Page 34 of Twisted (Never After)
Smiling, I rest a foot over the opposite knee. “I promise, Ali. I’ll make sure she knowsexactlywhat kind of man he is.”
Chapter11
Yasmin
Aidan: Can I see you tonight?
It’s the first I’ve heard from him since yesterday afternoon when he went to meet with Julian. I can’t be mad at him for it, since then I’d be a hypocrite, so this is just something like karmic retribution. But it does sting to know that he agreed to go somewhere and do something that affects us both without talking to me.
Did he tell his mother first?
Me: Yes!! I have dinner with my father, but I can sneak away when I get back.
Chewing on my lip, I debate telling him that it’s with a suitor or that Julian is now trying to get me involved in a fake engagement with him for whatever reason, but I hold back, figuring that I can just let him know once we’re together. Things like this usually go over better in person anyway.
Aidan: I’ll be waiting, princess. I love you. Have a good dinner with your dad.
Groaning, the guilt surges like it always does these days whenever I have something I’m not telling Aidan.
“What the hell kind of noise wasthat?” Riya asks, laughing from where she’s sprawled in the middle of my four-poster bed, flipping through a magazine.
“I don’t know what to do.” I sigh, pressing my finger to the side of my eye and running kohl- black eyeliner against my lid.
Riya makes a humming noise, the judgment pouring through her vocal cords and tugging at me from across the room.
I pause, my hand halting as I glance at her from my vanity mirror. “What?”
She licks her finger before flipping a page in the magazine. “Nothing.”
My chest smarts. “That’ssofucking annoying, you know that, right?”
She cackles, dropping the magazine entirely and sitting up in the middle of the mattress. “Excuseme, bitch? Forgive me for trying to spare your hurt feelings. Trust and believe you won’t like what I’ve got to say.”
I smirk as I finish the winged eyeliner, moving on to grab mascara. “When has that ever stopped you before?”
“Fine.” She smacks her thighs, moving to the edge of the bed. “You’re being dramatic asfuck, Yasmin. You’re playing this ‘woe is me’ card when all you really need to do is tell your dad how you feel.”
A sick feeling sinks in my gut. She was right. I should have let her keep her mouth shut. “I’ve told you it’s not that simple.”
She lifts both of her hands in the air like she’s weighing something in her palms. “Tell your dad the truth, or shackle yourself to a stranger.” She shrugs. “Seems pretty simple to me.”
I shake my head. “And have him react by firing Aidan and his mom, throwing them out on the streets? Making it so that I’d never see him again? No thanks.”
She lets out a humorless chuckle before standing up and walking across the room until she’s hovering behind me in the vanity mirror. Her hands reach out, squeezing my shoulders, our eyes meeting in the reflection. “Ifanyoneunderstands you, it’s me. You think I want to be in law school? That my lifelong dream is to become a lawyer? Forced academic marriage is its own type of hell that I wouldn’t wish on anyone. If I didn’t think my dad would cut me off, leaving me destitute on the streets somewhere, I would be doing literally anything else.”
Her brows are high on her forehead, and I shrink into myself, feeling bad that I even thought for a second she wouldn’t get it. We’re cut from the same cloth, just with different parents and different visions of what they wanted for their daughters. Where my father is in diamonds, Riya’s is in oil. My father wants me married and barefoot in the kitchen. Riya’s wants her to become a “force of power” in the world.
I reach back and grip her fingers. “Yeah, but…I think you’d probably tell your father about Aidan just to see the disappointment on his face. I’m not like that, Riya. I don’t want him to hate me.”
“Can’t argue with you there.” She winks, squeezing my shoulder. “But in this situation? I’d probably marry Julian Faraci just so I could get free rides on what I’m sure is his monster cock for the rest of my life.”
A laugh pours out of me, and I shrug out of her grasp, scrunching my nose. “Bleh. Pass.”
“Well…youdostill have a choice. You either wait for Aidan to do whatever it is he’s doing to win your dad over, or you control what little you can.”
“Choosing between Julian and a random stranger is hardly a positive outlook,” I reply, dread pricking me like needles.
She leans forward, her arm brushing mine as she grabs a matte lipstick from my vanity. “At least with Julian, you know what you’re getting into. And if nothing else, pretending to be with him buys you some time, right?”
