“That I didn’t challenge her intellectually. She had fun with me and I was really great at sex, she said, but she wanted to date someone who provided more academic and creative stimuli—her words, there, not mine.” I sighed, remembering how that had felt.
“Damn, dude, that’s fucking harsh,” Zane said.
“For real,” Mara added. “What a bitch.”
“I know, right?” I tried a grin, and mostly managed. “She got one more jab in before she left. She said, and I quote, ‘We’re just from different worlds, you and I, and you just don’t fit into mine. I know it’s not your fault, but it’s just not something I can move past.’”
Zane and Mara exchanged meaningful glances.
“Thus the reason you let Eva go so easily,” Mara said.
“That shit wasnotfuckin’ easy,” I snapped. “I let her go because I didn’t have a fuckin’ choice.”
Zane nodded, and then shrugged, in ayeah, butsort of gesture. “And because you were scared she was gonna repeat history on you, with the shit about being from different worlds.”
I chuckled bitterly. “No shit. Eva actually did say pretty much that more than once. Not in a mean way, just…stating the facts that we were from different worlds and had totally different lives, and thus the little tryst we were having came with a built-in expiration date.”
“Oh,” Mara said, “well that explains it.”
“She never made me feel…stupid, not like Lauren did. But she made it pretty damn clear we weren’t on the same level.” I shrugged. “I was sexual education for her. A little walk on the wild side with a bad boy, and then she went back to her comfy little life on the East Coast with her Ivy League friends and her Ivy League wanna-be boyfriend.”
Zane eyed me. “You’re still hung up on her.”
“Sure, maybe.” I stood up and stretched, and then headed for the door. “Fat fuckin’ lot of good it does me, though. Whatever. It’s done.”
“Bax—” Mara started.
“You just had a baby, sis, you don’t need to worry about my bullshit. I’m a blockheaded caveman. I’ll be fine.” I grinned at them both. “Congrats, the both of you: you made a human! Now just don’t fuck him up.”
And with that, I left, letting the rest of my brothers have their turn.
10
Evangeline
Two weeks. It had only been two weeks, but it felt like it had been a year since I’d been brought back from Alaska…but then, at the same time, the two weeks had passed by so fast I’d barely had time to breathe.
Father had made it clear in no uncertain terms that I had to toe the line or he’d cut me off entirely. That meant focusing in on the poli-sci degree and abandoning my art studies. That meant taking the internship he set up for me. That meant, as well, agreeing to let Thomas “court” me, as Father put it. Meaning marry him, or else.
If I wanted to retain any semblance of my life, I had to do what he wanted. And what he wanted, more than anything, was for Thomas to take his place as Father’s right-hand man in everything, be the son he’d always wanted and take over the company, for Thomas to get his seat in Congress so he could perform tactical political machinations behind the scenes on Father’s behalf. My place in all that was to be the trophy wife. The arm candy. The perfect accessory to show around at parties and organize fund-raisers.
You bet your ass I was angry about all that…but my back was to the wall. I’d managed to put Father off for a while, saying I needed some time, but finally he’d sent Teddy to collect me from my dorm room, bringing me to his home office.
Which was where I stood at the current moment: outside his office door, nerves jangling—being summoned to Father’s office wasn’t a good sign. Not at all. I’d only been summoned there once before, when I’d totaled the first car he’d bought me, three months after my sixteenth birthday.
Teddy, towering beside me, knocked on the door, and then when Father called out a stern “Enter,” Teddy pushed open the door and ushered me in.
Father tapped at his slim laptop as I approached his enormous battleship of a desk, and then when I remained standing instead of sitting in one of the leather armchairs, he closed the lid of the laptop and eyed me with dark-eyed scrutiny.
“Evangeline,” he murmured. “Sit.”
“I’m fine,” I said. “I have things to do, so say what you want to say and be done with it.”
“You’ll sit, and you’ll listen, and you’ll obey,” he barked.
I raised an eyebrow at him. “I’m neither an employee of yours, nor am I a child. You don’t get to talk to me like that, Dad.”
He quirked an eyebrow back at me: I’d never,evercalled him “Dad” in my life. He liked to pretend we were haughty eighteenth-century aristocrats, and I’d just fallen into the habit of calling him “Father.” Me using the more familiar term was a break in tradition, and one I hoped would put across the point that I wasn’t going to stand for his nonsense any longer.
