Thirty-Four
IFEEL LIKE WE REALLY HAD SOMETHING HERE,” TOM SAYS TO ME when I put my hand in his.
I found him waiting for me on the stairs, our next stage. He’s the picture of preparedness, his suit unruffled, his hair dramatically perfect.
I roll my eyes. “You’ll survive,” I reply.
We hear voices at the bottom of the stairs and the office door opening. Dash exiting the office where he executed yet another marriage license, new wife accompanying him in the celebratory postlude. It’s our moment.
“Three… two… one,” I say under my breath.
Right on cue, Tom starts our scene.
“Fine,” he says loudly, with pompous retaliation. “I didn’t even want to come anyway!”
“Then why did you?” I wail. While it’s not as if I were expecting loads of fun from the day, the past hour has offered nothing except frustration. It’s nice to indulge in the easy over-drama of Heiress Olivia.
“I don’t even know.” Tom glowers. I have the distinct impression I’m not the only one enjoying the pretense. “You have major issues.”
“Oh, I have issues?” I retort. “You never loved me, did you?”
Now he can’t help almost smiling. Admittedly, I’m not just reveling in my character. He’s a perfect scene partner. It’s fun, challenging him to follow my lead.
“I loved you!” he cries.
“No,” I fire back. “If you loved me, you wouldn’t be saying this now. I should tear up the poem you wrote me.”
His character falters just momentarily, the span of one raised eyebrow. Recomposing himself, he levels Shakespeare-meets-the-CW hurt into his voice. “You destroy our poem, and this is really over.”
“I thought it already was,” I reply in my own imitation of wounded rage.
Inside, I’m dancing with delight. Our audience has gathered. Guests have entered from the garden, drawn to the foot of the stairs in unsubtle voyeurism. Exactly the way I imagined when I re-scripted the heist’s second act in the van. I rip my hand from Tom’s and stare at the light behind him until my eyes water. The opulent chandelier glitters painfully, prickling my vision.
Tom, a better actor than me, manages to summon real tears. They fill his brown eyes beautifully.
“You just don’t know how to be loved,” he says, his voice so quiet, it commands the room. “You wouldn’t even know how to recognize it when it’s right in front of you.”
I blink, my performance caught on something in his expression. He looks… real. As if his words aren’t just a line in this show we’ve enacted.
You don’t know how to be loved.
How could I, when half the people who have loved me have broken my heart? The question is the reminder I need to shrug the accusation off—to remember why we’re really here.
“Right in front of me?” I ask, scoffing. “No. Not anymore.”
I walk past him, down the steps. Out of the corner of my eye, I note the occupants of the office have emerged into the foyer. My dad and Maureen look around the room, confusion on their faces.
I’ve done what I need to. Plenty of people have witnessed my dramatic breakup. Word will spread across the wedding by dinner. What I do next isn’t part of The Plan. It won’t help me get the codes to Dash’s accounts or find out who Abigail Pierce is.
I do it for one reason only. Because Dash has done his best to relegate me into the shadows of his life. I don’t live here, in my childhood home. I wasn’t in the bridal party. I’m not even seated at his table.
Right now, though, I’m not in the shadows. I’m center stage. I’m the main attraction, and I can’t help using that spotlight to cast darkness on Dash. To make his day look just a little worse.
“Screw you, Thomas!” I shout at the top of my lungs. “I never should have slept with you.”
I hear gasps ripple through the room. Heads turn in my father’s direction. Whispers spread. Hopefully about how shitty a parent he must be to have a daughter acting out like this.
“You don’t mean that,” Thomas says from the stairs, valiantly charging forth despite the change in our audience.
I raise my chin in haughty indignation, glowering the way I imagine my cousin Mia would. While I don’t know where I’m going with the performance, I don’t care. The farce has gone from the means to my devious end to the end itself.
“Oh, I—” I start to say.
I don’t react fast enough when I notice Tom’s eyes flit past me. The hand I feel clasp my elbow is unforgiving.
I whirl, finding my father himself.
Dash is livid. His face, which has started recently to show wrinkles like the soft creases of dollar bills, is warped with fury. The vein in his forehead is visible, spidering out over his silver eyebrow. His lips only control his snarl with effort. There it is, I notice. Dash Owens’s favorite glare, reserved for his darling daughter. It startles me, catching on old instincts for repentance, ones I’ve fought and reassured myself were gone.
Their reappearance is unwelcome. Will I never get free of the urge to seek my father’s forgiveness? I have enough opponents—Lexi, Dash, the entire Millennium Security squad posted up in my childhood home like it’s the Pentagon. I can’t waste one moment of hesitation, one scrap of effort, fighting myself.
Dash pulls me off the last step of the stairs and into the study, moving fast. I don’t resist, distracted and in my head.
He slams the door, sequestering us in his wood-paneled place of power. “What the hell is wrong with you?” he demands.
His reaction… hurts. I stiffen, surprised by how wounded I am. Yes, I know my “breakup” with Tom was only for show. My dad doesn’t. What if I were feeling everything I loudly pretended? Humiliated, disappointed, used?
Is this how my father would react?
While his parenting wasn’t exemplary when I was younger, he was only dealing with the small stuff. Forgotten homework, loud sleepovers with friends, the dimensionless difficulties of childhood. Moments like right now give me rare glimpses of how he would have reacted if I’d needed help with harder parts of life, the dangerous grays of adolescence. Dating. My future.
I shrug off the feelings, literally. “Nothing. I was just ending a relationship,” I drawl. “Surely you can relate.”
Dash grinds his jaw. It gives me a dark hit of relief. Good. I can get under his skin just like he can get under mine. The joy of family.
“You’re embarrassing me. At my wedding,” he emphasizes, as if I’d somehow forgotten my surroundings. “Knock it off. I kicked you out of this house once, and I can kick you out again.”
Without offering me the chance to respond, he storms out. I don’t dare hope he’s fleeing from the guilt of the cruel invocation of my living situation, which was low, even for him. No, he just wants nothing more to do with me right now.
Forget him, I reprimand myself sternly. I don’t need to defend my feelings. I owe him nothing. I deserve to have human emotions even if they’re inconvenient to my father. I’m not just an heiress or a reject. I’m a person.
I’m surprised to find my eyes watering. Dash’s words were quick, the moment only seconds long, but their sting remains.
What dries my lashes is the sight of the safe behind his desk. The perfect iron reminder of my resolve. I sniffle once, sharply, flattening my mouth. Even if I have to help Lexi, I will get the codes I need.
He can kick me out then. I won’t care.