The words stung.
I gritted my teeth. “You don’t know anything.”
“I know that—”
“Enough!” A growl erupted from behind us, and we both whirled.
I gulped.
Victoria paled.
Peter was standing there. Hands fisted. Steam coming out of his head. Jaw clenched. He was pissed. He swung his gaze to me. “Is that what people have been saying to you? That you aren’t worthy of this family?”
“Mr. Francis—”
He didn’t cut her off. He didn’t say anything to make Victoria jump back, but he looked at her. That was it. Just a look. One deep and withering look that said everything. If the girl spoke up again, she was risking her life
and
That.
Was.
Awesome.
Suddenly, all those words she’d said to me weren’t so piercing anymore.
But he was still waiting for me to answer, and as he looked back to me, I ducked my head down. It was one thing seeing how he eviscerated Victoria with a look, but it was a different thing to have the father I never knew, who’d been ignoring me, who finally just spoke to me for the first time tonight, look at me as if he was viewing me with a whole new filter.
Things. Annoying things were clogging my throat.
“What’s going on?”
Matt and Kash came over. Kash spoke over my head. “What’d you say, Vic?”
Vic.
God. He had a nickname for her.
“Nothing—”
Peter overrode her. “She spewed out a bunch of bullshit, that’s what she was saying.” He took a beat, saying more softly, “Bailey.” He waited. Then, “Look at me. Please.”
I did, but I didn’t want to. I didn’t have the emotions in check, and a tear slid down my face.
I heard Chrissy gasp as she was rounding the pool, too.
Hayes women didn’t cry. We endured. We were tough. We kept going.
We did not cry.
Except these eye things kept leaking. They were broken.
“What the hell?” There was my mama bear, growling. “What’d you say to her?” But she wasn’t accusing Victoria. Her words were directed at Peter, her finger in the air.
He threw his head up, an incredulous look on his face. “Keep your hate in check, woman. I’m trying to make things right, for once. And I’m done waiting around.” He swept the entire pool area in a gaze, his eyes falling and pinning to me. He spoke up. “Labor Day is in a week and a half. We will be having a party that day.”
Quinn came forward. “Honey?”
Matt frowned. “Dad?”
His jaw clenched. “It’s time I announce my daughter to the world.”
He wasn’t done.
He turned to my mom. “I am never letting her go, not again. Do not push me on this, and do not make this difficult. I will take you on if I have to.”
“She’s an adult. No one’s got custody of her,” Quinn was saying, coming forward in her own high heels and wearing an outfit remarkably similar to Victoria’s. “She can make her own decisions—”
“Exactly!” He was skewering his wife and my mother at the same time, with the same look. “She’s a part of this family from now on. I will hear nothing against this, do you both understand?”
I was confused. Not about Quinn, but my mom. Chrissy hadn’t been trying to talk me into leaving. She had stayed. She was just as locked in with Seraphina, Matt, and Cyclone as I was. But I still saw that guilt. That was there for a reason.
A hand came to my back. Kash. He slid it up to my nape. “Security will have to be tight.”
Some of the fight left Peter, and he dipped his head in an abrupt nod. He raked a hand through his hair, rubbing it briskly over his face, but his other hand was still in a fist. “Yes. We’ll put together a protocol.” He said to me, “I hope you’re okay with this, but you are my daughter. You have always been my daughter, and it’s time everyone realized how your place is here with us and should’ve always been.” He glowered at Victoria once more, but she had faded from my side, starting to turn so she was hidden behind her friends.
He stalked off after that. Quinn went after him.
My mom faltered, watching me, and I shook my head. I didn’t want to hear whatever she was going to say. My mom always meant well, but maybe she wasn’t always the right person to listen to.
Kash then clipped out, “What did she say to you?”
FIFTY-ONE
I was a mess.
The ten days had gone by so fast. So much happened when everyone was getting ready for the party. It was a big to-do. My alerts had been going nuts from people posting about it. Security was going to be insane. They had a helicopter going over the property. I was trying not to focus on all the speculation or how livid Martha had been when Peter told her his plan. He hadn’t cared. He said it was happening and she needed to adjust her plan, so she did. She was proficient, if anyone needed one word to describe her.
The Bonham poisoning affair/pending divorce scandal was nipped in the bud and, instead, glowing stories came out about me. They talked about things I had forgotten had happened, like awards I won in elementary school or how I applied for and won so many Phoenix Tech scholarships when it wasn’t known I was his daughter. I had earned those on my own, and the competition for them had been stiff.
They talked about my photographic memory, the graduate program I was attending, and how even that was prestigious. The wow factor was in full effect. All these people coming to the party were now coming not only because they were nosey a-holes who wanted to see the ins and outs of Peter Francis’s family but also because they were curious about me.
Another person being buzzed about in the papers: Kash’s grandfather. The financial papers reported he was in the United States and traveling to our area.
Camille Story wasn’t the only blog speculating about whether Calhoun Bastian would make a surprise appearance at the party, even though he wasn’t invited, and they were reporting that Kash had brought an order of protection against him. That had been news to me, and since Kash had closed up regarding everything except having sex with me, I hadn’t brought it up.
When I say “closed up,” that wasn’t an exaggeration.
He didn’t talk. Literally.
He was silent. He was tense. And he was affecting everyone.
The tension had been building over the last month, but it was on steroids now. Kash was readying for a fight, and it seemed he thought he was the only one going to handle it. I tried to ask about his grandfather, but he’d just pick me up or kiss me or, well, basically he’d carry me to bed, and what girl could say no to that? One touch and I was a melting puddle for him. The tingles zapped me just by a look from him. But I knew he was worried. There were nights when I woke to find him sitting in the living room, in his office, at his kitchen table, alone and in the dark. Sometimes a glass of bourbon was set in front of him. Other times, it was just him and the darkness.
I’d either fold myself onto his lap or he’d stand and pick me up, taking me back to bed. My questions were hushed by his mouth, and I was exhausted every morning, when I would wake later—much later. We were averaging three hours of sleep per night because of that, and because of my own nerves about myself, knowing that Matt’s uppity friends would be coming to the party, Seraphina’s bully friends, too, and some of Cyclone’s. Quinn just seemed to get frostier and frostier toward me, and my mother hadn’t been much better. I was ready to explode.