Page 10 of Insatiable

It takes everything in my soul to keep my features impartial. “You come in here, insinuate that I sleep around and now you want to help me? Pray tell, Felix Barclay, what can you offer me? You have no fortune in here and I doubt your fathering skills are up to much. I’ve read up about what you did.”

And just like that he surprises me again. It’s not the fact that he has skeletons in his closet. His walk in wardrobe is probably an elephant graveyard, but it’s the fact that he looks scared that’sintriguing. Barclay never looks scared. He’s got an ego the size of a zeppelin and is as full of hot air.

His face falls and he runs his hands through his hair. “I fucking regretted it, alright. There’s not a day that hasn’t passed since my decision that day hasn’t plagued me. That’s why I didn’t want to repeat the mistakes of my past. He falls to my bed and lowers his head to his hands.

I was talking about investing in a company that made baby milk and sold it to third world countries leading to mothers giving up on breastfeeding. The scandal happened before Felix was born but his company invested in that company anyway. Mostly it was all in the past when he invested and I was only bringing it up because I had nothing else to throw at him. But the way he is now tells me that whatever he thinks I’ve found out is far closer to home.

The desire to throw him out hasn't lessened, but a nagging voice in my head tells me to probe him. What on earth could the mighty Felix Barclay regret? He's certainly never shown any remorse for anything he's done in the past.

Begrudgingly, I sit next to him on the bed and ignore the flutters in my core. The last time I sat next to Felix Barclay on a bed, he took my virginity on it, and that’s what led to this whole crapshow in the first place. I make sure there’s enough distance between us so it doesn’t look like I’m coming onto him.

“What did you do that has you worked up so badly?”

He looks up and turns his head to me, his eyes locking onto mine. For a second, I think he’s going to kiss me, and holy hell, I’m not sure I want to stop him. But he doesn’t. He speaks instead.

“You don’t know? I thought you said... meant...” He stands up and runs his hands through his hair, his frustration evident. “Forget I said anything. Maybe you’re right. You and me are fucking toxic together, and I don’t even need this...”

Anger burns inside of me, quelling any ridiculous hint of want I have for this asshole. “I don’t remember asking you for help. I don’t remember asking you for anything. This... this...” I can’t talk. I’m so angry and upset. “This baby...” I gesticulate to my belly, finally acknowledging it out loud. “You are nothing but a sperm donor. It has absolutely nothing to do with you.”

The tears come before I can stop them, and I can taste the salt as they slip down to the corners of my lips. So much for keeping my composure, for pretending I could stay detached. So much for remaining impartial.

The bed shakes as he stands. “This has everything to do with me,” he growls. I’ve seen many emotions in Felix, but this is something else entirely. It’s raw, and it’s overpowering. He turns and walks out the door, slamming it behind him.

It takes me ten minutes to compose myself to be able to do anything other than breathe, and even that is choky sob filled gasps of air. I don’t know what I expected from Felix and I don’t know what he expects from me. Hell, I don’t even know what I expect from myself. I’ve been given a gift that I could never have hoped to wish for in the past and yet now everything feels so messy. However much I hate to admit it, even to myself, there was a tiny part of me that hoped Felix would beg for forgiveness for everything he’d done, and doubly beg to be part of this baby’s life.

He shouted at me. Screamed even. And maybe there was a shred of remorse for everything he’d done to me, but it isn’t enough. It’s not nearly enough. I lie back on the bed and press my hand gently to my belly. It’s still flat. No real signs that this baby even exists yet. It could all be one last cruel joke by Noémi before they took her away. And yet I know it it’s true. I know my child is growing inside of me. Felix’s baby.

I huff and bring out my Hell Cell. If Felix isn’t going to be forthcoming about his murky past, I’ll have to find out myself.

The Hell Cell doesn’t just have information about Hell. It has information about the living too. It’s got a database of millions of articles and is up to date with current affairs on Earth, a fact I find sad and have ignored up until today. I type Felix Barclay into the search bar. His photo comes up immediately. Underneath it are the words FELIX BARCLAY. THIRD CIRCLE. CONTESTANT IN THE INFERNO GAMES. I don’t bother to read his bio. I’ve already read it and can recite it word for word. Instead I click onto the earthly part of the Hell Cell. It takes me over four hours of searching to find it, and when I finally do, the breath leaves my body. Six years ago, Felix paid off a supermodel called Sylvia Rothwell to have an abortion, then buried the whole thing under a mountain of hush money. My chest tightens with every word of her story, the pain gripping me like a vice. She doesn’t mention him by name—that’s why it took me so long to uncover—but I recognize him instantly in the way she describes him. The arrogance, the charm, the manipulation. It’s Felix, through and through.

And that’s why it never hit the headlines. If anyone had known she was talking about Felix Barclay, it would have exploded. But instead, she vanished from the spotlight, left her modeling career behind, and used the blood money to start a ranch in Montana. Just... disappeared.

Suddenly, the memory of that task in the Lust Circle comes flooding back. The one where I conjured up a ranch house, and Felix shattered me, left me trembling on the floor. I didn’t understand it then, but now I do. He wasn’t just breaking me. He was remembering her—remembering what he did to her.

My hand drifts to my stomach, and I rub it slowly, the life growing inside me grounding me in the moment. A vow forms on my lips, one I should have made from the very beginning:

Felix Barclay will never come near this child. Not as long as I’m around to stop him.

6

A MEDIOCRE FUCK AT BEST

FELIX

“Open the fucking door, Anthura.” I don’t even know if this is still her room at the top of the tower, or if she’s slinked off to the dungeons with all the other demons where she belongs.

She opens the door and narrows her eyes when she sees who it is.

“Look what the cat dragged up here. What do you want, Felix? A mercy fuck now your precious boyfriend has dumped you… He has dumped your pathetic ass?”

“Just let me in, you repugnant cunt. I need to talk to you.” I push past her into her penthouse apartment. I’m surprised to see Moloch sitting on her sofa and for a second, I wonder if she’s fucking him now. It’s not like she’s not fucked everyone else in this fleapit hellhole. Then I realize that, of all of us, Moloch probably has more sense. It’s sobering thinking that Moloch might actually be better than me. Moloch the little mouse who’s afraid of his own skin.

Anthura floats in behind me, leaving the door open. “Fuck off Moloch. Meeting’s over.”

Moloch slouches off the sofa, but as he passes me on his way out, I’m sure I see relief in his eyes.

I head to the kitchen and pull out a bottle of dragonfire whisky. I unscrew the top and bring it to my lips as Anthura grabs it. “Just because you are a fucking waste of space doesn’t mean you can’t be civilized.” She pulls out two glasses and drops a couple of ice cubes into each one before pouring us both a healthy measure of the amber liquid. I take a glass and down the whole lot in one. It goes down like battery acid, burning my throat, but that doesn’t stop me pouring another one and retreating to the sofa where Moloch was sitting previously.

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