20. Declan
DECLAN
I brace my hands on the sides of the sink, looking at my reflection in the mirror.
The bruise under my eye has taken on a deeper purple hue and the split in my lip is starting to scab.
My hair is growing out, the dark roots becoming more prominent.
I need to dye it again, but the thought makes my stomach churn.
The dye was supposed to be a way for me to separate myself from the boy I used to be.
The boy she fell in love with. But now? Now I want to be the man she learns to trust again.
I can’t do that if I’m still hiding who I really am, which is why I told her what I did last night.
I knew she would blame herself because that’s who she is, but it’s not her fault that I’m ten different types of fucked up. I needed her to know that.
She’s still sleeping, or maybe she’s avoiding me. Either way, I can’t stop thinking about everything that went down yesterday. The fight, the shower, the movie.
A knock at the door pulls me from my thoughts. Who the hell is here at eight in the morning on a Sunday?
The last person I expected to see when I open the front door is my father, a tight-lipped frown sewn on his face, his arms crossed over his broad chest. Marshall Astor has always been an imposing shadow in my life.
He’s tall with dark brown hair, like my own natural color, although his is now peppered with grays.
I was never afraid of monsters when I was little.
I wasn’t scared of the dark. If anything, I embraced it.
No, the only thing that scared me was him.
He rarely hit me. He preferred psychological control.
Marshall’s weapon of choice was words, though he often reinforced them by locking me in the closet in his office.
Joke was on him, though. That’s how I learned to thrive in the dark.
Until she showed up.
I look up at him and almost laugh at how afraid I used to be. He can’t do shit to me now. “What do you want, Marshall?”
I stopped calling him ‘Dad’ a long time ago.
“Aren’t you going to invite me into your new home?”
“Nope.”
He pauses for a moment as if he’s weighing each word before he speaks. “Maybe you’d like to introduce me to your new wife then?”
Fuck.
I knew he’d find out eventually. Word spreads faster than wildfire in this town, and he makes it his business to know everything. Still, I was hoping I had more time.
“She’s not available,” I say as I start to close the door on him. “I’ll tell her you stopped by, though.”
His hand darts out, stopping the forward movement of the door, but he doesn’t say anything.
Instead, he looks me over, no doubt taking in the cuts and bruises littering my face until his gaze lands on my lip ring and his mouth twists in disgust. He made me remove it when I worked with him, but I’d put it back on whenever I wasn’t at the office.
To my surprise, he doesn’t comment on the ring or the bruises. Instead, he goes straight for the kill.
“That’s a shame.” He adjusts his perfectly straight tie. “Although it seems we’ve already met. She’s that little girl who used to follow you around like a desperate whore, isn’t she?”
My stomach churns, bile rising up my throat at the image he paints.
It’s almost three in the morning when I sneak in through the back door of my house.
I’m ready to punch in the code for the alarm but it doesn’t start beeping.
They must have forgotten to set it tonight.
Oh, well. Not my problem. Toeing off my boots, I start to head upstairs when I hear a noise, like a glass clinking.
I turn around and my father is right there in the living room, pouring himself another whiskey from the decanter.
“Who’d you fuck tonight, son?” he asks, his usually controlled voice weighted with a slight slur. He’s drunk.
Shaking my head, I turn to go upstairs but his voice rings out louder now.
“I asked you a fucking question, Declan.”
“No one,” I say, partly because it’s the truth. What I did with Skylar wasn’t fucking—it was…I’m not sure I even have words for it— and partly because if I tell him to go fuck himself like I really want to, it will make things worse.
“Bullshit,” he sneers, and I already know this is going to be bad. My dad has berated me, belittled me, and humiliated me more times than I can count, but he usually does it with world-class restraint. The fact that he's cursing now means he's lost his composure. “Come here.”
Shoving off the staircase, I take my time walking over to him.
He picks up his glass, taking a gulp before he sets it back down on the monogrammed coaster laid out in front of him. “You think I don’t know what they say about you?” His laugh is cruel, mocking.“That my son is a whore. That he’ll fuck anyone with a pulse.”
My chest burns, but I don’t let on that his words have any effect on me. I stand there stoic, taking every blow he hurls at me, unblinking, unfeeling.
“Who was it this time? One of the little cheerleader sluts you like to sneak into your room at night? Or that Galloway girl who follows you around like a lost fucking puppy?”
My jaw tenses at the mention of Skylar, and even though he’s drunk, I can tell the second he notices the shift.
“Ah, I see. Well, I can’t say I’m angry.
She comes from a good family.” By "good family," he means wealthy. “From what I’ve heard, she doesn’t have any interest in running her father’s company, which means as his son-in-law, you could convince him to let you take it over.
Think of the deal we could make to acquire it. ”
I feel physically sick, like I might throw up as his eyes gleam with greed. All he sees is money. That’s all he’s ever cared about. That and making me feel like shit as some sort of power play.
“She’s not bad to look at either.” His voice wraps around my neck, squeezing like a boa constrictor. “I bet she’d be submissive like your mother.”
That’s all it takes. I see red. In one swift move, I stalk forward, knocking everything off the coffee table.
The decanter bounces off the floor and spills all over the Persian rug that probably costs more than my future college tuition.
It’s not good enough, though. I snatch it up, hurling it at the wall, where it shatters into tiny pieces, spraying the remaining brown liquid over the white walls.
If my father is shocked, he doesn’t show it. He remains seated, his glass in his hand as if my tantrum is nothing but a mild annoyance. That won’t do either. Stomping forward, I take the glass from him, hurling it at the wall, before I get so close to his face that our foreheads almost touch.
“Don’t ever fucking talk about her again.
” I realize he may not know whether I’m referring to Skylar or my mother, but that’s okay.
There’s a part of me that still wants to protect my mom like when I was little, but then there’s the part that died in that closet.
I tell myself she didn’t know because the alternative is too painful, but how could she not?
It doesn’t matter because Skylar will never be like her. I won’t allow it.
He backs up, slowly removing himself from his spot on the couch, and before I know it, he’s towering over me.
He flicks his eyes to the mess I’ve made before turning back to me, his lips spreading in a caustic grin.
“You think you’re so different from me? You think I didn’t use and discard girls when I was your age?
You think I still don’t? It’s called discretion, Declan.
You may be stupid and weak, but someday you’ll realize that when it comes to women, you and I…
” he gestures between us. “are exactly the same.”
With that, he walks up the stairs without sparing me a second glance.
That’s when I understand how stupid I really am for thinking I could have her, that things could be different.
But they can’t. Even if it means losing the only light I have left, I won’t extinguish it like he did to my mother.
I have to let her go even if it hurts both of us in the process. She’ll be better off without me.
“I asked you a question, Declan.”
My father’s voice pulls me back to the present, cutting through the memories of that night when I chose to destroy what Skylar and I had because I didn’t know any better. His condescending tone is the same, even if he is sober and using different words, and it still grates against my skin.
I force my eyes to meet his, knowing exactly why he’s here. He doesn’t give a fuck about the house, but he does care about the same thing he did all those years ago. The very thing that is no longer theoretical, but very real.
As his son-in-law, you could convince him to let you take it over.
Now that Skylar’s father is gone, there is no convincing needed.
“Get the fuck out, Marshall,” I snap.
He holds his hands up, the gold cufflinks at his wrists shining in the sunlight spilling in from outside. “I’ll be in touch soon.”
Even after he disappears into his black car, leaving nothing but tire marks in the gravel driveway, his threat hangs heavy in the air.
He’ll be in touch.
Meaning he’s not going to just let this go. He’s going to find some way to fuck this up for me. Little does he know that I don’t need his help. I’m doing a fantastic job fucking it up all on my own.
“Declan?” a sleepy voice calls from the stairs. “Who was that?”
Skylar’s wearing her usual long T-shirt, her red hair splayed in loose waves around her shoulders.
“My dad.”
“Oh,” she says, and I don’t elaborate. I told myself I’d be as honest with her as I can, but if this is going to work, I need to keep her in the dark a little longer.
One thing is certain, I will never let him have a cent of her money or go anywhere near her father’s company even if I have to destroy myself in the process.
“Was he here about work?”
“No,” I say honestly. “I don’t work for him anymore.”
“Oh,” she says again, thankfully letting the subject go. “I didn’t I, um…I’m sorry I walked out yesterday.
“Skylar.”
“No, let me get this out.” She chews her bottom lip as she descends the stairs.
It’s not until she’s at the landing, standing in front of me, that she releases it.
“I hate that you hurt yourself. I hate that I didn’t know all those years.
But most of all, I hate that I made it about me. ” She swallows. “I’m so sorry.”
I go to respond, to tell her she has nothing to be sorry for, that she’s in trouble for even saying that forbidden word, but she rushes her next words out before I get the chance.
“Anyway, everything has been so heavy these past few days. I was thinking, what if we had a dinner party? I’ve been wanting to try cooking again and I’m sure Allie would give me some recipes.
We could have the girls and their significant others, of course.
Maybe even your sister if she’s free? I’d love to see her again and—”
“That sounds perfect,” I tell her before she continues to spiral.
Her eyes light up. “Really?”
“Let me know what you need and I’ll have it delivered.”
“Okay.” She turns toward the kitchen. “Oh, and this isn’t like a married couple situation or anything. It’s just a gathering of friends.”
I nod. “Got it.”
As she disappears around the corner, it dawns on me that I will give her anything she wants, even if it’s still a divorce at the end of this.
It will kill me, but I’ll do it. Because I know now that I’m not my father.
He and I have never been the same, and we never will be.
I’m older, stronger, have better resources, and I will do everything in my power to protect her from him.