84. Thea
84
Thea
S ince arriving back in Scotland, my phone had been worryingly silent. No messages or calls. The failed drugs bust had been all over the press, with Lucian threatening to sue the police for causing his son ‘pain and suffering’.
Thankfully, there had been no photos of the three of us together. But what concerned me more was the lack of contact from Torrance or my father. Surely they’d want an explanation for my failure?
Not that I had one. The simple fact was I’d chosen not to do as they asked, and sooner or later, I’d be punished for my small rebellion.
College work was the only thing keeping me sane. Our presentation had gone well. Cassian had done most of the talking, but he’d let me discuss how we adjusted our product to better fit the market and also my marketing ideas. To my surprise, the professor seemed impressed.
It gave me a small thrill to know I wasn’t a lost cause, academically-speaking. Not that I had any plans to continue my studies, but at least I’d held my own while I was here. Nobody could look at me and say I was dumb, which had been a legitimate fear.
Cassian grinned at me as we left the classroom. “You did good!”
“Ha, it was mostly you,” I scoffed, but my cheeks still turned pink.
“Thank you,” he continued, steering me toward the cafeteria. “Your ideas made the difference between a pass and a fail.”
“I seriously doubt that, but OK.” The guy was delusional. He would have passed with or without my input. Cassian was a future business mogul in the making.
“Let’s get coffee,” he suggested, touching my arm. He’d been different since London. Warmer.
Whereas I’d chosen to push what we’d done out of my head, fully expecting him to do the same, he’d gone out of his way to find me outside of the classes we shared.
Just as I was about to refuse his offer of sharing a coffee, on the basis he messed with my head, he grimaced. I watched as he checked his phone. “Sorry, gotta take this.”
I nodded and walked off, grateful for some time away from Cassian’s overpowering charisma. The semester ended in a week, and I needed to get a handle on my emotions. I’d already let my guard down too many times.
Falling into bed with Landon and Cassian had been a mistake. One I vowed not to repeat. Kyril had been curiously absent since my London trip, but I wasn’t complaining. Of all of them, he was the pushiest. Whereas Landon listened when I said I needed alone time, Kyril bulldozed over me and did what he wanted.
Milo hadn’t been around much either, although I’d woken up this morning to find a Milo-shaped indent in the pillow next to my head.
My burner phone buzzed just as I reached the entrance to the cafeteria, where Eden was waiting with coffee and cake.
Kyril: I’ll be back tonight.
Was that his idea of a romantic text? I almost snorted.
Me: And?
Kyril: Your pussy is mine. Tell Milo to fuck off and sleep in his own bed.
Me: How about you fuck off?
Kyril: Does my little kotenok want punishing for her sass?
I shivered. The thought of the big Russian punishing me was surprisingly hot, which blew my feminist credentials to smithereens.
“What are you smirking at?” Eden asked as I dropped into a chair opposite her. I quickly sent Kyril a pointing middle finger emoji and shut down the messaging app before he replied.
“Nothing.” Her eyes narrowed as I took a huge bite of cake and moaned a little in appreciation. Cake was something I’d fallen in love with while here.
At home, cake was a rare treat. My father didn’t have a sweet tooth, so our cook mostly made savory food. We only had cakes on special occasions, like birthdays. And that was only if the cook managed to evade Torrance’s eagle eye.
One time, he’d seen her baking a cake and worked out why. The bastard waited until she tried bringing it up to the attic and then smashed it on the stairs, right in front of Verity. My sister had cried for hours, devastated at losing something she’d spent weeks looking forward to.
I hated that man and his mindless cruelty.
“We need dresses for the Christmas Ball,” Eden announced once I’d eaten the last bite of cake and washed it down with some coffee.
Landon sauntered over, ignoring interested looks from the female students in our vicinity. His damp hair told me he’d come from the gym. The memory of what we did in the medical room made me shiver, and not from the cold.
“Dresses? They better be sexy dresses,” he told me with a wink. “It would be an awful shame if you hid that banging body.”
My eyes narrowed. “So I’m a pretty bauble for you to dangle on your arm all evening?”
Eden coughed and tried to hide her smile, but Landon seemed oblivious to the danger.
“You’re pretty spectacular and I want people to know you’re mine, so yes?”
“I’m not a fucking Christmas bauble, Landon! And for the record, I hate parties, so I probably won’t go.”
Eden looked at me in surprise. “I thought you had fun at the Masked Ball?”
He looked confused. “Masked Ball?”
Oh shit. Eden didn’t know the guys were unaware of my presence at the ball that night. I tried to glare at her, but she was too busy grinning at Landon.
“Yeah, you know, the one at Blackwood Manor? Cinderella here scored an invitation and took her pumpkin for a ride. I hear it was a fun night. Lots of crazy shit.”
I may have embellished my lies, mostly to entertain her. Fuck my life .
Landon turned to me, puzzled. “You were at the Forsyth Masked Ball? How come I didn’t see you?”
“Err, I didn’t stay long. Popped in and then left real quick. Like I said, parties aren’t my thing.”
“You probably didn’t recognize her in her sexy dress, mask, and red Jessica Rabbit wig,” Eden continued, further digging my grave. I loved the girl, but she really needed to read the room.
“A red wig, eh?” I could tell from his expression he’d put two and two together. “Did you enjoy my little show in the pool house, Cinderella?” he asked with a dangerous glint in his eye. “I still have your shoe. Feel free to come and pick it up this evening. I’m sure the guys would love to know you were at the masked ball.”
“Oh, she told you?” We all looked up to find Milo standing there, a cup of coffee in his hand.
“You knew?” Landon hissed, his gaze flitting between me and Milo as my life unraveled.
“Should I have kept my mouth shut?” Eden whispered. I shook my head. It wasn’t her fault my life was a tangled web of threads. Honestly, it was a miracle nobody had figured out who my father was yet.
Dario knew who I was, but he hadn’t said a word to the guys. The fact he’d stayed silent made me uneasy. Given how he hated me, he had no reason to keep his mouth shut unless someone, aka my father, had ordered him to stay quiet. Which meant he was here at my father’s behest.
I knew Dario’s father and mine still worked together. Fausto Peretti was my father’s accountant. He moved the money around, funneling cash from the illegal businesses into legit ones while minimizing my father’s tax liabilities. My father didn’t trust many people, but he did trust Fausto.
Dario had always planned to leave the life he’d been born into, taking me with him, but it was abundantly clear that his plan had gone up in smoke. Or, more likely, everything Dario had whispered to me during our stolen afternoons was a lie.
He’d lied about everything else, so it wasn’t a stretch to assume he’d never had any intentions of walking away from my father’s fucked up world.
“Yes, I knew,” Milo confirmed.
“And you didn’t think to mention Thea was the girl in the red wig?”
Milo shrugged. “You didn’t ask me if I knew who she was.”
Landon threw his hands in the air. “A head’s up would have been good!” he yelled, attracting way too much attention for my liking. “I spent ages feeling guilty about beating one out in front of a random girl when my heart already belonged to Thea!”
Eden gasped with outrage. “Oh my god, you cheated on my bestie?”
“What? NO!” He raked his fingers through his tousled hair, looking almost as confused as Milo at the turn this conversation had taken. “How could I have cheated on Thea when it was Thea watching me?”
“Yeah, but you didn’t know that at the time , fuckboy!” Eden sneered, looking disgusted on my behalf. Just as I was about to thank her for having my back, she winked. Oh. She was winding him up. Fair.
Landon hadn’t worked that out, though. “God, seriously? It’s hardly my fault some random chick walked in on me while I was partaking in some stress relief. If anything, it was her in the wrong for perving on me in a vulnerable moment!” The moment he realized what he’d said, he almost choked.
“So I’m a pervert now?” Thank God for Eden. She’d successfully diverted the conversation away from the fact I’d omitted to tell them I was at the ball. Landon was now so caught up in her nonsense, he didn’t know which way was up. Frankly, neither did I.
“God, no! It was hot.” His pupils dilated. “I loved you watching me.”
“Except you thought I was some random girl,” I spat with annoyance. It was hurtful, really. He’d claimed to like me, yet it hadn’t stopped him from jacking off in front of a strange woman - or so he’d believed.
On top of the whole Elaine thing, it was all too much. Sure, Eden was shit stirring, but she’d inadvertently reminded me I shouldn’t trust Landon Fucking Rothmore.
The phone my father had given me buzzed in my pocket and I froze. It had to be Dad or Torrance, and I couldn’t ignore either of them.
“I need some space,” I growled, done with this bullshit conversation.
“Thea, please, we should talk about this!”
“Not now, Landon.” I pushed his hand off my leg. My chair scraped the floor as I stood. Milo looked concerned, and Eden’s grin had slipped away, but they could deal. The longer I took to reply to Torrance or my father, the worse shit I was in.