Page 20 of Burning Daylight
I don’t want his money. I don’t want his power. I just wanthim, and I fucking hate myself for it. My hands curl into fistsagainst my knees, nails biting into my palms until the sting grounds me.
I blink hard. Once. Twice.
Then I exhale through my nose, and shove that feeling back down where it belongs. Buried and forgotten, locked in a corner behind everything I’ve become despite him.
“He didn’t want us, remember? We don’t need him.”
“Hedoeswant you. He wouldn’t have given you his last name if he didn’t. The problem isher.”
I should point out the obvious: that it was my father who wiped our old identities from the face of the earth after my mom had us visit when I was fifteen. She wrapped our car around a tree, and he swooped in right after with his own personal brand of witness protection. A clean slate, and an easy way to keep the mistakes of his past from smudging his picture-perfect future.
I guess it wasn’t enough that we never lived in his shitty Connecticut town. He wanted to make sure we no longer existed at all.
The “her” my mother spits like a curse is my father’s wife. His dead wife.
Eleanor Montgomery. Or Voltaire if we’re going by maiden names.
And if she were really the issue—if she were who kept me out—then he would have let me in when I showed up after her funeral.
But he didn’t.
Turns out everything I’d been told about Eleanor Montgomery was a lie.
But my mother loves to live in delusion.
My tongue pushes against the inside of my cheek. “Well, I don’t wanthim, then.”
She lifts her chin. “Even if it could save your sister?”
Guilt wraps around my chest and squeezes.
She sets her mug down and leans in, cupping my face like I’m still that child who’s blind to everything but her love.
“You’re still aMontgomery, Ry,” she says softly. “Whether you like it or not. Maybe it’s time you start to act like one.”
5
JULIETTE
The gallery is louder than I expected, buzzing with voices, clinking glasses, and the moody hum of elevator music echoing from hidden speakers.
Felicity is already two steps ahead, scanning the room like she’s searching for someone. That douchebag Keagan, probably.
I nudge her. “So, what exactly are we looking for here? Emotional growth? Mystery artist reveals himself and turns out to be a hot billionaire with a tortured past?”
She sticks out her bottom lip. “You promised not to be an asshole tonight.”
“I promised to try and have fun,” I correct. “I just don’t know whythisis the place you dragged me to for my ‘let loose and live’ moment.”
She smiles now, almost guiltily. “Well, I’d tell you, but you’d get pissed, and I’m trying to keep you light and happy.”
I raise a brow. “Name one time that’s ever worked out for you.”
Felicity loops her arm through mine, tugging me through the maze of art snobs and champagne trays.
“True.” She sighs. “But you’re like my sad little emo puppy, and it’s my moral duty to drag you into the sun and pump dopamine into your cold, dead heart.”
“I feel like I should be offended.” I glance around. “But I see no flaw in your logic…other than picking an art show to do it.”
