Page 10 of Cruel Dominion

“I suggest we take some time to get your story straight. People are going to want to know what Malawi was like.”

“Wait, if it’s this weekend, why are you giving it to me now?”

His stare could’ve withered all the roses in the gardens. It was the same look he gave me when he found out what—or more accurately who—I used to do on the beach every time he found my bed empty in the middle of the night.

“So that we can get it tailored if it doesn’t fit properly,” he said as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. “For the past six years, everybody who knows us believes that you have been in Malawi building sustainable housing in rural settlements. Now that you’re back, you need to be formally re-introduced to society. To your old friends.”

They were not my friends. If anything, they were his. Friends was a little generous of a term for the people who were at best, his colleagues, donors, and acquaintances. Or their offspring.

“The tailor will be here this afternoon to make any adjustments needed. In the meantime, you have a hair appointment at eleven.”

“A what?” I asked, brushing croissant flakes off my lips, hating that it was the best thing I’d eaten in weeks.

He looked at the crumbs on the sheets like they personally offended him. I took another, messier bite, letting more crumbs fall to join their comrades on the Egyptian cotton.

He cleared his throat, but the tightness in his jaw kicked up a notch, and I knew I was already striking more than a few nerves.

“You need to look like Hudson Vaughn’s daughter,” he said in a tone that brokered no room for argument, speaking about himself in the third person like a total jackass. “You represent me and this family. We have a reputation to uphold.”

He straightened his tie. “At least everyone thinks you were roughing it in rural Africa so your current appearance won’t come as too much of a shock to anyone.”

Wow. Thanks, Dad.

Everything in his life…engineered to perfection. As always.

He made up the charity-mission-in-Africa story because the truth would show his constituents that his perfect family-man image was faker than the porcelain veneers in his mouth.

“Aren’t you at least going to give me a couple of days to settle in?” I asked, sarcastic, provoking his brows to slant sharply.

“You showed up out of the blue after six years of running away from us,” he said. “We had no idea whether you were alive or dead.”

“Would it have made a difference?”

“Drop the defiant teenager act. You’re a grown woman now, Anna. Act like it. You’re back because you finally learned that the real world isn’t as forgiving as me and your mother are.”

I pressed my lips together against a scathing reply. It hurt mostly because he was right.

The world outside these walls, outside this city, and without the protection a life with my family afforded, had been nothing like I imagined it would be. I’d been free in so many ways, but somehow I always found my way back into a cage.

I had to remind myself there were good things about my life away from here. I liked my job for the most part. Until Josh and I moved in together, I had a cute studio apartment filled with plants I could never keep alive and things I liked. I had a few friends, well, if you could call the barista at the local Drip and the doorman friends.

It wasn’t perfect, but until Josh, it was something that was mine.

When my father realized I wasn’t going to give him the confirmation or gratitude he was looking for, he continued. “That doesn’t matter now. Your life since you left us until this moment doesn’t matter. What matters is you’re here now. And if you intend to stay a member of the Vaughn family, you have to look the part.”

He took something out of his pocket and handed it to me: a glossy, metallic credit card. “Ask your mother who does her beauty treatments. You’re looking a little tired. Skinny, too. Eat that before you leave for your appointment.” He pointed at the food.

Do this. Do that. Be quiet. Be perfect.

Home sweet fucking home.

A longing for my studio apartment in a city far away hit me like a brick. He was already squeezing me back into the Anna Vaughn-shaped box that he made for me, and I didn’t get to have this one tailored. I was halfway through a chocolate Danish, but I lost my appetite, dropping it back onto the plate while I brushed my fingers together, scattering more bits of pastry over the bed.

“Was there something else?” I asked when he didn’t move to leave, watching me make a mess with barely concealed disgust.

“Yes. Be back by three for the fitting. Saturday, I’ll re-introduce my daughter, Anna Vaughn—” He pauses and I wondered how long he’d known I hadn’t gone by that name. If he perhaps did know the name I went by and could’ve found me whenever he pleased. It would make sense. I was careful not to be found, but I always wondered why no images of me ever surfaced anywhere on the internet, not ever. And how no one ever found out I wasn’t in Malawi.

Damn. He was even more cold than I realized.

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