21. Mattie
My high heel caught on an uneven stone in the old warehouse-turned-restaurant, and I barely managed to keep from falling on my face. Kael steadied me, his arm held out far and well within professional boundaries. I glanced at him, trying not to linger. “Thanks.”
“Watch your step, Miss Thorne.” He looked like an A-list Hollywood star playing a bodyguard with his form-hugging, black button-down shirt that he’d rolled up to his elbows. He somehow managed to look simultaneously laid back and able to lay out a person if they pissed him off.
I swallowed against a dry throat and faced forward again, following my parents through the former warehouse. We strode past an open kitchen with busy servers and cooks who all looked like they’d shoved spatulas up their asses. The atmosphere was disproportionately serious to the odd, whimsical dishes they appeared to be turning out. Everything smelled delicious, wafting through the air in waves of savory spice, followed by the kind of sugary sweet smell I could almost taste on my tongue.
“Auggie!” a chipper, male voice called. I turned, and my hollow stomach sloshed with nausea. Jonathon stood from a leather bench that curved around the distressed, exposed brick wall.
My father met him, holding out a hand to shake. “Jonathon. So good to see you.”
“You made it,” Jonathon smiled disarmingly as he took Dad’s hand. He reached up and fixed his soft, curly, brown hair as Mom and I approached, and his disproportionately wide mouth revealed a set of straight, artificially white teeth. He had a dark brown sweater tucked into a pair of enormously wide-legged, corduroy pants. It made him look like a deranged, mechanical bear from Five Nights at Freddy’s. Although, his build was quite trim despite that, and although he wasn’t as tall as Kael, he still seemed to tower over me as we approached.
“Of course we made it,” my mother crooned. She grasped his elbows and air-kissed each of his cheeks.
My mouth slid into a frown of distaste before I could help myself. Jonathon turned his attention to me, his dark brown eyes twinkling with interest. “Matilda. You look ravishing.”
I didn’t even bother glancing down at my simple, black sheathe dress. Mom had made me take off the sweater I’d worn over it, so I was left shivering in the sleeveless, simple outfit. I nodded to him, grasping my clutch tightly. “Jonathon.”
Jonathon cocked a smile over to Augustus. “Always playing hard to get, our Matilda.”
Kael cracked his knuckles audibly behind me, but no one else heard over the loud guffaw my father made. “You have no idea, Jon. I have stories for you.”
“I’m looking forward to them,” Jonathon smiled, barely crinkling his eyes at the corners. At thirty-eight, his lavish lifestyle had afforded him the resources to age subtly, and he looked closer to my age. He gestured to the booth and chairs. “Please, have a seat. Oh,” his gaze connected with Kael behind me. Jonathon pressed his hands together. “I’m so sorry. I don’t believe we’ve been introduced.”
I threw up in my mouth a little. What a two-faced shithead. “This is Kael,” I offered, gesturing to the tense pillar of muscle behind me. “My… bodyguard.”
“Oh, excellent,” Jonathon said with apparently genuine enthusiasm. “Keeping our Mattie safe, are you?”
“Always,” Kael replied softly. “Good to make your acquaintance, Mr. Cohen.”
“Well, any friend of Mattie’s is a friend of mine,” Jonathon said with the bravado of an asshole who liked being the main person in everyone’s lives. “So, I appreciate it. I think I have it from here, though,” he winked, sliding his hands into the pockets of his trousers. “She’s perfectly safe with me. I’m an old family friend.”
“Oh, yes, Jonathon is very attentive,” Alicia agreed hastily. “You can wait in the car.”
The strain required to keep from whipping my gaze to Kael’s and pleading with him to stay actually caused a muscle cramp in my neck. In my periphery, I saw Kael nod, and then without an ounce of hesitation, he left. I knew there wasn’t anything he could do about it—not with my insistence that he keep up pretenses. But I felt his absence like having a life jacket ripped off my body in the middle of a sea storm.
I practically shook with pent-up nerves when I realized what this was. Setting expectations. Jonathon and my parents wanted to make sure I knew how alone I was.
My parents bracketed me, and then we were all seated in the leather booth, the three of us facing Jonathon. As the waiters came by to take drink orders, Jonathon and my father chatted about his excursion to the trench and then something about marine biology. I tuned them out, unwrapping a piece of gum and shoving it in my mouth so I could chew it loudly while they talked. I wasn’t about to make myself more appealing for this ass wipe.
When the servers brought out the first course, Jonathon rubbed his hands together and smiled at the three of us. “I hope you don’t mind, but I ordered us the Field Guide Menu. Their food here is absolutely sensational.”
I openly rolled my eyes. “Sensational” usually meant so weird it was inedible. The server put enormous clam shells down in front of us. They had come from a rolling cart that had been filled with ice and had been artfully decorated with the raw seafood dishes. We had to crack through a thin film of beeswax to get to the raw clam beneath. I didn’t bother breaking mine, though. There wasn’t a chance I was eating that.
While my parents slurped raw seafood dishes and chatted about marine biology, I stared at the bricks above Jonathon’s head, trying to make my brain an empty, safe space from this insanity. When they placed a plain ceramic dish in front of me with some kind of white eel cube that looked like a marshmallow, Jonathon paused with his fork over his dish. “Mattie, love, are you not hungry? You haven’t touched a thing.”
Mattie, love. Gross. I blew a bubble, filling the sudden quiet at our table with the hiss of my breath as it inflated the gum. When it popped, I sucked it back in loudly. “I’m good.”
Jonathon chuckled, shaking his head and looking down to scoop up a forkful of caviar and eel mousse. “Only you would pass on rare delicacies in favor of bubblegum.”
My mother and father laughed awkwardly. “She is unique,” my mother said with some strain in her voice.
“Oh, I know that,” Jonathon winked. I pulled a face. Ignoring me, Jonathon scooped another bit of fluffy, white seafood into his mouth. “I love unique things. Have I ever told you about my Fabergé egg collection?” I chewed gum with my mouth open, glaring silently instead of answering.
“I didn’t know you collected them,” Mom said with interest.
Jonathon wiped his mouth with his napkin and smiled at me placidly. “They’re extremely rare—the best of their kind. Lots of us collect them, of course,” he amended with a self-deprecating smile for my parents. They chuckled in agreement, like all the wealthy people had delicate, jeweled eggs. “But my collection is the best. The Kremlin thinks they have the best, but…” he shook his head, smiling. He pointed to himself. “They wouldn’t admit it, but I have the rarest, most delicate ones.”
“You must be very proud,” I said with oozing sarcasm.
Jonathon leaned his chin on his hands. His mouth pressed into a little “no” gesture. “Not quite. See, I have a lot of collections. A lot of rare valuables. Some of them are easier to obtain than others, but I won’t be proud until I’ve collected the rarest ones.” His dark eyes fastened on me with unnerving intensity. “Because it’s not about the pride of what I’ve collected. It’s about the chase to obtain them.”
Goosebumps erupted on my arms. We weren’t talking about eggs. We were talking about the deal he’d made with my father to own me. The deal that killed two birds with one stone for my parents—securing millions in assets for their company while simultaneously getting rid of the liability daughter who threatened to topple their empire. I clenched my fists under the table. “I imagine those are difficult to hold onto.”
Jonathon chuckled, his smile not touching his eyes. “That’s what makes it exciting.”
I found myself completely speechless with fear. I forced myself to hold his leer, but it made my hands shake. I clutched them together, willing some intelligence to return to my frightened brain. He couldn’t touch me. No matter what my parents had planned, I would take them down first. This entire luncheon was just a shadow of what might have been. It wasn’t my future. “I wish you luck with that.”
Jonathon slid a look to my father, like he’d been indulging a child. “Who needs luck when I have fantastic business partners? Hm, Auggie?”
My father slurped a forkful of caviar with a shout of a laugh. “It’s the only way to live, Jon. I couldn’t agree more.”
My mother laughed nervously, but I noticed that she didn’t touch the rest of her five-course meal. Neither did I.
I endured the rest of our meal in silence, my parents telling Jonathon about my “adventures,” and Jonathon watching me with predatory eyes that bordered on manic. He knew very well that I hadn’t been on a world tour or whatever tale my parents were spinning for polite society. He knew I’d been running from him, and rather than angering him, it had seemed to pique his interest more.
I ignored him, saying nothing and not bothering to contradict the lies Alicia told about my trip to Rome or the story about how I’d gone viral during a family trip to Germany’s Oktoberfest. With each lie that fell from my parents’ lips, the gleaming interest in Jonathon’s eyes only grew brighter. I felt sick and shaky. Like I was coming down with a stomach virus and would need to run for the toilet at any moment.
The realization that Jonathon had planned to collect me, display me, and keep me had knocked the sense clear from my brain. I’d known it, of course. He’d said as much before when my parents had first taken me to his chateau two years ago. But hearing him say it again, watching his renewed interest in me, it struck a chord of fear in my heart that hadn’t been there before. And it occurred to me then that if things hadn’t gone the way they had with Kael, I really might have ended up a human prize.
They still might if I didn’t see this plan through. If I didn’t sink SynthoCare for good, this crazy psycho was going to chase me down until he had me.
So, I had to take away my value.
I had to end this.