Chapter 27 – Dakota #2
“Oh good, you’re here,” I said, looking around the room. Albert was at his desk, leaning back in his chair, wearing an expression that would’ve seared the flesh off someone who gave a shit.
“Richard, I’m sorry but I’ll have to call you back,” he said, pressing a button on some fancy-schmancy speaker thing on his desk. “Dakota. What brings you by without an appointment?”
His eyes were cold as he tried to intimidate me, but I just smiled and plopped into the chair across from him. He had a small figurine of Lady Liberty on his desk, so I picked it up and turned it over in my hands. “Oh, you know, just wanted to pay my dad a visit. I can’t do that?”
His chair creaked as he sat back, saying nothing. Waiting for me to get to the point.
So I got to the fucking point.
“I heard something really interesting the other day,” I started, setting the figurine back on his desk. “And I can’t say I’m surprised. But before I get really pissed off, I just wanted to make sure it was true. Throwing around baseless accusations is for the uneducated riff-raff, no?”
Albert blinked at me, entirely unconcerned. Bored, even. “And what did you hear?”
“That you’ve been using my roommate to keep tabs on me. But you wouldn’t do something like that, would you, Albert? That’s beneath you. Even you wouldn’t stoop so low.”
The smile he presented me with was cold and ugly. “You’re right, throwing around baseless accusations is for the uneducated riff-raff, so I’m not surprised you’re doing it.”
I laughed. “Good one. You got me. That would actually hurt if I gave a shit what you thought about me. Good thing I never did.”
His smile fell away, and he leaned forward. “Dakota, stop wasting my time. And if you have this much free time on your hands, then—”
“So it’s true? Wow. You’re a bigger piece of shit than I thought.”
If it wasn’t true, he would’ve kept smiling. If it wasn’t true, he would’ve laughed in my face.
This motherfucker.
A muscle in Albert’s jaw ticced as he glared at me, and for the first time in my life, I felt like punching someone.
Was this how Reese felt all the time? That vicious little tiger was so quick to throw his fists around, and I was starting to understand why.
“I don’t know why you think—”
I didn’t want to listen to a single word of him trying to lie and cover his ass. “Well you can thank your perfect, lovely, kind-hearted, do-no-wrong son Everett for telling me. Though I guess he’s not so perfect now, huh?”
Oh, I was living for the rage in his eyes. I’d finally gotten under his skin, and I planned on staying for a while.
I leaned forward and smiled. “Yeah. So here’s what we’re gonna do, Albert. Well, here’s what you’re gonna do. You’re gonna back the fuck off Reese and never talk to him again unless it’s to tell him congratulations on graduating.”
Now he did smile. “And what makes you think I’ll do any of that? He’s absolutely nothing. He’s been useless, anyway. Not worth a single second of my time.”
I scratched my jaw, trying to dispel this buzz of anger that was trying to spread through my body.
Fuck, I really hated him. “Okay. What is worth your time? A scandal? I can just imagine the look on the boards’ faces when they read the headlines.
Dean of prestigious arts academy has been having an affair with his secretary, who’s twenty-five years younger than him—and he’s married!
” I gasped dramatically. “Gosh, what will they think? What will Evelyn think? No, wait, I guess you were counting on the fact that there’s not much going on upstairs anymore, weren’t you?
Too bad the rest of the world is still capable of critical thinking. ”
His face was getting redder and redder with every word I spoke, and the desire to crush him into nothing was growing stronger. It was ugly, that feeling; I hated it and loved it at the same time.
“You think you can just fuck around with people you consider beneath you forever? You’ve been looking down your nose at the rest of us for way too long, and you’re nothing but garbage wrapped in gold foil.”
The expression on his face was strained, like he had to take a shit. “I think perhaps it’s time to excise the dead limbs from the tree. Spouting nonsense with no evidence, as usual.”
He’d threatened to disown me before—and always with the same ridiculous analogy—so that was nothing new. And that’s all it was—a threat. He’d never actually do it because it would make him look bad.
It always came back to maintaining his perfect image. What a superficial, shallow existence he had. I didn’t feel bad for him, though. He’d chosen this.
“Oh, yeah, that’s perfectly fine with me.
And maybe I don’t have concrete evidence, but wouldn’t a smartly placed rumor have the same effect?
Once it gets going, there’s no stopping it, and the truth gets muddied in what people are eager to believe.
I should know.” I huffed a humorless laugh.
“But a rumor that holds the weight of the truth is even more effective, and it’ll get people poking around in places you really don’t want them. Won’t it, Albie?”
Maybe I harbored extra resentment toward him because he’d sired the most evil offspring I’d ever had the displeasure to meet, and he let him get away with everything.
I didn’t feel like putting up with any of it anymore. It was bad enough that Val was occasionally affected by Everett’s malice. Val was part of the family and he knew the deal. But for Reese to be dragged into my family’s bullshit…that crossed the line.
Albert drummed his fingers on the desk, then rapped it with a knuckle. “Well. I was going to tell him I had no need for him anyway, so this just speeds things along. As you were, Dakota.”
He turned toward his computer, dismissing me.
I would let him have the last word because I’d won, in the end.
Except as I walked out of the building and made my way back to the dorm, I couldn’t shake the feeling that something was wrong.
The only way to get rid of it would be to confront Reese, and I wasn’t looking forward to that.
What if I asked him about it and he said it was true? What if that completely ended things between us?
I was terrified of losing him.
For the first time in my life, I was excited to wake up in the morning.
I honestly couldn’t remember the last time anything made me excited to wake up in the morning.
Apathy and indifference and this need to provoke were all I’d known for so long that they became integral parts of me, and it felt like they’d never leave. Like rust I couldn’t chip away.
But Reese…he excited me. He’d woken up some long-dormant part of myself I’d forgotten even existed. Or maybe he’d created a new part, a brand-new piece of my very convoluted puzzle. Either way, I looked forward to seeing him. And that had never happened before.
I wanted to keep that. I wanted to keep him. I wanted to believe that everything he’d told me had been the truth, in spite of the fact that he constantly lied.
The memory of him when he’d been drunk flashed through my mind. How he’d cried, his confession that he needed me. The raw, vulnerable desperation in his eyes, his voice, his very being.
I need you so bad it hurts. It hurts, Dakota. Right here.
That hadn’t been an act. Reese wasn’t calculating in his actions like my family; he was impulsive and reckless and reactive. He was emotional and didn’t think in the moment—which was one of the things I loved about him.
I feel like I’d do anything to keep you.
Fuck if I didn’t feel the same.
I think I’ve loved you forever.
Maybe I should wait. Just wait a little bit longer. I could ask him in a few days. Or a week.
Just...not today.
Reese had his arms wrapped around my waist, his face buried in my stomach.
He was fast asleep, and I was afraid to even turn the page in my book because I didn’t want to wake him.
But my fingers itched to touch him, to feel the soft fuzz on the side of his head then move into the longer waves.
To glide along the butterfly on his cheek.
To trail down each vertebrae of his spine, then dip into the little dimples at the small of his back.
I wanted to feel every last inch of him, to memorize it all.
Lying here like this, lazing around on a crisp Sunday morning beneath the willow by the lake was…perfection.
I tipped my head back against the tree and closed my eyes, feeling the warmth and weight of him and wishing I could have this forever.
Wondering how I could get him to agree to forever.
I’d wanted to ask him all the questions buzzing around in my mind when we first came out here, but he’d looked so tired that I held my tongue and let him fall asleep on me.
His face was so relaxed right now, his breathing deep and even. He was the eye of the storm when he slept, and as soon he woke up he’d erupt into chaos once again.
I smiled at the thought, then sifted my fingers through his hair, curved my palm over his head and stroked him.
It was so, so hard not to touch him when he was right here.
“I love you,” I whispered, trailing my fingers down his back.
He inhaled and nuzzled his face into my stomach with a little hum.
“What time is it?” His voice was rough with sleep, deep and low. Heat spread through me and my cock twitched.
Fuck.
Everything he did turned me on. Him just waking up got me going.
His lips curved up as he said, “You know I can feel you, right?”
The little smirk on his face sent me over the edge, and I pushed him onto his back and straddled him, pinning his arms beside his head as he laughed.
“That’s my line.” I dipped my head and sucked on his bottom lip, then let him roll me over when he pushed against my chest.
“What’s the matter?” He stacked his hands on my chest, propped his chin on top, and looked up at me.
“What do you mean?” How did he know something was wrong? Was I that obvious?