Page 39 of Worth Every Moment
She leans in close and whispers, “I’m not actually a virgin, but don’t tell my dad.”
I pull back and wink. “You’re secret’s safe with me.”
“We’ll sort out the details of the deal.” My father’s voice shatters the fragile intimacy of our conversation. “And when it’s all lined up, we’ll announce the engagement.”
“Four months. I think that’s how long it’ll take to sort it all out,” Antonio says.
Four months.
This is surreal. I’ve woken up inside a nightmare. I must have. Some fucked up lucid dream where my father is marrying me off to a woman ten years my junior so he can build a mega hotel and take over the world.
There is no fucking way I am agreeing to this.As amusing as Diana is, she will not be my wife.
“You two will make such a beautiful couple. Diana deserves a good man,” Antonio adds, and I force my face into stillness. I don’t want to revealanything.
We eat and drink, and there’s even laughter. I don’t dislike Antonio Marchetti, and I suspect he’s been a marginally better father to Diana than Dad was to us. At least he’s talking about her and what she deserves in a positive light, which suggests he cares about her at least as much as he cares about the deal. Unlike Dad, who doesn’t give a fuck about me.
At the end of the meal, Diana and her father depart, leaving me and Dad at the table. We sit in awkward silence for a few moments, Dad dabbing his lips, which are dry and stained with red wine he certainly shouldn’t be drinking, with a white linen napkin.
“She’s lovely,” Dad announces, even though I’m not sure he paid her much attention, and it wouldn’t make any difference to him if she were a monster.
“She’s fine. But I’m not doing it. This is my life and I’m sorry, but no. You can take all my money. I don’t give a fuck.”
Dad lays his napkin on the table and strokes it with a wrinkled hand. “I thought you might say that, so I have a little…incentive.” The sound of his voice, all cunning and slimy, makes me shudder. I know him well enough to know that whatever this incentive is, it’s not one I can escape. He opens his jacket and pulls out an envelope, which he places on the table and pushes towards me. I don’t want to know what the fuck is in there—judging by the smug, self-satisfied look on his face, it’s the piecethat will royally fuck me up the arse and play the checkmate—but I can’t leave without knowing what the old bastard has planned.
I pick up the envelope and open it. Inside, there are photos of a man fucking a girl from behind. Gripping onto her as she’s bent over a desk. She’s young. Probably underage. Illegal. But it’s notherthat draws my attention. It’s the man in the images.
It’s me.
Horror seeps into every cell of my body. I flick through a couple more images of the same from slightly different angles. I don’t recognise the venue. The woman. How do I not remember this? Wouldn’t I remember it? I don’t recognise her, or the room, or any of it, but it’s the most incriminating set of images I’ve ever seen. I glance up at my father, who still looks delighted, like his final play has won the game and he knows it, and it all clicks into place.
I turn them over and slam them on the table, pushing them back at him. “These aren’t real.”
He sits back, amused. He picks up an unused steak knife and twists it in his hand. The blade glints and catches the light, making me blink. “No. But they look real, don’t they?”
Fuck. Theydolook real. And if it’smein the photos and it took me a second to realise they weren’t real, they’ll fool everyone else for sure.
“The girl is real,” Dad says. “A living, breathing woman. Very compliant, especially for a fee. A talented actress too.Veryconvincing.” He draws out the final phrase, and my stomach turns over. “She’s eighteen, but she’ll testify to say she was underage when this took place. I have witnesses who will testify to it too. Say they saw you with her.”
“Witnesses?”
“Yes. You’re careless like that, aren’t you? Lounging in rooms where people are doing things you shouldn’t see.”
I grimace, thinking of Amy Moritz and her backup dancer.
“Maybe this time, it was you. Doing the things you shouldn’t have been doing, rather than just watching. That sounds pretty believable to me. You’re that much of a fool, you’d get your dick out when other people are in the room with their cameras out.” He laughs, and a memory rushes me like I’ve been doused with a bucket of ice water: me, as a little kid, cowering in the corner from a man I knew was insane.
But today, I don’t cower.
“You can’t do this.”
“I can. It’s all arranged.” He pokes the tip of the steak knife into the wood, marking the table. “All I need to do is press the button, and they’ll string you up.”
Tension wraps around my chest. “What the fuck did I ever do to you to deserve this?”
He strokes his chin, assessing me. “I won’t use any of it if you agree to the marriage. Say yes, and I’ll torch the lot right now.”
My shoulders tense. This could not be more fucked up. Half of me—maybe more than half—wants to leap over the table, snatch the steak knife, and slit the old man’s throat, letting the blood spill out. The other half—the more reasonable part—has me saying, “I won’t do that.”
