Page 96 of Liars and Liaisons

“Sorry,” Grayson says after a prolonged silence, frowning at the phone. Like he, too, expected it to be disconnected. “Didn’t want to give you too much of a visual to use later. I know how you like perving on your sons’ women.”

“You’re a fucking idiot.” A cold, chilling laugh echoes through the line. “If I don’t kill you for failing in your obligations as my son, Nate surely will for this. I hope the cheap lay was worth it.”

“She wasn’t cheap.”

With that, he ends the call and tosses his phone to the floor. Then, he slides off of me, pulling his pants up and tucking himself back inside.

I stare down my body at him, still half-naked and covered in various fluids. He grins, as if what just happened was a totally normal situation and not completely humiliating.

Hot, sure. But now, the exhilaration is subsiding, giving way to embarrassment. Not only does his father know about us in the most carnal sense, but he’s alsoheardit firsthand.

“What happens at your parties?”

He hesitates. “Nothing good.”

Okay then.Provided it’s not him having wild sex with anyone and overlapping what we’re doing, I guess that’s as good of an answer as I can expect. And maybe I should question it more, but his father’s threats seemed to come more from a place of taunt and hatred than real concern.

After everything else I’ve seen and heard anddone, I don’t really care. He can’t be worse than Nate was to me at this point.

Sitting up, I rub the sore spot on the back of my head. “I don’t think I can visit Cora like this.”

“I’ve got a shirt you can wear in the back.” Leaning forward, he snags a plastic pack of tissues from the seat pocket, opens them, and runs one over my chest. When he’s finished, he sits back on the seat and folds the used tissues up, tucking them into a different part of the seat.

I dig around on the floor for my lacy yellow tank top, pulling it over my head. He watches my every movement, soaking it all in with an unreadable expression.

Pushing the hair from my face, I pull it into a side braid and give him a look. “Stop staring.”

He shakes his head. “I can’t.”

My arms fall to my sides. “Why not?”

“Because I think I’m in love with you.”

My jaw drops, shock filtering into my system, and I try to move my tongue to reply. But everything is suddenly bone-dry, like the Sahara Desert moved into my mouth and refuses to let me speak.

The car rolls to a stop, jolting me from my idiotic stupor. When the back door opens up a moment later, we’re still just staring at each other, lost for words.

Without another one, he climbs over the seat past me, slithering out of the vehicle and into the sunlight, like a serpent coming out from under a rock. I slump back when he’s exited, dropping my face into my hands with a sigh.

Inhaling, I roll my shoulders and follow the direction he just went, staggering out with a hand over my eyes. I glance around the immediate vicinity, looking for Cora’s royal-blue hair among the outside patio diners.

When I spot her, she’s standing by the iron railing bordering the restaurant’s eating area, and there’s a look of pure, unadulterated horror on her face. Alistair’s directly behind her, stoic as ever, and then to his right is Kal.

Swallowing, I walk over to them, my gut twisting in on itself. Grayson’s on my heels, appearing as if out of thin air. I stop right in front of them, offering a tentative smile to try and shake off some of the unease I’m feeling.

But Cora speaks before I have the chance.

“Vi, it’s your dad. He’s been arrested.”

33

The blue-haired woman’sbeen giving me the absolute stink-eye for the last half hour. She keeps a tattooed arm stretched beneath the table, petting the little black dog sitting by her chair, but her striking golden eyes remain on me.

Across the table, two inky-haired men nearly matching my height sit; the one with icy-blue eyes has his arm slung over the tattooed woman’s chair, his index finger toying with the ends of her hair as he peruses a menu. I remember him from the political fundraiser—Aplana Island’s Mayor Wolfe.

The other stares at Violet as she tries her father’s phone for the billionth time, his almost-black gaze a bit sullen, as if he finds her attempts useless.

He has her nose. It’s longer, thicker, but the slope is the same. And the eyes, they’re hers too—just darker. Angrier. Eviler. I can understand her wanting to put distance between them; that’s the kind of darkness no light gets through.

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