to yourself.”
She makes it sound so damn tempting. A whole handful of hours to play with. All for me. Hours of sulking on her and Thorny’s property, knowing they have a calendar hidden somewhere with my birthday circled in the brightest pen ink imaginable.
They’ll use me for their own ends, but I’ll get some free time out of it. Hooray for me.
“How about I sweeten the pot?” Jeremy makes it sound like he has a golden ticket in his pocket, the key to unlocking all of my hopes and dreams. “I’ll send you a signed copy of my latest manuscript. Hot off the presses, before anyone else can even get their hands on it. Elle claims it’s another award winner.”
“Oh, that’s so kind of you, Jeremy.” Poor Elaine sounds so impressed. Too impressed. Pink cheeks make her resemble a schoolgirl, singled out for the teacher’s attention. “I know I’m not a literary expert”—her gaze flickers toward Thorny, who downs another sip of wine—“but I really did love it.”
“It’s no problem,” Jeremy insists. “Anything for you.”
He winks.
I choke.
Ugh.
“Wasn’t your last book about a woman who hated her husband so much she got her uterus removed or something?” I ask. Something, Something Matrimony, I think it was called. The darling of the NYT bestseller list, and the eventual winner of some stupid literary prize. Gag. Barf.
Jeremy’s cheeks turn cherry red. “I’ve heard it described a bit differently than that—”
“We’re out of wine,” Thorny grunts, rising to his feet. “I’m getting more.”
“James…” Elaine watches him go, her cheeks pinker. “Why don’t we call it a night? Thank you for coming, Jeremy.”
She walks him to the door, but I stay seated, picking at my dinner.
Thorny’s little proposition is looking better by the hour. Way more tempting than even making him face me every day at Walden. “I’m sorry” written in blood, he said? Oh, hell yes.
So I do what a nice, obedient daughter does best. I shove my pride down my throat with a forkful of spaghetti, and I envision every delicious way I’ll ruin James Thorne’s perfect life—for funsies.
Not because I actually give a damn. Still, I’ll take my time and do it the old-fashioned way.
One bite at a time.
They don’t even give me a day to settle in. The moment I wake up, Elaine knocks on my door.
“Your tutor is here, Maryanne,” she says. “I’ll leave breakfast for you in the study—hope you like eggs. It’s the last door on the left downstairs. Good luck!”
I take my sweet time fishing a clean skirt and a shirt from my suitcase. Then I remove the rest of my clothing, revealing what’s taken up the bulk of space: a stack of paperbacks with simple covers and pretentious titles. Wasteland. Murder Town. Swing.
They’re all written by the one and only James Thorne. Each one sports dogeared pages, their covers falling off, the pages yellowed. I grab one at random and flip through it. Swing. The last one he’s released and the only one he bothered to dedicate.
To the girl with the golden curls: I’m sorry.
Lucky Elaine.
She’s already gone when I head downstairs and find a new woman in her place. My tutor is wearing a starched dress suit and a pair of ugly brown loafers two sizes too big. Thorny and Elaine have sequestered her in a spacious office near the back of the house, coincidentally within earshot of both the kitchen and his office.
Just in case she screams.
I forget her name the moment she utters it and spend most of her introduction lecture doodling on the fringes of a notebook with a fancy silver pen that I assume came from Thorny’s collection. It’s tainted now, forever mine. Over is its life of penning overly analytical novels. It’s doomed to dr
aw swirls on line paper in mind-numbing rows.
“Do you have any questions?” the tutor asks after an eternity of boring chatter.
“No,” I say, surreptitiously turning the page to a clean one. I flatten my hands over the small round table I’m seated at. It’s positioned near a corner, with a tempting view of the beach and the lower balcony from a different angle. Elaine wanders it, murmuring into a cell phone. Every few minutes, she throws her head back to laugh. Thorny’s gone. She must be talking to him.
How disgustingly loving.
“Maryanne?” The tutor raps her fingers along the edge of the table. She’s frowning, and once again, I feel the tug of Thorny’s invisible leash. Be a good girl.
“S-sorry.” I clamp my teeth to trap any other words behind them. Forcing a smile, I pick my pen up and keep scribbling.
We cover the usual suspects. A bit of math. A bit of science. Finally, English—my one problem subject. The tutor laments that I’m “just a little behind.”
“Language is always a tricky subject,” she explains, contorting her mouth in a way to convey concern and compassion. Her eyes widen, her lips downturned. She’s checking every tick on the list of empathy, but I feel nothing. “Even for children who grew up in bilingual households.”
Bilingual. Funny, considering that the only words of French I know are au revoir, non, and the myriad of ways to convey, “Go to hell, Charles! And take that little brat with you.”
“I’ve found that sometimes journaling a little every day can help to strengthen vocabulary and creative writing skills,” the tutor says. She rummages through her briefcase and returns with a slim, virgin notebook in the same shade as Thorny’s car: cherry red.
“A journal?” It takes effort to school my expression into a simpering grin. Journals are for those whiny bitches in boarding school with no real friends to spill their secrets to. Maybe they got stupid and scribbled down a few things they shouldn’t have. One sneaky case of theft later and their silly inner turmoil was the talk of the school.
“Just a few paragraphs a day. We can even discuss them if you want.”
I don’t need a fucking journal, are the words I bite back. “What should I write about?”