Page 19 of Vengeful

"Why would he bother?" I asked. "All he has to do is name his heir and be done with it."

"Would you accept that and move on with your life?" She cocked her head. Some of the colour had returned to her face. "He might think we'd go after the baby."

"Would you?" I asked. "We've gone through all of this. If it's for nothing, would you be pissed off?" Would I? He'd put us through hell. Why shouldn't we return the favour if he tried to put us aside?

"Of course I would," she replied quickly. "Be pissed off, I mean. If he was never going to hand it over to us, then why do any of this?"

I tapped my pen a little faster. "Hedging his bets? He might have thought he wasn't capable of fathering another child. He still might not, we're only speculating here."

She put her hand on mine to stop me from tapping. "That's so annoying."

I dropped the pen onto the tabletop beside my laptop. "Not sorry."

She rolled her eyes. "I assume you guys are hunting down who this mystery woman is? The sooner we find that out, the sooner we get some answers."

"We could try asking Dad," I said.

We both snorted, identical sounds of wry amusement.

"Giving us straight answers hasn't been his strong point recently," Chloe said.

"Was it ever?" I sighed. "You're right though, he has gotten worse. The only thing wecanassume is that there might be more tests and that even if there aren't, we need to concentrate on surviving the trials." In the unlikely event we formed some sort of truce, fuck only knew how many others may want to come after us.

"He might combine the two," she said slowly. "Throw an extra test into the trials, just for shits and giggles. More mercenaries, some man eating tigers, a landmine or two."

"I'll take my chances with the man eating tigers," I said. "We're not allowed to be armed during the trials, so mercenaries are unlikely, but they'd suck. I don't want to think about how difficult it would be to avoid landmines."

"Allowed." Chloe used air quotes.

I smiled. "The rules at Brutham Academy do seem to be made to be broken."

"But we weren't," she said firmly.

She surprised me by including me in that. For a moment, I almost felt close to her. Maybe there was hope for us after all of this was over and done.

"No, we weren't. Also, yes, the guys are trying to find out who she is. Whoever Dad's girlfriend is, she's low key. No one affiliated with the Bell or Brantley families. Or the Fiorellis, as far as they can tell. She's not a politician or a judge, or anyone with that kind of influence or position."

Chloe wrinkled her nose. "Can you not use the word 'position' when it in any way has something to do with our father?"

I laughed softly. "My brain hadn't gone there, but now it has, yuck. Parent sex."

Watching Dad and the woman kissing was bad enough. No doubt he didn't want to hear about my sex life either. Especially since he couldn't stand the twins. Some day, he may get to know them. He might even start to like them.

Would that be before or after hell froze over?

"Ewww." She stuck out her tongue. "Who do you think she is?"

I ran a hand down my ponytail and gripped the end. "She looked like someone perfectly ordinary. She actually looked…nice."

"What is a nice person doing with our father?" Chloe asked. "He must have her fooled. Or else it's love. It is blind after all. So they say."

They did say that, but I didn't believe it. I went into my relationships with my guys with my eyes wide open. I looked for all the warning signs and listened to my instincts. If the guys were working against me, they were all excellent actors. None of them gave me reason to doubt their loyalty or their love.

"When I find out who she is, I'll let you know," I said. "Until then, I'm sure we can agree it changes nothing."

I wasn't going to let my guard down around her, or anyone else apart from my guys. I'd tell her if I found out about Dad's girlfriend because I'd want to know, but that was as far as it went. For now.

"Of course it doesn't." Her smile faded and she sat back. "I appreciate you telling me about her. You could have kept it to yourself."

---