Chapter 8 #2
“Wait to take her home, then, if it makes you feel better,” Cal muttered and then clapped me on the shoulder. “She’s not Emily, though, so don’t get twisted up about it.”
“What?” I reared on my brother. Few people had the ability to rile me, but Cal was one.
“She’s not Emily. Controlling Selena, policing her, bullying her into submission won’t bring Emily back, that’s all.”
“Fuck off, Callahan,” I heard myself say, angry.
He shrugged and walked away, like he hadn’t just inflicted emotional damage.
I turned back to the dance floor. Someone pressed something into Selena’s palm. What was that?
She closed her fist around it and then made her way over to her friends. A guy bumped into her, and she nearly fell. He grabbed her around the waist, dancing with her from behind. She let herself lean back against him, scanning the room. Her gaze landed on me.
A jolt ran through me.
The guy behind her was handsy, and she wasn’t stopping him. The challenge in her eyes dared me to do something about it as she leaned even farther into him.
Then she picked the pill up from her palm and put it on her tongue, closed her eyes, and let her head fall back.
Someone jostled my shoulder, and I broke my glare at Selena to see one of my new team members standing beside me. He was a lesser player, not a breakthrough talent by a long shot. What the hell did he want?
“Have you met Selena? The campus bike?” he chuckled, and instantly pissed me off.
I didn’t like her either, but there are some things a man should never say about a woman, and that was one of them.
I turned a cold expression on him, staring, unblinking, until he coughed and his neck went red.
“I mean, it’s just a joke I heard. It’s shitty,” he trailed off.
“We’ve met briefly,” I replied curtly, turning away from him.
“Best steer clear. She’s trouble, you know. She was mixed up in a lot of shit last year. Had to leave town for the gossip to die down. Now she’s back and seems like she’s on a path to self-destruct.” The guy took a swig of beer.
“What shit?” I wondered.
He went to speak and then seemed to think better of it. “I’ll tell you some other time.”
“So, you don’t know,” I surmised.
“I know, I know all kinds of things. My brother’s a cop,” he said with a grin, like it was a flex. “Let’s just say, she’s got a reputation in this town,” he continued. “I’m Nick, by the way.”
I ignored his outstretched hand.
A reputation? It was the opposite of what my father wanted for the family. Interesting.
Selena had moved away from the groping guy and found her friends. They were all dancing, all drinking, and yet, only she had that edge that was impossible to ignore. It was because the other girls were partying to have fun.
The little heathen was partying to disappear.
There was a lot more to her than met the eye. She had secrets, and secrets could be used in lots of ways.
If she wanted to disappear, I’d be happy to oblige her. I’d make her and her mother disappear from the Sinclair family completely.
Poof. Gone.
That was the plan anyway. That was what made sense.
I looked again at the dance floor. The fucking groper was back, this time pushing her T-shirt up as he danced behind her.
Her eyes were closed, her head back. She was so out of it, she had no idea some guy was a few inches away from cupping her goddamn tits in public.
Sure, they might belong to the most annoying woman I’d ever met, but they also belonged to the Sinclair family now.
They belonged to me.
Before I could think twice, or remember the bloody plan to let Selena and her mother embarrass themselves enough to get my father to go for a quickie divorce, I was elbowing through the crowd.
Her friends were distracted, talking, dancing with their boyfriends.
I grabbed the groper’s arm and twisted it sharply behind his back.
“Walk out this house right now, don’t look back, and never, ever think of approaching this girl again, and you’ll still have the capability to wank.
Fail to do so, and you’ll lose that possibility forever.
Your hand will be a blood bag of smashed pieces so tiny, no one will ever put Humpty Dumpty together again, got it? ”
I shoved him in the opposite direction of Selena, who seemed to have regained some clarity at the sound of my voice.
She frowned at me, probably about to open her mouth and release her usual scathing complaints.
“Okay, heathen, time to go home.”
“What?” She reared back from me, pushing me away. “No, it’s not. You don’t tell me when it’s time to go home!”
My patience with the entire conversation snapped, and I bent down, grabbed her around the waist, and hoisted her over my shoulder.
“Shh,” I directed to her as she squawked in outrage.
I carried her throughout the sitting room, skirting the crowd. She wriggled madly in my arms, kicking my chest as much as she could. It wasn’t a token protest. She really wanted down.
On the lawn, people looked at us. Another scandal waiting to happen. I lowered her to the ground and had barely finished straightening up when she pulled back and slapped me.
I finished standing and narrowed my eyes at her.
She glared at me, but there was something vulnerable about that look. Something burning in those violet eyes.
“Stop ordering me around—you’re not in control of me, no one is,” she murmured, low and ragged.
“That is certainly true… not even yourself,” I snapped at her, furious for no good reason. “I told you that you were done here. It’s not my fault you’re hard of hearing.”
She clenched her jaw, and her goddamn hand rose, arching toward me. I caught her wrist long before her palm made contact.
“You get one for free,” I growled at her. “The next one would cost you.”
She wrenched her hand from my grip and stepped back. “You’re a fucking nightmare. Stop trying to control me, Brody!”
“Then stop trying to destroy yourself,” I ground out. “You’re a Sinclair now, fucking act like it. There is no alternative, heathen, accept that.”
She shook her head slowly, her gaze stuck to mine. There was a lot in that look. Universes. Hers was as alien to me as some distant solar system.
“Get out of my face, or I’ll scream. You don’t want a scene? You’d rather die than have one? I will make the biggest fucking scene that has ever existed if you don’t leave me alone right now. Your daddy will be so annoyed.”
Good. Go ahead. It’s what I should have said. It was what I wanted, after all. What I needed to happen. Selena made such a scandal that the high-and-mighty John Sinclair couldn’t be associated with her or her mother anymore. Mission accomplished.
But the words wouldn’t leave me. I couldn’t summon a single one. Because Cal was right, just like always. Selena reminded me of Emily. Not her appearance or personality, but her pain.
Instead, I watched her stumble back, her mouth tight and pinched. Then she turned and ran back into the frat house.
And I let her go. Not because I believed or cared about her threat… but because of the tear that streaked down her cheek.