Page 3 of Let Me
“What happened, Benji?” Caden asks.
Benji’s eyes slide from my face, to focus on Caden, who is at my back. Benji smiles. “She’s clumsy,” he says without looking at me, “but you know that.”
I still don’t turn around, and there’s still silence around us, until I hear Caden say, in my ear, “Clean it up.”
The hair on the nape of my neck stands on end, and I canfeelhim there, just behind me. But I can’t turn, because if I do, I don’t know what I’ll say or how I’ll even find breath to speak.
Saving me, I hear Caden’s dad say, “We’ll get Matthew to clean it up, son. Where’s your manners?”
And then Benji laughs, low and dark, and I turn around and Caden’s eyes lock on mine, just for a fraction of a second. A fraction, because I can’t stand to look at him longer than that. There’s a red mark on his golden skin, which puzzles me, but I don’t try to figure it out. The hatred in his eyes is nearly palpable.
I look beyond him, to his dad.
“Sorry,” I say, flustered, but relieved someone finally turned the music back up. “I just…” I shrug, trying to portray a nonchalance I don’t feel. “It just slipped.”
Caden is still staring at me but I refuse to look at him.
His dad smiles and shakes his head. “It’s okay, doll, really.”
I cringe at the name, and Caden scoffs. “She’s no doll, Dad,” he growls, and then he pushes past me, but without touching me. I only feel the air rush between us. I hear him say something to Benji, who laughs again, and then they walk away, their voices fading, people around us beginning to speak together once more.
Rolland eyes me. “What happened?” he asks quietly. Gently. Because the thing about Rolland is that even though he’s a monster, he pretends to be something else entirely.
“Nothing,” I say, not sure why I don’t just tell him about Benji. Maybe because I don’t want to cause this family any more trouble than I already have. “Nothing.”
Rolland’s hand goes to my shoulder, and I catch a glimpse of his golden wedding band in the sun as he reaches for me. My skin crawls with his touch, and I feel sick. “It’s okay, Riley. I’m glad you came.”
“You’re the only one,” I bite out.
His fingers curl around my shoulder. “I’m the only one who matters,” he says. But I don’t respond because over his shoulder, his wife has just come out onto the patio, her brown hair in braids coiled on top of her head. She’s glaring at me, and I honestly can’t blame her.
Rolland, annoyed I’m ignoring him, takes his hand to my chin, tilts my head up, his grip tight. “Right, Riley?” he asks, venom in his words.
I force my eyes back to his. “Right,” I manage.
He drops my chin, and then turns away from me. I see him stiffen as he catches sight of his wife, because even though Rolland probably has no respect for any woman on this planet, everyone is a little scared of Maria Virani.
I have to leave.
I don’t really care what Rolland says, especially as he won’t be saying anything now that Maria has him in her clutches. She’s leaning against him now, his forearm in her manicured fingers, and for all intents and purposes everyone else probably thinks she’s whispering sweet nothings in his ear, but I know better.
I saw them fight enough when I was with Jack to know there is nothing sweet between them.
I thread my way through the overdressed people on the patio, some jostling out of my way, others I move myself, not caring who I knock into. I didn’t grow up in this neighborhood, I don’t live in a cul-de-sac of mansions. I never have. They might know my name, know who I am only because of my connection to Jack three years ago, but they know nothing else about me and I owe them nothing.
I’ve got nothing.
They have everything.
It’s how I got myself into this mess in the first place. I genuinely fell for Jack Virani, and I don’t know what he saw in me—maybe a way out of his rich-kid angst, or somethingdifferent, something not clad in overpriced dresses with weekly manicure appointments and chauffeured cars—but I wish, not for the first time, he had treated me like shit like nearly everyone else did in high school. I wish he had laughed at my thrifted jeans, at my mom’s nearly broken-down car. I wish he had turned his nose up at me like most people in his circle did.
Because if he had, I’d have never met his dad. Rolland Virani would have never been able to touch me. To coerce me. Rolland would have never mademehis target. But I met Jack, and I fell for him, and when his control felt like love, I stayed.
I never realized his father was the exact same way. Just more vile. Never realized it until it was too fucking late.
I stop, inside the foyer with the marble floors and the chandelier and the gilded mirrors and Matthew, the butler with white gloves. I fling my hand out, palm flat against the wall, catching my breath, because the room is spinning when I think of Jack and Caden and that night. My chest squeezes and tightens.
I can’t breathe.
