Chapter 5 （Ophelia）
I woke up to the soundof my brother snoring. Rolling over sleepily, I saw that he was stretched out over the trundle bed in his boxer shorts, his big thighs sprawled open, his feet hanging off the side.
For a moment I felt slightly guilty that he was in the much smaller bed, but then I remembered with a lurch of my stomach that he had chosen Dad’s soulless company and any amount of comfort was too good for him.
You could see why he always had girls falling all over him, though. Why he could get any girl he wanted.
He looked like everyone’s dream man, only instead of being a knight in a fairy tale, he was a 27-year-old finance douchebag who only pretended to care about actually important things.
I huffed with annoyance and reached over to pick up my brother’s phone, moving my legs gingerly because it felt sticky and wet between my thighs. Shit, did I have a hot dream and come in my sleep or something? I really needed a shower but I had to check Teddy’s phone to see if I could find something usable on there.
Of course, I realized, I probably wouldn’t even know what usable looked like.
He hadn’t even changed his passcode. It was still the date our horse Snakehandler had been sold. God, how we had loved that thoroughbred. He had won the Derby that year, and I was filled with such pride that I could have burst with it. That was back when we were 16 years old. I hadn’t realized when the racehorses got old or injured that they weren’t going to big farms in their retirement, but to other countries like Canada and Mexico, where distributors used them for dog food.
That was the last time I trusted Dad had our horses’ best interests at heart.
Though I didn’t know why Teddy still had that passcode. He must be a lazy asshole, because I knew he didn’t really care.
I was hoping for a big note entitled MY PLAN TO RIG THE KENTUCKY DERBY, but unfortunately, I didn’t see that. I nosily scrolled through my brother’s text messages, which were mostly incredibly boring or women enthusiastically offering to fuck Teddy any way he so chose.
Must be nice, I thought sourly, remembering how my ex Matt had waffled on even calling me his girlfriend for several months.
I clicked on Teddy’s text thread with Cressida.
There was one pissed message from her last night that he had ignored, but apparently she shouldn’t hold out much hope. I couldn’t help scrolling back and most of her seductive pictures and titty shots only merited a thumbs-up emoji from my brother, and he had at least a dozen other offers for sex from this week alone.
I didn’t see anything particularly wrong with Cressida’s tits, but Teddy was always picky as fuck when it came to girls. I clicked out and was about to put the phone down when it occurred to me to check his hidden folders.
Jackpot, I thought with glee. Even if it wasn’t anything to do with the Kentucky Derby, surely my brother was at least fucking one of my mom’s friends, or something else equally amusing I could taunt him with.
I eagerly clicked on the folder, hoping for dirt.
But I gasped audibly and almost dropped the phone when I clicked on one photo after another and it was all one goddamn person.
ME.
Pictures that came from my private Instagram I thought I had locked down. Pictures I thought I had only sent to ex-boyfriends. Pictures that looked like goddamn surveillance photos.
What the fuck was Teddy doing with them?
I scrolled through every single picture with increasing panic. There must have been fucking hundreds of them.
He was spying on me!
My twin still slept in the trundle bed beside me, one big arm thrown over his head, his big chest rising and falling with his deep, even breaths.
I threw down the phone and rolled over, poised above his unsuspecting body. Then I dropped down with one knee on my brother’s balls and put both hands around his throat and started to squeeze.
Of course unfortunately it wasn’t going to be enough to actually kill him, but I still squeezed as hard as I could, bringing my knee back and jabbing it down into his balls again.
Teddy woke up with a grunt, bringing his hands up instinctively to his throat.
“What are you doing with all those pictures of me in your phone?” I demanded.
I couldn’t read the expression in his golden boy blue eyes with my hair falling in his face, but he brought his hands up to where I was trying to throttle him.
“Is this the kinky shit you’re into, Ophelia?” he asked.
“No!” I snapped at him. “I’m literally trying to choke you.”
Teddy’s mouth only twisted up a bit, and then with one swift motion he captured my wrists and flipped me all the way over so I was on my back on the trundle bed and he was atop me.
Then he put both hands around my throat, lightly caging me in, and pushed my chin up so I was forced to look him in the eyes.
“You want to play that way?” he asked teasingly.
“No, I don’t want to play, you asshole,” I cried, feeling panicky even though I was easily able to breathe.
I tried to knee him in the balls again, but he put one knee on either side of my thighs and squeezed together.
“Why are there pictures of me on your phone?” I demanded. “You’re spying on me, aren’t you?”
His face didn’t move, the half-smile still there. “Yeah, I check up on you at the University of Chicago. You don’t return any of my calls or answer any of my texts. How am I supposed to know if you are all right or not?”
“I don’t need you checking up on me, Teddy,” I snarled. “I can take care of myself.”
“Can you?” he asked, then he captured my wrists in his hands again and forced my arms above my head.
“Teddy, seriously, get off me,” I hissed.
Holding my wrists with one hand, he moved his other hand, gliding it under my shirt to my waist.
“What the fuck are you doing?” I yelped, uncomfortably aware that I had no bra on and only a thong under my big nightshirt.
He moved his hand to tickle that side curve of my waist and I wriggled uncomfortably.
“How old are you? You’re going to tickle me, really?”
“I want to know why you haven’t talked to me for two years. It’s either tickle you or spank you, Ophelia. You’re not too old to be spanked.”
Teddy moved his fingers again, then skimmed up to under my armpit.
“God, stop!” I cried.
“Why are you here?” he asked. “What made you come home?”
“I didn’t want to miss the Derby,” I said.
“You missed it last year,” my brother replied. “And the year before. What makes this year so special?”
“No reason,” I panted, feeling an uncomfortable squirming sensation inside me as his fingers danced over my body.
His legs were so tight on my thighs that I felt heat begin to pound there, and then I realized with horror that there was a thick, hard length pressing against where my thong barely covered my pussy.
“Get your disgusting morning wood off me, asshole! I can feel your cock on me. I can’t move anywhere without it fucking touching me, so get off me.”
“But yesterday you said it must be small,” Teddy protested, only squeezing his knees tighter together.
“Shut up,” I said through my teeth, trying to struggle harder now. But just as before, Teddy had me pinned effortlessly.
“And what about you? What are these? Morning nips?” he asked, tweaking where my nipples were hardened and peaked against my thin T-shirt.
I shrieked in outrage. “I’m going to kill you for that! You can’t just touch my tits.”
“In this position, Ophelia, I could do anything to you I wanted,” he countered, bending down to my throat.
When he bit me there, his teeth pulling at my flesh, I struggled as hard as I could, feeling a brief overwhelming panic as my nipples hardened at the contact with his bare chest.
“Come with me to the stables,” he said. “There’s something I want to show you.”
“What, and get attached to another horse Dad is going to get made into dog food?” I asked. “No, thank you.”
“Barrington Stables doesn’t work with kill buyers anymore,” Teddy said.
“Since when?” I asked, panting and finally giving up and relaxing my arms against his iron grip.
Damn, Teddy was strong. It was impossible to get away if he really wanted to trap me.
“Since I became the Director,” he said. “I made them stop.”
“I didn’t know that,” I said.
For a moment, Teddy looked at me so intensely that I felt my skin prickle uneasily.
Then the doorknob to the room rattled and I heard my mother’s voice.
“Come on, you two! It’s breakfast!”
*
FRESHLY SHOWERED, Iwalked down to breakfast in their big, spacious dining room, shuddering briefly as I passed the huge oil painting of my parents riding bareback on a centaur.
Mom knew about Dad’s mistresses, of course, but with the Barringtons it was always about appearances.
I greeted Grandma, who smelled like she had just put out a cigarette, and went and sat down.
I didn’t see Teddy there.
“Do you still want some veggie bacon?” my parents’ French personal chef Maurice asked me agreeably.
At one point in my college years I had been a very militant vegetarian. I wasn’t anymore, but I loved that Maurice remembered.
“I’m fine,” I said laughingly. “Don’t worry about it.”
“It’s no trouble at all,” Maurice said, hurrying back into the kitchen.
I smiled and sat down, but the whole discussion of veggie bacon amused my various dickhead mouth-breathing uncles, and they began to razz me about eating vegetarian food and my efforts to help retired racehorses.
“Hey, Maurice!” my uncle Don shouted, calling back over his shoulder. “I think this little lady misspoke. She actually wants some horsemeat steaks. I think if Mintmaker doesn’t do good at the Derby he might magically end up with a broken leg and we’ll all get to eat Mintmaker for supper. Would you like that, girl?”
“You’re disgusting,” I said hotly, trying to tamp down my temper. The loss of my beloved racehorse Snakehandler was still way more raw than it should be after 10 years, and I looked down at my plate of eggs to fight my emotions.
“Circle of life, baby,” Don chuckled. “Don’t be a little bitch.”
I jerked my head around to yell at him, but I was startled to see my brother there already, his big hands around our uncle’s neck, twisting his tie viciously.
“You want someone to fuck with?” he said contemptuously. “I’m here, fuck with me.”
You could have heard a pin drop; the only sounds in the dining room were the gurgling rumbles of my uncle getting strangled.
I waited for Teddy to let him go. Uncle Don was a big man, but nobody was as strong as my brother.
“Ok, Teddy, god,” I choked out as my uncle’s eyes began to bug out of his head, feeling my own breath catching in my throat.
My twin released him instantly, our uncle slumping against the chair.
“Anybody else have a motherfucking opinion about vegetarian food they want to share?” he asked coldly as he dropped into the chair beside my uncle.
Just the way Teddy kicked the chair out, lazily enough, with one boat-sized wingtip shoe, but with his usual restrained power, was enough to keep the room in an uneasy, unsettled silence as Uncle Don wheezed for breath.
Maurice came bustling out with the plate of vegetarian bacon, his little French moustaches bristling with happiness.
My brother took a slice of the bacon, his jaw moving as he chomped it down.
“That’s good,” he said.
I looked over to see his eyes on me. I felt a little frisson of fear at his expression.
What would have happened if I hadn’t told Teddy to stop?
He stopped when I said his name, but what if I hadn’t been there?
Would he have just kept going?
Goddamn. My brother had always been protective but this was on another goddamn level.
My mom breezed into the room, dressed in a shiny golden pantsuit like a villain in an 80s soap opera, and looking like an absolute superstar. This was slightly depressing, because I remembered I’d have to borrow some clothes from her for all these events and she was several sizes smaller.
“What are you doing today?” Mom asked Teddy.
He glanced over at me for the briefest moment, then he said, “Meetings this morning. Then the Steamboat Race this evening.”
“What about you?” I asked my father.
“Golf,” he said.
“Can I go with you, Daddy?” I asked, before my brother could say anything.
There was no better time to figure out what Dad’s plans were for the Derby. I was pretty sure Harvey was right and he was planning something. Dad did not like to lose, and from everything I heard no one was ranking Mintmaker as likely to place. I just had to find out how he planned to cheat.