Page 80 of Call You Mine

I watch as her icy blue eyes grow dark with anger. “I’d watch your tone, young man…” she says, but I don’t let her get any more out.

“No, you listen to me you fucking viper. I warned you to stay away from her. You are nothing but poison and whatever it is you’re trying to get out of her, I promise you, you won’t get a damn thing from her.”

“Is it money you want Willa? Are you here because of the inheritance, the sale of our manor?” Ace asks her, though he looks like he already knows the answer to that. “Because you won’t get a damn thing from me, or from her. Because it’ll never be enough for you. You’ll leave for a year or two till it runs out and then you’ll slither your way back into our lives.”

“Tell me, Damon,” Willa says, her blue eyes, eyes so familiar to me, look directly at me as she dares to take a few steps toward me. “You seem like a smart man. You made something out of nothing anyway, given it was handed to you, you still managed not to let it all go to waste. Do you not find it incredibly coincidental, or convenient depending on which way you look at it, that the moment I come to my daughter and ask her to give me what I’m owed or to prepare herself so I can use her to get it, she suddenly needs an incredibly wealthy beau?”

Willa’s fingers trail across my chest, toying with the collar of my shirt, but I hold back, because if I were to get my hands on her, I’m not responsible for what I do.

“What are you trying to say, mother?” Ace suddenly seems suspicious of his sister’s relationship with me. I am not at all surprised since I know for a fact Wynter came to me because her mother threatened to marry her off to the highest bidder. But that just leaves the question I haven’t been able to answer. Willa won’t back off without the money, and if Wynter really doesn’t plan on giving her any of it, how else are we supposed to get rid of her?

“If it’s money you want, name your price. If I’m not mistaken, it turns out I have a lot more than you do. Yet you’re the one here making all kinds of demands and insinuations about things you have no right. My relationship with Wynter, as much as you like to believe the world revolves around you, has nothing to do with you.”

“Twenty million, for starters,” she says with not an ounce of shame.

“You’re fucking ridiculous mother,” Ace mutters under his breath.

“Oh come on sweetie, that’s nothing compared to what you two are about to receive from your inheritance, not to mention I hear the manor is in escrow.”

Reaching into my back pocket, I pull out my checkbook, one I conveniently carry with me. Twenty million will be a hit but nothing I won’t be able to recover from. I’ve given some thought to my current portfolio and selling my shares of Kingsman back to Clarissa seems to be in my best interests. Cutting all ties from her, from Willa. That’s the only way Wynter and I will ever be able to move forward.

“I’m sure you have a pen in that purse for moments like these.”

She nods, triumphantly, digging into her purse for one.

Ace rushes to my side. “Damon, don’t do this, not without telling my sister. You know she won’t like this, she won’t…”

I glare up at him, knowing damn well he’s probably right, but there’s no way Wynter would just stand back and let me do this. “She won’t let me do this, and you know that. Doing this is the only way we’ll ever get rid of her.” I take the pen from Willa and scribble the amount she’s asked for, twenty fucking million dollars, on the check. Tearing it out of the checkbook, I hand it to her, though I don’t immediately let go.

I tightly grip her wrist with my free hand. “This is it, Willa Servite. You take this from me right now, and you never set foot in Hillcrest Hills or anywhere near Wynter and I. You look down on me for being some parentless, troubled punk from the wrong side of town, not worthy of being in your presence, let alone dating your daughter, yet you don’t heed my wanting with the caution you should. Yes, I grew up amidst gangs and thugs, yet you continue to threaten me and the woman who belongs to me. I won’t give you a second warning. You come back here, and you will regret it.”

Pulling out of my grasp, Willa rips the check out of my hand with her slimy fingers and shoves it into her purse. “Keep your threats son, they mean nothing to me. I grew up around monsters viler than you and it made me immune to the kinds of threats you spew. I won’t come back because there’s nothing left for me here, but mark my words, the two of you will never find happiness. Because you don’t know my daughter, not the real her. Not the demons that lurk in her shadows—the secrets she keeps, the lies she tells, her haunted past which looms over her like a dark cloud and will for the rest of her life. That will be what keeps you apart, not me. You remember that when this little fantasy she’s concocted shatters to pieces and falls to the ground at your feet. Because it will, the truth always comes out.”

“What the fuck happened to you? When did you get so sick and cryptic?” Ace asks, but I understand Willa completely.

She knows. Willa Servite knows what her daughter is hiding from me, and it’s worse than I thought. She sees what I see, the impending end to whatever it is Wynter and I started, and I can’t fool myself into thinking things won’t end exactly as she said.

Without another word, Willa turns and walks away, leaving Ace and me alone for the first time in a very long time.

“What the fuck did you just do, Damon?”

“What needed to be done,” I say, turning and walking away from him toward my car in the driveway.

“That’s it? You’re just going to leave. Leave her here?” I ignore him and keep walking, but he quickly catches up to me, pulling me back by my arm. Big fucking mistake. “Then what she said is true. This thing between you and my sister, it’s not real?”

“Don’t fucking touch me again, Ace. I swear to God, you may have had the upper hand on me in the past, but right now, it’s just the two of us, and I assure you, you won’t get out of this one unscathed.”

“Oh fuck off, this isn’t the same as what happened between us in the past. I fucked up alright, and I paid the damn price for it. I nearly lost the woman I love, nearly lost everything for trusting a man who used me to do his dirty bidding. But this, you’re feeding into the poison she’s spewing. Believing her lies instead of going in there and talking to Wynter, allowing her to explain what the hell my mother was talking about.”

“I don’t need any explanation. I’m getting in the car because I can't go back in there right now and deal with whatever shit they’re going to ask questions about. Go inside, tell your sister I’ll be waiting for her in the car, but don’t you dare say a damn word about the money I just gave your mother.”

“So what, is she just supposed to believe you scared Willa away for good with some threat about hurting her if she came back?”

“I don’t give a fuck what she believes. All I know is she will never find out the truth about what I just did. You hear me, Servite, not a damn word to anyone about this.”

A few minutes later I hear a lud thump against my car window. “Open the door, Damon,” Wynter shrieks, slamming her fists on the car window. I unlock it, immediately turning the engine on so I can drive away the moment she hops inside and shuts the door. “What the hell happened out there?”

“Nothing,” I say, reaching over and fastening her seat belt. I tug on the belt across her chest, pulling it tight to ensure she’s properly restrained. She gasps when I tug, her eyes going wide as they flick down to my lips. Fuck, my baby has some wild thoughts. How quickly she forgets her anger at just the mere thought of my lips coming down on hers.

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