Page 155 of Tempting Little Thief

He hasneverspoken to me about her case before … or lack thereof, really.

We stare at each other for a long moment, his gaze constantly shifting as his mind runs a mile a minute. When I don’t break under his watchful eye, he sits back, and the anger slowly fades into a curious sort of pride.

He pulls his phone from his suit jacket, looking at the screen. “There are things we must discuss. We will speak on it soon,” he dismisses me.

As the silence stretches, it doesn’t take long for me to fall back into my endless thoughts. Bastian won’t speak to me, won’t return my calls, and tonight, I went into his world as he came into mine, desperate for a conversation, at the very least. The man gave me nothing, pretended I was just some girl with eyes for the bad boy, while he gave all his words to someone else.

A girl who fit beside him in ways I never will. He sat there enjoying his night, all carefree and grinning at a girl I had vivid images of stabbing when she smiled back at him.

My ribs constrict and I breathe through the tension.

Fuck him.

He’s clearly not interested in what I have to say, doing just fine and not sitting around wondering what I’ve been up to or who has been in my bed when he was so quick to demandno onebe. So, yeah. Fuck him.

He can go fuck himself for all I care.

I don’t need him.

I don’t.

I do fuckingnot.

Chapter 27

Rocklin

“So how was school?” my father asks as he cuts into his steak with ease.

Boston bounces in her seat. “Since I can’t be on the dance team anymore, I convinced Miss Giano to allow me to choreograph for the showcase.”

“That’s excellent news. It will look good on your application to Juilliard next term.”

My eyes snap up, flicking between my father and Boston, the tension in Boston’s shoulders obvious, while my father appears as lax as ever.

She pushes another bite of food around on her plate, none yet making it into her mouth, though she keeps cutting small pieces and shuffling them around.

“Maybe we could even get you an internship with Hass Morgan. You know he’s on Broadway now.”

My sister clears her throat, her voice coming up lower. “I had heard, yes.”

“I could put in a call, see about—”

“Are we fucking kidding?” I snap.

My sister’s head slices my way while our father, ever the methodical one, slowly drags his eyes to mine.

He chews his steak, taking a sip of water before he speaks again. “Something wrong, daughter?”

A humorless laugh bubbles out of me, and then a second one as I push my chair back.

“Yeah. Something is wrong. Something is really fuckingwrong!” The air hisses from my lungs. “We’re sitting around a fucking dinner table we haven’t sat at in almost twelve years, having a little family chat about classes and admissions like we’re normal. We are not normal. This is not normal. I’m spending half my day locked in a house that is no longer my home, in a room that was mine when I was seven before I was shipped away like a trading card and dropped into the mansionalone.And now you want to sit and chat about school and college as if it fucking matters when it doesn’t! We literally run our own academy because we’re a bunch of fucking psychopaths with murder tendencies.” My eyes slice to Boston and back to my dad. “Stop talking to her about a dance school she can never go to. I know it, she knows it, and you know it. She’ll either be dead by fall or locked in a basement somewhere south.”

“Rocklin!” he booms.

“It’s true! If not her, then me, or maybe even all of us, since you thought it was a bright idea to put us all in one place. Might as well offer to light the fuse yourself.”

“Watch your tone, daughter.”

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