Chapter 35 Aston #2
Nodding, I recline back in the chair, and cock my head, studying him. This is the first up-close look I’ve gotten of the man. I’ve only seen him a couple of times, and always from a distance. And the pictures online don’t do him justice.
Daddy Riviera is fine.
“Tell me,” he says quietly, tone unreadable. “Do I need to bring in reinforcements, or do you have yourself under control?” He gestures at his silky looking heather gray hoodie that stretches across his broad chest like a glove. “This is new.”
I narrow my eyes. And then I find my mouth twitching. His dark features remain smooth as ever, but I don’t miss the sharp, almost rueful glint in his eye.
A lawyer, I remember. I’d looked him up that night, after I got home from the party at the Furnaces after the Bell Game.
Quentin Riviera.
Certified genius.
Defense lawyer.
He must face off with crazies all the time. Probably gets a thrill out of it. Dissecting us…
“Tell me,” I toss back. “Are you here on official…or unofficial business?”
He tilts his head. “What do you mean?”
I spread a hand. “Are you here to counsel me?”
“Do you need counsel?”
“I suppose it would depend on who you ask.”
His eyes narrow, and I can practically see the wheels turning. A long moment passes before he says simply, “You didn’t do this.”
I blink. Then, “Well, no shit, Sherlock.” I scoff and force a laugh. One that is totally not unsteady. Not at all. “Obviously I didn’t do this.”
His face bunches ever so slightly. “You sound… relieved.”
I open my mouth, but before I can say anything, he clarifies, “Not the fact that you’ve been cleared, but that you really didn’t kill that boy.” A pause. “As if you worried that maybe you did.”
I say nothing. Pleading the fifth and all that jazz.
“My son—”
Why I flinch, I have no idea.
Okay, that’s a lie. I very much do have an idea. And it has everything to do with how Vale came to be his son.
Which, frankly, is still a little bizarre, knowing Quentin wasn’t even thirty years old when granted custody of a teenager.
I imagine being a genius, and a wealthy, successful one at that, helped his case. Otherwise, why would anyone in their right mind sign off on that?
Courts would sooner throw children back into shitty homes.
Quentin leans back in his chair, folding his arms across his chest. “That bothers you.”
“Are you my therapist, or are you my lawyer? Because I’ve got to tell you,”—my smile is sharp—“I’m all capped out on the first one.”
“I’m neither,” he says, not missing a beat. “Consider me being here a…favor.”
“Favor to who?”
“Vale.”
I rear back. I’m not sure what surprises me more, how easily he admitted it, or what it could mean.
“That surprises you.”
“Why…” My voice fails me.
“You were with him at the time of the murder, were you not?”
My eyes flick to the mirror across the room.
“The two-way’s off. It’s been off. As is the camera,” he says pointing toward the corner. I wait for a light to flash—any indication he might be lying—but nothing happens. “You’re free to go. I made sure of that. Your guardian is waiting out in the lobby. Legally, they cannot record us.”
He glances down at the water bottle I squeeze and crinkle distractedly between my palms.
“How long have I been here?”
“Just shy of two hours.”
I frown, lowering my gaze. “That’s it?”
In my periphery, he nods. “Time moves a lot slower in these rooms.”
That it does…
The silence in the room becomes deafening once more as I wait for him to say whatever it is he came here to say. Clearly, he came to see me for a reason, and not just to hydrate me and tell me I’m free to go.
“You didn’t think Vale was going to come forward, did you?”
I hesitate a beat, then shrug.
“Nor did you even attempt to clear your own name.”
My mouth twitches. “Aren’t you not supposed to say anything without a lawyer present?”
He tips his head, acknowledging that. “Fair. But you have an alibi. You could’ve told them what you were doing at the time of the murder. Or who you were with, so they could look into it. You could’ve avoided all of this.”
I snort lightly and meet his gaze. “Nah, I’m sure they still would’ve brought me in.”
He says nothing to that.
Jaw working, I return my gaze to the table, to the smudged frowny face I drew with my finger.
“Did you think Vale wouldn’t corroborate your story?” he asks curiously after a moment.
I suck my bottom lip between my teeth and lift a shoulder. “I wouldn’t blame him, if he didn’t.”
His gaze on me is sharp. Scrutinizing. It makes me fidgety. “Why’s that?”
Is he for real?
“If people knew about us…” I drag out pointedly, looking at him from under my lashes. “Well, I think it’s safe to say it would be social suicide for him.”
Quentin’s eyes flare with a mix of surprise and disbelief. “You’re telling me you’d go to prison for murder—a murder you didn’t commit—if it meant protecting Vale’s social standing.”
Shifting in my seat, I roll my shoulders, trying not to notice how thin the air suddenly feels.
Or the way the walls seem to be closing in once more.
As if whatever relief Quentin’s arrival and finding out I in fact did not commit murder tonight—or hallucinate what happened in the field—was short-lived.
Just a temporary relief—a distraction—from the awareness thickening my blood like sludge, keeping it from flowing properly.
My palms grow slick. My neck tingles. There’s a lump the size of a mountain in my throat, making it feel impossible to swallow. And I’m once again acutely aware of where I am.
I eye the door, wondering if it’s still locked from the outside.
“Aston.”
Blinking up at Daddy Riviera, I say quietly, in a small voice I wouldn’t believe is mine if I didn’t feel how the words pushing their way out of me, scraping my insides, “I’d do anything for him.”
The truth of my statement hangs over us, suspended in the thick stillness pressing in around us. Quentin’s face slackens with something akin to surprise. Hell, it surprises me too.
It’s brief though—the shock. It lasts only as long as it takes for me to register what I just said, before I’m quickly, mentally shaking off the weird…whatever that was. And he’s all back to business.
“Why?”
The answer appears in my head instantly, one I refuse to acknowledge out loud.
Because he has a future. I don’t.
I give Quentin a slow, rakish grin and say, “Because I’m trying to woo him. Obviously.”
His brows flare slightly at that.
“This will certainly get me some brownie points,” I go on, shoving back my seat. Hopping to a stand, my body stiff and aching from sitting for so long, I run my fingers through my hair to try and expel some of the built-up restless energy buzzing through them.
I flick a suspiciously silent Quentin a pointed look, not missing the unreadable scrutiny there as he watches me closely. “I don’t know if you’ve noticed,” I tell him. “but your son…he’s a tough nut to crack. Really likes to play the whole hard to get thing.”
Wiping my jittery hands on my robe, I use the other to grip my water. “Anyway,” I say cheerily, “can I go now? I’m hungry. My head hurts. And if I have to spend one more minute in this insufferable room, I might end up going to prison for murder after all.”
Not waiting for permission, I rush toward the door, desperate to get out of these close confines. There’s a sigh, followed by the tell-tale screech of a chair scooting across the floor. And just as my fingers curl around the handle, his voice halts me. “You need to be careful, Aston.”
I still.
“There’s not much my son wouldn’t do for you either.”
Frowning, I cast him a look over my shoulder. I don’t even get a chance to appreciate what it is he’s implying, because the wariness attached to his words is far too potent and nerve-wracking to ignore. Not to mention the leery sort of reluctance pinching his eyes as he watches me.
My heart rate spikes. “You say that like it’s a bad thing.”
You don’t deserve to feel good…
Quentin grips the back of the chair, lowering his gaze. “I just…I don’t want to see him…lose himself. Do you understand?”
“Are you saying I should stay away from him?”
He tilts his head, giving me a knowing look. “Would you, if I asked you to?”
The handle creaks in my grip. “Sounds like you already know the answer to that.”
He hums, eyes narrowing. “I can see why he’s fixated on you.”
I make a face at that. Even I’m self-aware enough to know it’s the other way around.
His lips twitch with a small, humorless smile. “You haven’t figured it out, have you?”
“Figured out what?” There’s no missing how tight my voice has gotten..
Quentin straightens, not taking his searching gaze from mine as he turns and crosses his arms, fully facing me. “You’d think after spending all these years at Ashwood, you’d spot it from a mile away.”
I blink. “Spot…what?”
“Vale…he’s a good liar. When he wants to be.
When he has enough motivation to be.” He inhales a breath, before expelling it sharply.
“Perhaps it’s because he’s never had reason to hide from you, that you don’t see it.
The show he puts on for the rest of the world.
You just see him exactly as he is. As he’s always been. ”
My hand falls away from the door handle, and I roll my shoulders back, angling toward him more fully. “I don’t understand.”
He arches a knowing brow. “You sure about that?”
Curiosity spikes. But so does irritation. Jealousy. How dare he insinuate that he knows Vale better than me?
Is that what he’s saying though? a voice helpfully points out.
I work my jaw, eyeing Quentin warily. “And you don’t? See him as he is, I mean.”
He tips his head in acknowledgement. “I see as much as he allows me.”
Something in me purrs in satisfaction at that. Sensing my smugness, he huffs a humorless laugh, and removes his glasses, pinching the bridge of his nose.
“He was mine first,” I blurt before I even realize what it is I’m doing.