Gant
W-what happened to Madame?
This whole time she’s been blissfully unaware, and I’ve been trapped in a fucking loop that’s slowly deteriorating my sanity.
Curses and horns blare all around me as I make my way across three lanes of heavy traffic to the dance studio. I’m one lane away when the doors fly open and my mother sprints down the steps into the dark car park. Her heavy wool coat is balled beneath one arm and the falling snow is coating her bare shoulders, soaking her sheer tights, and seeping through her satin pointe shoes, but she doesn’t seem to feel it. Her Birken’s hanging off her wrist by one strap, the contents ready to slip out at any moment. Not that she’d stop to retrieve them. She’s on a mission to get the fuck away from the dance studio.
Away from town.
Away from me.
“I didn’t leak the tape,” I say breathlessly as I sprint to catch her. At the last word, she shuts the driver’s door to the Flying Spur. When she got it a month ago, I’d teased her about why a ballerina needed such a fast car. Now it seems ridiculously fitting.
Too bad it wouldn’t allow her to escape her own skin.
That’s what I’d thought, at least.
She ignores me as the engine roars to life. A cold sweat trickles down my spine as I spot the name lighting up her phone she’d tossed on the dash. It doesn’t say any term of endearment, not even something as basic as ‘husband’. It doesn’t even say, Bart. It reads, Mr. Bart Emery Auclair.
My father.
“I didn’t do it!” I pound on the window with one hand, begging her to roll it down while my other fingers jiggle the door handle. But she doesn’t spare me a glance. I’m intentionally invisible to her as she presses the gas.
The air knocks from my lungs as I toss myself onto the hood, digging my fingers beneath the metal to stay attached.
Through the glossy windshield, her red, shocked, and furious eyes lock on mine as she gently pumps the brakes, trying her damndest to stop me from flying off.
Why is she so shocked? Doesn’t she realise I won’t ever be ignored?
We stare at each other for what feels like centuries, her fingers gripping the steering wheel turning as white as the snow falling.Then she snaps.
I can’t hear her, but it’s pretty clear she’s screaming. “Get the fuck off, Gant!”
“No,” I mouth, not bothering to say it audibly.
Something behind her head catches my attention, just like it caught that cunt’s attention on the steps. Clouds. I can see the cloudy sky behind her head through the opened moon roof she always forgets to shut. Even in the winter, she liked the wind rustling through her hair after a full day of wearing it slicked back.
I seize the opportunity, climbing the windshield and diving straight through the opening.I’m halfway through when the car lurches and she books it out of the car park. Climbing into the passenger seat, I just stare at her all over again.
And she pretends I’m invisible all over again.
“I didn’t leak it.”
Silence.
One corner passes. Then two. Then three.
I know I shouldn’t push her. She needs time to process, but the silence is unbearable and I can’t breathe until she acknowledges me.
“Mum—”
The word snaps something inside of her and she pounds a fist on the steering wheel.
“Why?” it comes out so hoarse. So broken. “Why Gant?”
“I didn’t—”
“Why did you have it? Why was that video on your phone? Why were you recording me having…”
“Let me explain—”
She shakes her head, tears falling down her cheeks as we run through a red light. “It doesn’t matter now. Your father.”
She doesn’t have to explain. We both know and we both don’t know.
It’s worse than bad. My father’s fury has no limits and whatever he plans to do to us, yes us, for humiliating him, will be utterly unfathomable.
I want to comfort her and I want to scream at her all at once. Why would she have an affair at all, but why would she do it in a public place knowing who Bart Auclair is?
I’d kept a copy of the video to confront her when she ultimately denied it. I knew she would. I needed the evidence to pin her. To scold her like the child I sometimes feel she still is. Then I’d destroy the tape after shaking the fear of God into her. After bringing her to her senses.
But I never got the chance because that little bitch beat me to it.
Her phone vibrates and rattles against the dash before falling off and disappearing somewhere by the petals she’s still mashing to the floor.
Time ticks on with my thundering heartbeat, but she still doesn’t talk.
“What are we going to do?” I ask finally, because one of us has to speak. One of us has to formulate a plan.
What is the plan? Or are we driving aimlessly?
Is there a we at all seeing as she was ready to abandon me in the car park?
No response.
The car banks a curb too sharply, and my temple knocks into her bony shoulder so hard my eyes water.
Still, she doesn’t speak. Not even a hiss of pain.
A half second passes and finally, she speaks, she screeches my name with a blood-curling pitch.
“Gant!”
Her terrified eyes fly from the rearview mirror to me, then her head as she’s propelled partially onto my seat as the car jerks left.
A flash of black darts past her window and it takes me another half second to realise the rear corner of the overtaking vehicle had run into our fender. Had thrown us off the road entirely as the tyres hit the curb again, before banking over it.
The car spins and the world spins with it. Glass shatters, raining down on me like a thousand razors. Blinding, unimaginable pain explodes behind my eyelids as something stops our horizontal momentum.
Minutes tick by and no other thought comes to me other than pain, excruciating pain that throbs through every microscopic part of my body.
And then, nothing.
Suddenly, there’s just nothingness, because when I open my eyes again, I see my mother’s soul fleeing with my bodily agony.
It’s as if my brain shut off the nerve endings because this pain, this new pain, this new nothingness, is too much for me to bear.
The problem is, my body never turned the fibres back on, and numbness is my new normal.
Until now.
Until Elle.
The scene from the auditorium replays in my mind like a fucking movie, but not with the air of satisfying revenge I’d craved. No, it comes with a dose of manic eroticism.
The little bitch had tried an Uno reverse.
Tried to mark me, claim me with my own essence on that sweet little tongue of hers.
Did she think it’d repulse me?
Piss me off?
All it did was make me harder because it was so fucking cute.
Everything about her is.
Her lightly freckled face had looked so innocent, her pouty pink lips so soft and wet as they quivered under my boot. I can still feel the subtle recoil of her plump ass trembling against my cock when I brought her into a chokehold, pinning her to my chest. My elbow still tingles from the little pinpricks of her pink nails, so tiny and useless as they dug into my flesh. Her little breathy moans that jiggled her breasts still coo in my ear as do her pathetic whimpers, begging me to stop. To let go.
And when I did, the vision of her terrified face beneath my dick was enough to make me shoot cum on her instead.
What would it have looked like? Decorating her face as she blinked those big, doe-like eyes so filled with feigned innocence up at me. I’m already claiming that innocence, real or not, as my own.
She’s marked.
All mine.
Off-limits to any male.
Had I barred her from the male population simply because, despite it all, I had a heart? Because I didn’t want the brutes to fuck her so badly I would no longer enjoy messing with her myself? Or was it something deeper? Something darker that made me claim her as mine. Something that lurked since the first time I saw her at the studio and crept into my dreams despite my hatred. Something I felt the moment she appeared in that news interview.
When I think about it, my lust isn’t so surprising. I want to dominate her.
I want to thoroughly fuck her, break her in every way possible. So why would sex be off the table when it’s the most intimate act humanly possible?
I can spread her wide, reach in, and demolish her insides too.
Mine. It tastes so fucking good on my tongue. She isn’t just my target but my toy, my little doll to ruin. And once I do, my obsession will end.
My flashbacks will go away, and so will the lust.
Then I’ll make her go away, but not before I’m fully satiated.
Beaulieu is my dream. My lifeline, or so she’d said. She won’t leave because of one golden shower. No, it’ll take far more to make her snap, and I don’t want to snap her just yet.
I shift on the dining room bench in an attempt to distract my hardening cock and fish Eloisa’s phone out of my pocket. It’s the same phone I’d gotten her three years ago. I’m astonished that the relic still works, but more than that, I’m impressed by the care she’s given it. It looks brand new, free of scratches and dirt as if it’s her most prized possession.
I hit the power button.
What a dummy. No passcode, yet she had one last time, so what changed?
I stroll through her boring apps as Zedd sets into Stassi over a spread of breakfast items, none of which Stassi has touched.
“Where were you?” Zedd asks, buttering a croissant. “You didn’t come home last night and then this morning you just popped up at school like you weren’t missing for the entire summer?”
“I was with Mum,” Stassi says, avoiding eye contact.
“And she isn’t saying shit, either.”
Opening Eloisa’s contact list, I find less than ten numbers, three of which belong to healthcare workers like Dentist Fairfield. There are three conversation threads from female names, all of which congratulate her on her bogus scholarship. Then there’s mum, but no dad. No Jarett Ginhart, who’s been M.I.A for three years.
“You weren’t home last night?” étienne’s cool voice rings out. He’s talking to Stassi, but he’s fixated on Aria, who’s shrinking before our eyes.
Stassi looks at Aria, her mouth gaping, but no words come out.
“What have you two been doing?” Zedd asks.
“Drop it Zedd, you’re not Dad, ok?” Stassi says finally, taking a sip of water. “Just leave me alone.”
“After you answer. You know Beaussip’s going to be all over this. They’ll say something stupid like you were pregnant and got rid of the baby.”
“A guy would have to get within a metre of me first,” she mumbles miserably.
“And I’ll see to it that that doesn’t happen,” Zedd swears. “But it doesn’t stop the rumours. Or they’ll say that you’re doing drugs to lose so much weight.”
“That’s horseshit,” she says, but then why does she look so guilty?
“So what’s the truth?” Hale asks softly, his fingers twitching as if he’s about to reach for her before he settles on a muffin and an orange slice instead. “We’re just worried about you. Is everything okay? Are you okay?”
“Are you okay?” Zedd asks, his eyes snapping to Hale. “Why are you asking her shit? Why are you even here right now?”
“What? At the cafe? To eat!”
“I’m fine!” Stassi bellows, running a hand through her blonde locks. Multiple strands cling to her fingers, and she hastily tries to hide her hand in her lap, but not before catching my eye. “You guys stress me out so much my damn hair’s falling out.”
I doubt that’s the reason.
“I just spent time with Mum in St. Barts to unwind, that’s it, ok? And Ari and I crashed at Benoit’s so we could catch up after the break. You know, have some private girl talk in peace without our unhinged brothers lurking around.”
Benoit’s is a five-star hotel not too far from my penthouse.
Still, I know it’s a lie, and so does Aria.
Aria flinches at the b-word, but she doesn’t look up from her plate of French toast, completely ignoring éti’s stare boring into her skull.
“You’re all so invested in us, but what about you, Gant?” Stassi nods at me incredulously. “He just pissed on someone in front of the entire school. You guys have clearly been scheming all summer, and yet this is the first we’ve heard of it?”
The change of subject snaps Aria back to her snarky self almost immediately. “I can’t believe you fabricated an entire scholarship to lure her here. Why didn’t you tell us you’ve finally found your arch nemesis?” she asks, stabbing at her French toast and arching a brow.
“Perhaps for the same reason you two are keeping secrets,” I say, exiting the conversation thread with Eloisa’s mother. There’s no news about Jarett there, just a message that her mother had gotten home safely and that she loved her.
Somehow that simple I love you raises enough bitterness and resentment within me to toss the phone straight into Bae’s coffee mug, but I resist the urge, gripping the phone tighter. I’d never get such a message from my mother again and it’s all thanks to her.
Stassi squirms, but Aria lifts her chin and brushes away a stray curl from her forehead.“You may want to reconsider being more open with us.”
“And why would I do that?” I ask lazily once the bitter feeling passes. I click open Eloisa’s period tracker. This could come in handy later.
Her last cycle ended two days ago and it should be back on in twenty-nine days. Little alarms go off every morning at seven to remind her to take her birth control. My lungs stiffen at that. Is she fucking someone? Or had she been in her old town?
Immediately, I open her photos and search for any sign of a male. My heart slows when I only find a few pictures of her at her old public school that looks like a prison. In almost every photo, she’s alone or in ballet attire. There’s a picture from last Christmas of her and her mum posing next to a sad, skinny Christmas tree. If it could be called that. It looks like a plant they’d swiped from the woods. Only two gifts sit at the potted base, but both women are cheesing in ugly Christmas sweaters as if it’s the best day ever.
I stare at the broken gingerbread man using two candy canes as crutches on Elle’s sweater and immediately comparisons of my own Christmases sprint to the forefront of my mind. Bart, when he showed up, would never wear a matching sweater with me much less an ugly one. Then again, neither could my mother.
The next photo shows both women again in hairnets, grinning behind a meat display counter. Did she work in a deli? One thing is obvious, despite each seemingly abysmal background, Elle’s smile progressively shines brighter. The final picture is of her standing on Beaulieu’s front steps making the peace sign just hours ago.
My, how things have changed. That’ll be the last smile she wears for the entire year.
“Because she’s our new roommate.”
I freeze, glancing up at Aria’s smirk before a smile stretches my lips. Well, this fresh development could take my revenge to a whole new level.
“Ari, let’s finish unpacking,” Stassi says, her eyes darting between us before she pulls Aria to her feet.
As they walk past me, I slip Eloisa’s phone into Aria’s blazer pocket. I’d already installed spyware on it. I could finish lurking remotely.
Aria, of course, doesn’t question me.
“Wait,” Zedd says, lifting Stassi’s unfinished plate. “You barely ate.”
“I’m not hungry,” Stassi calls over her shoulder and Zedd frowns, gazing from the full plate to her mug of untouched coffee.
étienne storms off somewhere while Zedd and Hale continue to bicker, flapping their arms wildly over the table like two squabbling geese.
“What’d you find?” Bae asks, unbothered by the drama as he pops a strawberry into his mouth.
“Nothing of use,” I say. “Yet.”
Bae eyes me over the rim of his coffee mug, studying me in that annoying way he always does. He’s far too attuned with shit that shouldn’t concern him.
“What?” I snap.
“I don’t get it. We both know you want to humiliate her. Punish her. Ruin her. But we both know you want to fuck her too.”
“So?”
“So how do you figure she’ll give in after the hell you’ll put her through?”
“I’m not putting her through hell, am I?”
“Publicly pissing on her aside, you still sanctioned the secondhand bullying. She’ll still see it as you orchestrating everything. Shouldn’t you have lured her into a false sense of security, fucked her first, then tossed her aside?”
“No. When I fuck her, I want her to know exactly who I am, and how much I fucking hate her. I want her to hate herself for wanting me. For letting me in despite it all. That way she can’t pin her pathetic pinning, climaxing, begging on not knowing. That way, she can never forgive herself. No, no pretences.”
Bae shakes his head. “You’re taking the hard road. Who’s to say she’ll give in?”
“She claimed me.”
“It was bold of her. Brazen even, but she was just trying to save face. Find some leverage.”
“She can find it on my cock. You should’ve felt the way she trembled on it.”
“You don’t even know if she’ll stay.”
“You’re forgetting that there’s something she loves more than she hates me.”
Bae arches a brow in doubt.
“Ballet. And I’ve given it to her on a silver platter, haven’t I? She’s here at the most prestigious dance academy in the country. If she leaves, what decent college program or theatre will give her a chance? No, she isn’t going anywhere. No matter what I do.”
“I’m still not seeing the connection to how you’ll convince her to let you in. Literally.”
“Who do you think will be the worst in the class?”
Bae’s forehead smooths as realisation washes over him. “I know who’s the best.”
“She’ll come crawling to me on her hands and knees with her head buried in the sand. Her ass pitched in the air. The perfect position to be thoroughly fucked.”
“So you’ll build her up. The higher they are, the harder they fall. Still… that takes time.”
“Depending on the dancer, a pointe shoe can be broken in twelve to twenty hours. On average.”
“You’d say she’s average?”
“When it comes to dance.” And only dance.
“So about sixteen hours of one-on-one contact?” Bae cocks his head, his long strands tumbling over his shoulder.
“Who says I’m average?” I snort. “I’ll do it in ten. Still, it’ll be tedious, but watching her shatter will be worth the while. I’ve waited two years already. I’m patient. I can wait a little longer.”
Bae raises his coffee mug in a mock toast. “Godspeed, Your Grace.”