Chapter 2 （Teddy）
“In conclusion,” myfather said, raising his champagne glass high, “remember, every glass of Bo?rl Kroff Magnum 1996 you drink is just another donation to the lovely Mrs. Barrington’s Selective Breeding Foundation. To making ugly horses a thing of the past!”
Everyone raised their glasses and drank enthusiastically. Everyone except me. This swill was overpriced, overrated, and I was frankly bored as fuck of Louisville elite parties.
My on-again, off-again girlfriend Cressida was excited, though. The perks of casually dating the heir to the massive Barrington fortune never failed to thrill her.
“Theodore and Penelope always know how to find the absolute best years,” she enthused, and I know she thinks it means something that she’s on a first-name basis with my parents, but it really doesn’t.
Since I’m my father’s second in command, everyone at this party feels the need to come and suck up to me. When he retires and I take over all the family businesses, everything from our racing stables with prize-winning thoroughbreds, to real estate, riverside casinos, and restaurants, I’ll be the richest and most powerful man in Kentucky.
I’m used to the copious bootlicking by now. It’s just boring to me.
Part of the droning background noise that is the majority of my life.
Some of the other finance guys who work at my father’s company were talking to me, but I wasn’t really listening.
I ignored the champagne offered by every passing waiter and tipped the rest of my glass of whiskey in my mouth instead.
I’m halfway to being shitfaced already.
Derby Week used to be my favorite time of the year.
But that was a while ago. Before she left.
The flash of anger I always feel at the thought of her absence hits me again. I was hoping after a few years it would have disappeared or just been a dull ache in the background. But it isn’t. It’s still like an open wound, a throbbing pain that cuts through me when I least expect it.
She wanted to leave. She wants to be in Chicago. Not here.
I need to get over it.
But I can’t. So I just pour myself another glass of whiskey as the sun slants lower on the horizon, which means my parents’ big white mansion is shown to the greatest advantage as it sparkles brilliantly.
Someday it’ll be mine, too.
But I couldn’t give less of a shit. About it or anything. Not my job, not my money, and definitely not my on-again off-again girlfriend.
I raised my head and tipped my glass back, the liquid burning down my throat.
“Geez,” Cressida said, half-jokingly. “What’s the matter? Leave some for the rest of us.”
I flicked my eyes over to her.
I don’t take shit from anyone. I have a reputation as a cold asshole and I earned every fucking bit of it.
“Nothing’s the fucking matter. If you want to monitor my drink intake, I’ll call you an Uber and you can leave.”
Cressida flushed and stumbled over an apology, but I was already looking away, back down at my glass of whiskey.
I could hold my liquor, and I’d need at least another two of these if I wanted to get the exact amount of shit-faced I would need to get through the night.
Cressida could stay or go and it wouldn’t matter to me. I could always find some other woman to fuck.
People at the party were standing talking in little groups, drinking and waiting for the hundreds of plates of sushi my parents had catered.
Raw fish in the middle of Kentucky. Seemed like a great idea.
I leaned against a nearby table, feeling the eyes on me. Being next in line to control the company made me powerful despite my age, meant everyone wanted on my good side, all the anxious eager faces melting into one amorphous blob of grasping, thirsty supplicants.
Just as I motioned for a waiter to bring me another glass, I saw a woman in what looked like a pastel buttercup yellow dress walk up on the back lawns.
I turned idly to wonder who was wearing an old prom dress to one of Louisville’s most exclusive parties, and froze in place.
Jesus God. Fuck.
She’s here.
For a moment I was convinced I must have drunk more than I thought and blacked out. There was no way my sister Ophelia was really here, at the Barrington Selective Breeding Foundation Charity Night.
The last time she was here, she told my mother horse breeding should be illegal, which caused a whole and entire scene. I had to forcibly separate the two of them. But Ophelia loves scenes.
There’s no mistaking my sister’s confident walk.
Not for me, anyway. I can feel her presence even across a football field.
Her long honey blonde hair is wound into a messy bun, and there’s a splash of sunburn across her nose.
She’s dressed in some kind of strapless pastel prom dress, grabbing those big creamy tits that always drove me fucking insane because she’s about to fall out of the gown.
In the first moment I saw her, I wanted to walk over and strangle her, because I’m so pissed she left me and never looked back. In the next moment, I could feel my stomach plummet as she turned toward me, my heart in my throat, the blood pounding in my ears. I fought the urge to be a goddamn wormlike simp for her, like I always was.
Ophelia didn’t look particularly pleased to see me, and at first she didn’t come any closer, only grabbed a waiter and then looked at his platter.
“Oh, god, anything else besides mint juleps?” she asked.
Hearing her voice for the first time in two years was like being dunked in cold water, and I could already feel my stupid cock twitch at hearing her accent.
She still has it.
I had spent way too much time wondering if she was going to try to drop her Kentucky accent now that she lived in Chicago.
It wouldn’t have been easy to do. But if Ophelia wanted something, she held on like a bulldog.
“No, ma’am,” he replied, startled. “This plate is all mint juleps.”
“Whatever,” Ophelia said, and grabbed a glass, downing it like I did, then making a disgusted face.
Then her eyes flicked over to me. Apparently, she had to drink alcohol to bring herself to talk to me.
“Theodore,” she said, heading over to me.
I forced myself to remain leaning against the table as I watched her sensual, unhurried walk, the way her hips moved and rolled with each fucking intoxicating step. Sometimes I wondered if Cressida had guessed my secret, if I had talked when I was drunk, but I didn’t move a muscle.
“What are you doing here?” I asked, pleased at how cool my voice sounded.
Almostlike I was a normal fucking brother who didn’t give a shit about his sister.
She stopped in front of me, and this close I could see every one of the spray of freckles on her nose and how her sunburn was beginning to peel.
Shit.
I had imagined this moment for a long time. How pissed I’d be at her. What I’d say to her. I even toyed with the idea of ignoring her, like she’d ignored every one of my calls and texts for the last two years. But now that she’s here all I’m doing is fighting the urge to let the air out of her tires, smash her car engine, so she never leaves again.
But why the fuck on this weekend, of all the worst weekends to come home?