Page 9 of Sinful Desires
She raised her hands. “Okay, okay,” she sighed. “I came to tell you we’re still having family lunch tomorrow. At home. No excuses. You’re expected.”
Her gaze drifted back to the painting of Lady Jane Grey. She sighed again and started to walk away, but paused at the door and turned back.
“Oh, and yourpapawants to see you. So please,per l’amor di Dio, behave. You know how moody he gets when you misbehave.” With a final blown kiss, she was gone.
And with her went the fragile peace I’d carved out during my self-imposed isolation.
I collapsed back onto the couch, glaring at the door.
One week off. That was all I’d gotten.
And even that felt like asking too much.
Chapter
Four
“There are different kinds of fathers.Those who love unconditionally, those who love on condition,and those who never love at all.”
?Tricia Levenseller
Scarlett
With tight shoulders, a clenched jaw, and a furrow so deep it looked like he was trying to carve a new fault line into his skull, Lucius Harper was pissed.
He sat on his throne by the office window, surrounded by dark wood and gold accents. The kind of decor that didn’t whisper wealth, it shoved it down your throat. Every inch of the room flexed his power, his success, and his unbearable ego.
A cigar clung to his mouth as his eyes tracked raindrops down the glass. And I, after years of dodging and decoding every twitch, knew exactly what this meant.
I was royally screwed.
I cleared my throat. My version of tapping the mic before announcing bad news. His gaze snapped to me, then slid back to the window.
As a kid, I’d never stopped to admire the grandeur. I had been too busy trying to survive. Too busy chasing perfection. Gold bars were still bars.
A gilded cage was still a cage.
They’d bought this mansion when I was five. Mom had been pregnant with Kiara, and our old house wasn’t good enough anymore. So, they’d upgraded. Seven bathrooms. Eight bedrooms. A tennis court. Home cinema. A pool big enough to drown a country. A forest that wrapped around the property.
So much space. So much excess. And yet, never enough air.
I crossed the room slowly, like I was approaching a wild animal. My heels barely made a sound on the wood, but the silence made every step feel like a gunshot.
His desk was a mahogany monster. Very little cluttered the surface: a crystal decanter, a few useless pens, and the infamous gold bust of Julius Caesar.
I picked it up, solid gold and heavy as hell, then ran my thumb along the face.
Caesar.
The dictator stabbed by his own friends.
My father puffed his cigar, eyes locked on the storm, probably dreaming up new ways to ruin someone’s week.
I spun the bust lazily. “What do you think he was thinking right before they shanked him? Maybe, ‘Oh look, my bestie Brutus. What a surprise. Oh no!’”
Still nothing. Just another drag of smoke. I tapped Caesar’s nose and set it down with a soft clink. Then came the sigh.
Not just any sigh.
