Page 8 of Bittersweet Revenge

I nodded. “Yes, I swear. She was your mom too. We’re in this together.”

He detailed my face for a few seconds and nodded. “Oh, now hurry up!”

Chapter 3 - Caleb

I didn’t know why I’d done this – why I’d had the impulse to take her home with me. I glanced her way quickly, still trying to understand what had pulled me into defying her father and my own resolve.

I couldn’t really say what she felt right now as she looked down at her hand, trying to remove the chipping lilac nail varnish from her thumbnail.

She looked so innocent and frail here, but what did it mean? Nothing as far as I was concerned. She was just so good at pretending.

And yet we were on the way to my home, which I now had to share with her. I needed to reassess my revenge plan, most of it at least. Now that she was moving in, there would be no speculation as far as her virginity was concerned, but it didn’t really matter. She was claimed. She’d become more than my fiancée when I'd opened my mouth that night and now this part of my revenge plan, the blackmail over her lost virtue, was gone.

I let out a sigh and she glanced at me curiously, her eyes a mixture of wariness and fear. I gave her my darkest scowl until she looked down again, shoulders sagging a bit more.

Good!I thought, feeding on her feelings.You should be scared. Nothing good will come your way now, traitorous siren.

Now, on top of sharing my space with her, I’d have to deal with the drama her presence in my home would cause. I had a small reprieve - my parents were in Italy for a month, but they’d be back soon enough and then what?

My mother despised the girl. Why? I wasn’t completely sure, but she wasn’t the most stable woman on the best of days… My back tingled as it did every time I thought about my mother's mental stability. She was going to be beyond furious to have her here, especially since my father always cut her meds in half when they had trips planned. I guessed that having a lobotomized wife at garden parties tended to scratch through the veneer of a perfect family.

I shrugged mentally. She’d be back on her cocktail of Xanax, Aripiprazole, and whatever else my father was feeding her ‘for her own good’ soon enough and she’d be too high to care.

As for my father, I wasn’t sure how he would take it to be honest. I was not sure how I felt about having these two under the same roof. I was not overly enamored with my father's weird fascination with the girl…. ‘Weird fascination,’ that was a nice way to put it. ‘Fucking messed-up obsession’ would be more accurate. He seemed to be living this relationship through me. What would happen when she’d be so readily available under our roof? Would he try his luck? Was she conniving enough to let him think he has a shot to get what she wanted? I glanced toward her again as the car stopped in front of the estate.Yes, of course, she was. She wasn’t innocent. She was like every other girl. She just hid it better.

I opened the door, ordered the driver to take her suitcase into the house, and gestured her to precede me in. It was not something I did to be a gentleman; it was not in my nature. I was doing it because I hated having people behind me; when I couldn’t see, I couldn’t control. And besides, it gave me a premium view of her amazing ass molded to perfection in her faded blue jeans. I might be angry, but I was still a man.

“Where are your parents?” she asked as she stepped into the hall.

“In Italy for a while.” She didn’t deserve more detail.

“It will only be…you and I?” She swallowed with apprehension. Maybe she was smarter than I thought.

“Mostly you – I’ve got school tomorrow and Friday; you’re not expected before Monday... Jetlag, you know.”

“Okay.” She nodded, looking around.

“You’d better behave, Esmeralda,” I warned her. “The guards have been ordered not to let you go and if you slip, you’ll end up at your father’s. At least you won’t get physically hurt here.”

“I’ll get hurt in other ways, though.”She seemed resigned.

I shrugged. “As long as you do what I say, when I say it, it should be fine.”

“I won’t be treated this way!” she shouted, jutting out her chin, and once again I hated that she’d found a way to impress me. Everybody was scared of me... Or at least wary. Even the Oppenheimer girl who I suspected was scared of nothing, not even Satan himself, was cautious around me. It was the natural human survival instinct, but this foolish girl seemed to be defective because she enjoyed challenging me, her father…anybody with enough power to effectively destroy her.

“I might have accepted to come back to King Caleb, to become his queen, but I will not be a shadow queen, do you understand me? I will not be in the background of my own life.”

I let out a bitter laugh. The fact she thought there was a way for it to be true was beyond laughable. Icouldn’t make that happen, even if I wanted to. Not that I’d ever mention it to her. “You are right Esmeralda, you are not a shadow queen. You’re no queen at all. You’re merely a pawn on the chessboard. You’re a sacrifice – less than insignificant.”

“If I’m that insignificant, why are you keeping me here with you? Why lock me in?” she asked challengingly, crossing her arms on her chest.

Ah, that was the million-dollar question wasn’t it?“Just to prove to your father I can tame the hellion, that I'm better than him and that I deserve the place on his board.” Before she had a chance to question me again and cause my last thread of patience to vanish, I waved my hand dismissively. “Other than that, you can do whatever you want. I don’t want you anymore. I can’t touch someone like you.” I wrinkled my nose in disgust except I wasn’t completely sure it was directed at her.

She took a step back, visibly hurt by my words even if she was trying to hide it.Good. Hurt, Esmeralda. There’s so much more where that came from.

“In public, you will behave and be a good fiancée. In private you do your thing and I do mine. I wash my hands of you, just be discreet.”

“You... Don't care anymore?”

---