Enzo focuses on me again. “Joshua Grayson’s sperm. Your eggs. Thirteen embryos that are richer than sin the moment they become your children.”
I choke so hard, I almost vomit. “Thirteen?”
Enzo looks bereft. “Obviously you don’t have to use all of them.”
“Or any of them,” I snap.
“Both of you, shut up,” my father says. “Avery, we will talk about this when the time is right. You’re not even engaged yet.”
“Daddy—” I interrupt.
“You’re a little old to be using that word,” he says, all trace of paternal concern gone, replaced by irritation. I bristle.
“Oh, fuck you,” I spit. "Why all the trouble with the egg extraction, huh? Hell, you could've saved yourself the trouble and passed me off to Joshua at Adeline's funeral. Let him fuck your sixteen-year-old daughter in the back of the church and knock her up while you buried her sister? Or maybe you should have just locked me in a room and let him breed me like a fucking animal. I mean really, what's the goddamn difference, Augie?"
My father's open palm smacks into my cheek before I even see him move. The side of my face hums angrily, but the pain doesn't bother me. It steels me. I'll do what I'm told, but it doesn't mean I won't make it a living hell for everyone concerned.
Enzo quickly steps between us, motioning for my father to back up. Ever the concerned uncle, he brushes his knuckles against my cheekbone, his touch cool against the blood-red rage that has risen in my cheeks.
"This is not the time, Avery," he murmurs, raising his eyebrows in a silent warning as he gazes down at me. Enzo has a way of looking at me that makes all of my emotion pour out. It's always been this way between us. While Daddy worked and grieved in his office after everyone else was dead and gone, it was Enzo who became my parent.
"That's the problem, Enzo," I say bitterly, pushing him away. "Time has run out."
Daddy refills his whiskey. Enzo holds his hand up, signaling to pour one more. I seethe as I switch my attention between the two men who just delivered my death sentence.
I snatch Enzo’s whiskey before he can take it from my father’s outstretched hand, and pour it down my throat in one gulp. It burns. I like it. I drop the glass at my feet, where it bounces harmlessly on the thick carpet, before repeating the same action with my father’s full glass. More burn. More warmth, spreading through my veins, sating my anxious limbs. I don't drop the second glass, though. I draw my arm back and throw it as hard as I can, narrowly missing my father and Enzo and hitting the window my father stands in front of. The whiskey tumbler explodes loudly, showering the expensive carpet with even more shards of expensive crystal.
My father smiles slowly, but there is a darkness behind the gesture, a chilling promise of what is to come. “There’s my girl.”
“Your girl for another—” I look down at my delicate gold watch, the one my mother left me in her will, “—six hours and thirty-five minutes.”
It’s time to go. I snatch up the Cartier box, straightening my skirt, and turn on my Louboutin heel, rolling my eyes as I walk away.
“You’ll always be my little girl,” he calls out. “No matter how old you are.”
“You could have warned me,” I throw over my shoulder, making a beeline for the heavy mahogany doors of what will soon be my office in our opulent tower of lies.
“I did it this way for your own good,” he replies, always the one to have the last word.
I smack my palm against the door, my wrist throbbing from the force I use. The door concedes, flying open to reveal the man I’ve been trying to avoid for the past decade, the exhausting presence, my friendly stalker, always around my father’s office, the hotel, our house, giving me lingering glances and getting in my personal space at every opportunity.
I set my face to a stony blankness, fresh anger a geyser inside my chest, waiting to explode and burn everyone it touches.
Joshua. He’s hovering near the elevator. Great. He’s probably been listening to the entire thing. The entire diatribe about how he only wants my money.
I need my mother. I miss my sister. Right now, in this moment, I fucking loathe Adeline and the way she left me to all of this. My get-out-of-Verona-free card. Tonight should be her night, the prodigal Capulet daughter, the first-born jewel in the family crown; but she obviously saw the same cold fate written in Joshua Grayson’s blue-grey eyes that is now in front of me, and decided death was preferable to a life lived only for others.
“I gather you heard that?” I ask Joshua. Fuck niceties.
He smiles. “Some.”
I toss the Cartier box at him. “I believe this belongs to you.”
“For six hours and thirty-five minutes,” Joshua Grayson smirks, echoing my words. He glances at his watch. “Make that six hours and thirty-four minutes.”
“I guess time doesn’t fly when you’re not having fun,” I retort. “Did you know about all of this?”
“If you’re talking about the embryos, yes. I’ve known since your surgery.”
I snort. “Unbelievable.”
“Avery—”
“I was a child,” I cut in. A child who had just lost her sister, and just before that, her mother, and her baby brother.”
“Exactly,” Joshua says smoothly. “Your father and Enzo were worried about the family bloodline continuing after such losses. Don’t forget, I was not a decision-maker in that process. I was told, same as you’ve just been told.”
I blink, the alcohol hitting me, making me dizzy for a second. I wait for Joshua to fill in the silence, but he doesn’t. Awkward silences are his specialty.
“I get it,” Joshua finally breaks the silence, brushing imaginary lint from my shoulder. “This marriage is a choice for me. It’s not for you.”
There are no choices for me.
“I won’t make any of this easy,” I vow, leaning away from him.
“Avery, I’ve known you your whole life,” Joshua says, smiling fondly, sending shivers of dread up my spine. “You don’t make anything easy.”
“Ugh,” I make a gagging sound. “I have to go.”
“Where?”
For an eternal swim. Part of me wants to drown myself like my sister did, just to spite him.
“Why?” I say slowly. “You want to come?”
“I always want to come when you’re concerned.”
Did he really just say that? He’s smirking. Of course he just said that.
“I’m going to the family mausoleum,” I clarify. “You still feel like you want to come?”
His smirk disappears.
“That’s what I thought,” I continue. “I’m going to confession, and then to pay my respects to my sister. Remember her?”
“You go to confession a lot,” Joshua says, dodging my jibe. He grabs my elbow as I make a move to walk away. I look at his hand like it’s a dirty cockroach, before meeting his gaze. “Maybe I have a lot of things to confess,” I say smoothly.
“You won’t have to visit your little boyfriend in a dirty old graveyard once we’re married,” he says, squeezing my arm tighter. “Hell, I’ll build you both your own wing when you move in to my house. You’ll need somebody to spend all those lonely nights with while I’m here, working.”