Page 21 of Crushed
“Oh! Then why don’t we figure it out together?”
“Do you know what love is?” Rose asked.
“Of course I do,” I said. “You should too.”
“What is it, then?”
“It means I would do anything and everything to protect you. To make you happy.”
“Do you think Mommy would have known what love was too?”
My heart dropped. She never brought up her mother. “I hope so,” I said.
“Do you think one day we’ll ever be able to ask her?”
I clenched my fists, then relaxed them. This was not the place to get angry about something I would never be able to explain to Rose. It wasn’t her fault that her mother had died. It was mine.
“Do you think she loved me when she passed?” Rose asked.
I bit my tongue. “I’ve got to go, sweetie,” I said. I stood, fumbling towards the door. Then I went back and grabbed the book, tucking it under my arm. “It’s almost bedtime anyway. Your nanny will be here in a few minutes to get you ready for bed. We can finish the book tomorrow.”
“And you can do Circle Time with Ms. Anderson tomorrow?”
“I won’t miss it again.”
I let myself out through the exit, bypassing the shower chamber to the main corridor. Then I punched the marble walls, my knuckles bleeding on contact.
Fucking Dr. Davis.
It was nice of him to get her books, but he should have been more careful than to let that kind of stuff get in through the cracks, reminding Rose of what she had lost. Reminding her of a mother she would never have.
I swung open the door to his office this time. He stood up, raising his hands, and I slammed the book into his desk.
“You need to wrap your—”
“I’m not here to talk about my fists, Davis, unless it has to do with punching your face,” I said in a low voice. “This book has a mother in it. A very important detail that I specifically told younotto mention around Rose.”
“It’s a good lesson, sir. I read that book as a child, and to my own children, and I thought I’d—”
“Do you remember the large donation you requested as part of your signing,” I said, “to that charity you stole from?” He swallowed. “This was a breach of contract. The donation will be gone, as will the promise to erase your gambling debts and history. I will make sureallof it surfaces and ruins your goddamn name so that you never practice medicine again, not even on fucking mannequins.”
“I’m- I’m- I’m sorry, sir.”
“Do not fuck with me again, Davis. Or Iwillmake you pay.”
I couldn’t stay in the estate without wanting to punch my hands into a pulp, so I got in my car, racing down the driveway until I was on the highway, winding in and out of traffic. Then I turned my luxury vehicle on auto-pilot. I was too pissed off to work efficiently, and too angry to stay home when I’d risk fucking up my hands even more.
By the time I arrived at the Dahlia District, it was dark. Nighttime had descended upon the world, making it so that the entertainment club looked like a hidden gem in a garden. The security at the front knew me, letting me inside. I found a seat and idly stared as a server took the stage. I watched, but I didn’t see anything.
A blond figure approached from the side, this time in a strappy black dress that she must have borrowed from Iris. Those red lips shined, vibrant and alluring, even in the shadows of the club.
“I was wondering when you’d come back,” Scarlett said. “We never got to discuss that power exchange you mentioned.”
That was right. I had told her about that as a way to gauge whether or not she could be a potential guest to Decadence Revelry.
I sucked in a breath. “I did say that, didn’t I?” I kept my eyes on the stage, a condescending move meant to show that I had power over her, even then. She fidgeted, wiping the blond hair off of her shoulders.
“So?” she asked.
