Page 95 of Best In Class
He knows!
“I told thatboyI’d destroy him if he didn’t walk away from you. I’d yank his scholarship…I have contacts at Cornell. I’d kill his internship. I’d fire his mama. He comes from nothing. I reminded him what’shis place. He folded faster than a lawn chair.”
I can’t breathe.
Dad shrugs like we’re discussing the weather. “It was nothing personal. Just didn’t want my daughter throwing away her life for the help.”
I look at Lev and see devastation on his face.
I turn to my father. “You sorry miserable son of a bitch, you blackmailed him?”
“Mind your language.”
“You’re an asshole,” I sneer.
He chuckles. “Lev, son, you got anything to drink here?”
My brother looks like he might murder our father with a pen he’s holding, too tightly, in his hand. “Dad, you’re fuckin’ unbelievable.”
Dad gets up, unsteady. “So…no drink?”
Lev gives the smallest shake of his head.
“In that case, I’ll be taking my leave.”
I let him go. He’s not worth it. The minute he’s out, I pounce on Lev.
“You knew,” I accuse him, my voice raised.
“Yeah,” he says harshly. “And I told Dom to tell you a fuckin’ million times. But he’s so fucked up in love with youand so fuckin’ scared…damn it, Luna, he was twenty-one, scared shitless.”
“Did he cheat on me?” I bellow.
“No,” he yells back.
I freeze for a moment and then sit on the chair my father just vacated.
For ten years. Ten fucking years I’ve been holding my pain close to my chest and the prick never cheated on me, he just let me think he did? For what? His scholarship?Motherfucker!I’d have paid for his school if he wasn’t so damned proud.
Anger, frustration, and pain crash against each other.
He could’ve told me. I would’ve understood.
He didn’t tell me. He let me keep on believing a lie.
Even now, when he says he loves me, he lies to me.
Be fair, Luna. Every time he tried to talk about it, you shut it down.
I drop my face into my hands and am pulled into a hug. I rest my head against my brother’s shoulder.
“Don’t let that asshole win,” Lev grits out.
I raise my head and look him in the eye. “Which asshole? Dad or Dom?”
He gives me a sour look that could curdle milk. But I’m made of sterner stuff.
“He hurt me again and again. He could’ve just told me the truth.”
