Chapter 2 #2
He’s wearing a black suit with a black shirt.
It fits. The devil wears black, doesn’t he?
His turquoise eyes search my face before settling on my eyes, and there it is again.
The same feeling I had ten years ago when I first met him, when I’d stood at the swimming pool holding that stupid tin of cookies.
That fluttering in my stomach, the hitching of my heart.
That feeling like I can’t breathe.
There’s something between Silas and I that I don’t understand, that I can’t name. Or maybe it’s just that I don’t want to name it because it is so utterly wrong that I should feel the things I feel for this man of all men.
“I guess I’m sore at being taken for a fool. But that’s on me, isn’t it? The company you keep rubbed off on you in the end, didn’t it, Barbie?” Silas’s eyes narrow infinitesimally.
I can’t remember the last time I saw them with that gleam they get when he smiles—when he really, truly smiles and it touches his eyes. He’s beautiful then, and it takes my breath away to see it.
I’m reminded of Esmerelda, his mother, and I soften toward him because Silas Cruz is alone in the world. There’s a part of me that, no matter what has happened or what he’s done, hurts for him at the thought.
“Silas,” I start, wanting to tell him I’d heard about his mother’s passing, wanting to say something kind.
But before I can get a word out and, without breaking eye contact, he reaches behind me and takes my hand in his.
That fluttering in my belly, the sensation of anxiety or excitement that are interchangeable when it comes to Silas Cruz, is there again.
Heat creeps up along my neck and settles in my cheeks as electricity charges through us.
“I see you haven’t come to your senses yet,” he says, and both our gazes move to the rock on my hand. He turns the ring, touches the diamond. When I look up at him again, he’s watching me from beneath thick, black lashes. “You disappoint me, O.”
“Don’t you mean Barbie?” It’s his hate name for me, one of several. O was a pet name I haven’t heard in years. I try to pull my hand away, but he doesn’t let go. “And besides, everyone disappoints you in the end. Isn’t that right, Silas? No one is good enough for you, are they?”
He shrugs. “I wouldn’t say that exactly. But you? There was a time I expected better from you.”
It’s quiet as his gaze searches my face, and I lose myself in the turquoise of his eyes. Is his heart beating as hard as mine? I doubt it.
He’d have to have a heart for it to beat.
Besides, Silas Cruz is a man in control.
In the decade I’ve known him, this is the one thing I know to be a fact.
He is always in control, and he’s proven that over and over every time I’ve run into him over the last few years.
He’s proven that I am nothing but a pawn in his life that he can manipulate and maneuver however he wants for no reason other than his own entertainment.
But despite it all, what I feel when I get around him never changes.
He must see right through me because a string tugs at one corner of his mouth. It’s not quite a smile though.
I remember the last time we saw each other. The morning after that night.
My face burns.
“I can read you like a book, little girl.”
“I’m not—”
He brushes a lock of hair behind my ear and my words catch in my throat at his touch. That one-sided grin widens. “You’d better get better at hiding your thoughts, given the company you keep,” he says, voice low.
I slap that hand away, but he’s still holding the other one hostage. “Fuck off, Silas.”
He chuckles “Sold the house, I see. Am I congratulating you?”
“Didn’t have much choice and you know it.”
He nods once, that grin gone. I don’t know if I imagine the slight squeeze of his big, warm hand around mine, with its skin calloused and rough. He’s a businessman now, but he always loved working with his hands, building things. Gardening. All of it. I wonder if he still finds the time.
“What are you doing here anyway? How did you get in?” I ask.
“Sly’s security system leaves something to be desired.
” He releases my hand, steps away, and I feel the loss of him like I felt the cold coming in through the open door just moments ago.
It’s like he takes the warmth with him, this man.
“How’s Dad?” he asks, both expression and tone neutral.
Silas never liked my father, but I don’t think he hated him like he hated—hates—Sullivan Fox.
I glance down and turn my mom’s ring, which is set on the ring finger of my right hand. It’s a modest gold band from my dad to my mom on their wedding day. Dad gave it to me on my seventeenth birthday. That was how old she was when they got married.
“I’ll see him soon,” I say, hoping he doesn’t hear what I’m not saying.
Silas’s eyebrows rise. “You haven’t seen him since he went in?”
I set my jaw. Silas Cruz doesn’t know everything. “I guess that’s disappointing to you, too.”
“It is. I’m surprised you’d abandon a father who loved you so much, O. If I recall, that man would walk over hot coals for his baby girl, and you turn your back just like that when shit hits the fan?”
“It’s a little more involved than that.”
“Well, you’re right about that. Just remember, the courts only see a small fragment of the truth.”
“What does that mean?”
“I imagine now is the time he’d need his daughter most.”
I walk away, turning my back on him. “Don’t lecture me. It’s complicated.”
“It’s not remotely complicated. He’s your father, and I’m sure he needs you.”
I spin to face him. “Why do you care? What’s it to you? Last time I saw you, you made very clear how you feel about me and us.”
“Now, now.” One corner of his mouth lifts into that infuriating grin of his. He closes the space between us. “I told you how I felt about you, Barbie, considering your choices. Your lies.” When I go to move away, he takes hold of my arms to stop me.
“I never lied—”
“Omission is a lie—”
“My choices are none of your business.” I try to shrug him off, but he just tightens his hold.
“But you keep making bad ones.” I hear the front door open, and keys jangle onto the table there.
“Phee?” Ethan calls out.
I tug but Silas holds tight, his jaw tensing, face hardening at the sound of Ethan’s voice.
“Phee, you here? We gotta go,” Ethan says from inside.
“Let me go,” I hiss to Silas.
“He can’t save you from me,” Silas warns.
“Phee, we’re late.”
“In here!” I call out, struggling against Silas’s grip.
He’s so close now, I can feel the stubble along his jaw against my cheek, and I swear he inhales a deep breath before whispering, “Fiancé know about your visit to the courthouse?”
When he draws back, I am sure he can read the panic in my face.
“Didn’t think so. That was a good choice. Try to make more of them.”
“Fuck you.”
“And don’t worry, I’ll keep your secret. Just like I did last time you and I met.” He drops his gaze purposefully to my breasts, then winks and draws back just as Ethan flips the light switch and I break free—or Silas releases me. I’m not sure which. I stumble backward.
“What the fuck are you doing here?” Ethan stalks up to his half-brother, and just like when they were younger, he shoves him, except it’s different from when they were younger, too. Ethan’s almost as big as Silas now.
Almost.
Still, moving Silas is no easy task, and Silas chuckles.
“Hey, kid,” he says, infuriatingly ruffling Ethan’s hair like he always used to do. He’s still got a few inches on Ethan.
“Call the police, Phee,” Ethan says without looking at me. “How the hell did you get in here?”
I put my hand on Ethan’s arm. I don’t want to call the police. They will haul Silas away, I am sure of it.
“Just came to congratulate Dad,” Silas says.
I manage to pull Ethan back a little. “Come on. Let’s go, Ethan. We need to get changed. Ignore him.”
“I mean, doesn’t he get the whole company now that Hart has taken accountability for pretty much all of it? It’s how the bylaws are written, isn’t it?”
“What the fuck would you know about the bylaws?”
“So Sly will finally stop building the low-income housing now, huh? Cut his losses and all.”
“What?” I ask Silas, keeping my hands firmly on Ethan’s forearm.
Silas looks at me, cocks his head in mock confusion. “Oh, shit. You didn’t tell her?”
“Get the fuck out of here, Silas, you piece of shit,” Ethan says.
Silas snorts. “It’s no way to start a happy marriage keeping secrets, kid.
” He checks his watch. I notice it’s a Rolex.
For all his money is evil bullshit, Silas Cruz is no stranger to luxury.
“Anyway, pass on my greetings, will you? If you’re not too busy discussing wedding cakes and whatnot.
I need to go.” He looks at me. “I’m meeting someone at my hotel. ”
I don’t know why that stings. Silas Cruz and I aren’t a thing. We never were, not really. But still, there it is, that pang, that sharp cutting edge of the imaginary knife he presses into my chest.
“Don’t ever show your face here again, you fucking bottom-feeding bastard!” Ethan says, tugging himself free of me as Silas takes two steps away.
“Ethan!” I call out, but it’s too late. I see how Silas stops, how his back tenses. It’s the absolute worst thing to say to him. A glimpse of Ethan’s face, the sneer on it, confirms that he knows it. What’s more, he revels in Silas’s reaction.
Silas turns. His face is utter and complete fury.
“What’s the matter? Thought you were all about the truth, Silas. You’re a bastard. Your mother was a whore. We all know what she did.”
“Jesus! Ethan, what the hell is wrong with you?” I’ve barely gotten the words out when Silas is on him, arm swinging at Ethan’s face, knocking him backward into the glass wall.
“Call the police!” Ethan yells.
“Silas, stop!” I scream, grabbing Silas’s arm as he prepares to swing again. I wrap my arms around his neck to stop him, to put myself between them. “Stop, Silas, stop!”
Ethan laughs when Silas pauses, looks down at me, one arm wrapped around me, holding on to me for a moment. His body is warm, his scent familiar. It awakens an ache inside me.
“Get out of the way, O. I don’t want you getting hurt,” he says, coming back to himself and trying to dislodge me.
I cling to him, though, as he advances on Ethan, who touches his thumb to his bloody lip.
“What’s the matter, hit a nerve? Bastard?” Ethan asks, taking his phone out, dialing 911 himself when I don’t do it.
“You goddamn—” Silas starts, managing to get me off him.
I stumble backward but charge at Silas again. “Silas, no! You’ll kill him!” I knock into him hard, not sure how else to get his attention. He catches me when I bounce backward off his chest, which is like a freaking wall, but that does it.
As Ethan starts to speak to the 911 operator, I make Silas look at me. I set my hands on his face and make him see me. “Don’t, Silas. Don’t. It’s not worth it. Just go home. You don’t belong here. Go home.”
His eyes search my face, and there it is, the pain I know he feels at the very recent loss of his mother, Ethan’s taunts so cruel.
It’s when I feel a tear slide down my own cheek that he stops, though, his fury shifting into something else, attention coming fully to me, eyes focusing on that tear.
Slowly, he brings his thumb to my face and wipes it away, and there is a moment of rare gentleness from Silas Cruz that I have had fleeting glimpses of, that I miss so much.
It’s these moments that take my breath away.
But it’s just that, a moment, like a slip in time gone so fast, I almost wonder if I imagined it.
Silas roughly sets me aside and steps toward Ethan, who disconnects the call. “Cops are on their way,” Ethan says.
“Silas, go. Get out of here,” I say.
“Yeah, Silas, go. Get out of here.” Ethan tugs me to his side and wraps a possessive arm around me.
Silas’s gaze falls on that arm, hand possessive around my waist.
“You’re a worthless piece of shit following in your father’s footsteps.
I thought maybe once a long fucking time ago you wouldn’t want it, considering.
But I was wrong. And you,” Silas turns to me, a cruelty in his eyes I’ve never before seen, not even the last time I saw him.
“You’re just like them, aren’t you, Barbie?
You’re the one who’s not worth it. I should know better,” he spits before turning his back and stalking out of the house.