Page 109 of Best In Class
“I don’t belong in this room?” I wave a hand around, purposefully misunderstanding him.
“With my daughter…you don’t belong with her.”
I walk up to the bar. Yeah, there’s a full bar in thelibrary.
I don’t ask for permission and pour myself a drink. This man thinks I don’t know the truth, but I do. This house, this wealth he’s showing off, is not his—it’s Lev’s and Luna’s.
I raise my glass to him, mockingly, and then sit in one of the leather armchairs. “You were saying?”
If looks could kill, as the cliché goes, I’d be dead as a skunk run over by a grandma late to bingo with a casserole in the backseat.
He steps close to me, low and mean. “You wormed your way back in, didn’t you? Manipulated my daughter into thinking she’s still in love with the help.”
“The help?”
“You, lowlife.”
I take a sip of the alcohol I’d poured into a glass without looking at the label on the bottle. I was doing it for show. But lucky for me, the son of a bitch has good taste in whiskey.
I arch a brow, amusement flickering in my gaze. “Lowlife?”
This man makes me so fucking angry. But I wear a mask of nonchalance. I’ll never give him the pleasure of knowing how afraid I used to be of him, how I now loathe him.
The insult is more effective if he feels I don’t give a shit about him—don’t think about him.
Nathaniel’s jaw tightens. “You’re nothing but a parasite, feeding off my family. Just like your kind has been doing for centuries.”
Racism, no matter how often you come across it, always hurts, always pinches, always shocks because he isn’t merely insulting me, he’s insulting my parents, my forefathers, my history.
“Careful.” It takes an effort to speak calmly, but I do just fine. This isn’t my first rodeo with a racist. “The man who lives in his son’s house rent-free should probably avoid metaphors about leeches.”
That hits.
His nostrils flare. “You have no idea what this family means?—”
“You mean what itusedto mean,” a voice says behind us.
I smother a grin.
Lev steps into the room looking composed, but I’ve known him most of my life—he’s anything but. He hates this, every genteel inch of it.
“Dad, you don’t own this estate,” he continues and takes a seat next to me. He extends his hand and I put my glass of scotch in it. “You drank your way through the fortune. I paid off the debts. This house is mine.”
Nathaniel turns red. “You little?—”
“If you ever speak to Dom like that again”—Lev takes a sip of my drink, his tone bored—“I’ll throw your ass offmyproperty.”
It’s all an act. Lev’s not lazy or disengaged—he’s livid. I’m his brother, and if someone had disrespected him like that, I’d be ready to burn the place down, too.
“I’m your father,” Nathaniel thunders.
“Thanks for the reminder,” Lev continues in the same laconic manner. “But when you behave like a racist asshole, you get treated like one.”
Nathaniel is taken aback, but like all good bigots, he tries to turn it around. “I’m entitled to my opinions.”
“Not in my house.” Lev hands me back the drink. I take it. I note that his hands are trembling, just a little.
Lev’s father’s eyes go stormy. “This ismy?—”
