“Perfectly.” I shoved my fists into my pockets, all calm. I took his threat in stride—not necessarily because I didn’t plan on hurting her, but because I wasn’t counting on getting work as an artist. I sculpted because I liked doing it. I could work as a roofer and be perfectly content.
He shook his head.
“The heads are disproportionate. The composition feels wrong. You might have to start from scratch.”
“Fuck that.”
“Watch your language. And as I said—you might. This is not up to par with what I’m used to from you. You’ve put your skill into this, but where’s the rest of you? You need to bleed your heart into this piece.”
I don’t have a heart.“Working on it,” I said instead, ignoring the fact that he was right.
I’d gotten sloppy, not because I lacked the talent or technique, but because staring at this statue was hard, and doing it justice was damn near impossible. The air was thinner at the top. The more successful you were, the more suffocating the expectations for your work became—another reason why artists were depressed all around.
His eyes roved the sculpture. It felt like he was ripping my guts open, poking at my organs.
He shook his head. “Work harder. Connect with this piece,” he rumbled, his voice as big as his body. “Professor Fairhurst is looking for you. He is upstairs. Oh, and Vaughn?”
I turned to look at him, waiting for the other shoe to drop.
“You cock this sculpture up, you make me regret giving you this internship, and I assure you, Daddy Spencer is not going to save you this time.”
It wasn’t the first time someone had threatened that my last name wouldn’t get me out of trouble.
But it was the first time I’d believed it.
I pushed Harry’s office door open without knocking, leaning against its frame when I realized what I’d walked in on. He had a guy—a student, I bet—bent with his elbows pressed against the windowsill, pants down, his milky-white ass hanging in the air. Harry was inclined, ass on his desk, pants open, stroking himself and enjoying the view.
Bored, I took out my phone and checked the time, whistling the Kill Bill theme song.
“Bollocks,” Harry groaned when he heard me, shoving his half-saggy cock back into his pants unhurriedly, like I’d interrupted his meal or something.
The teenager at the window straightened his back and proceeded to fall on his ass with a surprised yelp.
I yawned. “Please. Not on my account. You look fucking cute together.”
“Truly?” The young guy eyed me with huge, green eyes while standing up and fumbling for his jeans.
My name had been a big deal in this place due to my summer session shenanigans all those years ago, and a sour face like mine was hard to miss. He knew who I was.
“No,” I said impassively, moseying in. “Now get the fuck out and close the door after you.”
He did just that, still shimmying into his denims when he closed the door. I turned to Harry, who settled behind his desk and smoothed his dress shirt, pretending to have an ounce of decorum.
“Nice wheels,” I commented, still standing.
“Pardon?”
“You’re riding that, obviously.” I jerked my thumb over my shoulder, toward the door.
“Oh, that.” He waved a finger at the door, clearing his throat. “He’s a senior. Turned eighteen two weeks ago. I haven’t even touched him—”
“Trust me,” I cut him off. “No part of me cares.”
“Yes. Right. So…” He grabbed a huge file on his desk, flipping through it. He stopped what he was doing, scratching a pink ear, and looked up, opening his mouth, before frowning. “Christ, what happened there?” He motioned to my neck. “Love bite?” He sniffed.
“Don’t taint the special moment with a dirty word like love.” I smiled mockingly. “Why am I here, Harry?”
“It’s Lenny. I wanted to make sure you weren’t too harsh with her.”
No, he didn’t. He gave zero shits about anyone but himself. I took my Zippo out of my back pocket and flicked it. I’d told Edgar what I needed to tell him to get the gig, and he’d told Harry, but no part of me even mildly sympathized with her.
Harry sighed heavily. “We have a problem.”
I glanced at the time again. I’d missed dinner, but I wasn’t worried. My mother had stocked the mini fridge in my room with sick shit.
“It’s about your mother.”
My eyes snapped up. “I’m listening.”
“As you may know, she offered me a position to become a partner in her gallery in Los Angeles a few weeks ago. It is a very successful gallery, so it is with heavy regret that I will have to say no.”
I blinked at him, steadfast. “Please tell me why this is my concern, because I’m trying to weed out the fucks I need to give about this boring-ass story.”
“The reason I cannot, in good conscience, become a partner in the gallery is purely legal.” He sat back in his executive chair, a smug smile tugging at his lips. “Your mother, for lack of diplomatic wording, is a drug smuggler.”
“Are you fucking high?” My eyebrows shot up.
I knew my mother. She was straighter than a ruler, never broke the law in her life. Aside from being the only saint in Todos Santos, she didn’t need to smuggle drugs. As it was, she had more money than the Windsor family. She donated millions to charities every year just to get rid of the greens.
“I am when in Los Angeles—on the purest cocaine, courtesy of the hundreds of kilograms of coke trafficked into the United States under the canvas of the paintings sent to her in crates from all over the world. Quite a pity. Such a pillar of the community, doing something so shameful. Tell me, Vaughn, how many years in prison is it for hundreds of kilograms of cocaine? In California? I think we may be talking about fifty, sixty years in jail.” He tsked, tapping his long, skinny fingers on his table. “Perhaps more, if they want to make an example out of her. Oh, the FBI and DA would be all over Emilia LeBlanc-Spencer. Not quite the low-hanging fruit, is she? A golden opportunity to cut the ties between the Spencers and the local police, who bow to your every whim. And your father has his fair share of enemies who would go to great lengths to see his beloved thrown in the can.”
“Liar.” I bared my teeth, slapping his desk with both my palms. But I knew he had something. Otherwise he wouldn’t be so cocky.
He sighed, as if the situation saddened him. “There are pictures everywhere. Evidence for miles. Guess she is in business with the wrong people.”
“You.”My eyes widened. “You hooked her up with suppliers.”
Hewas the wrong person.
“Did I, now?” He clucked his tongue. “I don’t suppose you can prove it?”
I couldn’t, but it was the truth. He’d done this. Of course he had—made sure she ordered pieces that came with drugs without telling her, and somehow made it untraceable to him. God fucking dammit.
“They’ll know she has nothing to do with it.” I shook my head.
“Is that a chance you’re willing to take?” He arched a brow. He knew the answer to that question.
“What do you want?”
“You,” Fairhurst quipped. “Quiet. Obedient. And out of my bloody hair. When you came here, you thought you had leverage over me. You thought I chose you because I was scared of you. You darling, naughty boy, I chose you because I wanted to put an end to your scowling, scheming, and silly plans—to remind you I’m the one calling the shots. One wrong move, Spencer, and your mummy will find out the untimely answer to the question—does she look good in stripes?” My mother’s supposedly dear friend spread his arms melodramatically.
“I will kill you,” I spat, my entire body humming with rage.
He stood, rounding the desk toward me with his hands behind his back.
“You think I haven’t considered that? You’re a wild card, like your father. That’s why there’s a file on my Dropbox ready to be sent to my good friends at the FBI if I’m found prematurely dead. You can’t touch me, Spencer. At least…” He stopped, raking his eyes over me with a rancid smile. “Not the way you want to touch me.”
I ground my teeth, feeling blood trickling from my gums. I’d bitten myself without noticing. I needed to keep my shit together. Mom was the one sacrifice I wasn’t willing to make in my quest to burn this place down.
“How?” I sneered. How had he made this happen?
He took another step forward, our chests almost bumping. I was taller and broader now—bigger, stronger, and corded with muscles that mostly didn’t exist in his body.
“All those years ago, I saw who you really were, Vaughn. A heartless prince. A beautiful mummy. You lacked basic emotions: love, hate, compassion. I befriended your silly, naïve mother to get ahead in the art world game. Your father? Now, he knew better than to trust me. Fortunately, he was pussy-whipped and easy to manipulate through your mother. If you came here with a vendetta, you may want to throw it out the window. Our secret is ours. You’re going to play into my hands now, my darling child. Or I’ll be the one ending your life.”
VAUGHN
“Come in.”
I pushed open the door to my parents’ cottage. Dad was standing in front of a window overlooking a lake, his hands tucked into the pockets of his hunting suit, frowning. Nothing was wrong. Scowling was his default expression. He only ever smiled when my mother was around.
“Busy?” I took a stab at small talk.
He turned to look at me, taking a seat on a recliner by the window and pouring cognac from a square crystal bottle into two snifters. God bless the UK, where it was legal for me to drink.
“Cut the pleasantries. It’s not who we are.”
He was right. We both hated mingling, but I was on edge. I took a seat in front of him, half-grateful Mom wasn’t here. Then I remembered she might be with Harry, and my stomach twisted in disdain. I wasn’t sure she was safe with him. Still, I was selfish enough not to tell my father what just happened with Fairhurst.
I was a pilgrim on a quest, and the demise of Harry Fairhurst was my own personal journey to redemption.
If I told my father everything, he’d deal with Harry himself, and where was the fun in that? I’d come to England for a reason. My own Eat, Pray, Love.
Kill, Prey, Lust.
“Nice hate bite.” Dad motioned to his own neck, but looked at mine. “Did she try to kill you?”
“Wouldn’t put it past her.”
He took a swig of his drink, arching a brow. “Knowing you, she probably had her reasons. Wrap it up, kid. Make your mother and me grandparents before retirement, and all hell will break loose. She’d want to help raise the baby.”
“I don’t want kids.”
He placed his drink on the table, lacing his fingers together.
“You’re too young to determine that at nineteen. Now’s the time to practice. With a condom. Several, if need be. What’s eating you, and how can I help?”
I sat back, blowing air. Dad always saw through me. Mom had a sixth sense about knowing what I needed when I needed it before I’d realized I needed it. But Baron Spencer? He read me like a vintage Playboy in a sperm-donation clinic’s waiting room.
I frowned at the carpet. “Say someone else had something of yours you didn’t want to come out. Like, a video or evidence of something you did. You knew what they had looked legit. No bullshit. They said they had it saved in their cloud, ready to be sent out if you make the wrong move…” I scanned his face, looking for traces of surprise or worry. There weren’t any. “How would you go about retrieving this information, and how would you erase it from all their files and make sure they couldn’t make duplicates?”
He said nothing for a beat. I wanted to punch the walls, then him, then myself. Grabbing my drink, I took a generous sip.
Dad finally opened his mouth.
“Son, are you gay?”
I spat the cognac out, choking on the earthy liquid. Dad remained calm, crossing one leg over the other.
“Be frank. You know we don’t care, and we’ll support you no matter what. There’s nothing wrong with being gay.”
“There’s nothing wrong with it, all right, but I’m not gay.”
He blinked, saying nothing.
“Why the fuck would you think that?”
“You’re not a huge fan of the other sex.”
“I’m not a huge fan of the human race.”
“Me either. But then there’s your mother. I am a huge fucking fan of hers.”
“Don’t make a groupie sex joke,” I warned sharply. “I like girls just fine.”
Dad shook his head. “Not enough to bring them home.”
“The back of my truck is just as comfy, and Mom’s not there to offer cookies.” I felt my jawline tensing.
His jaw ticked, too. We looked too alike. Sometimes it felt like I’d gotten nothing from my mother, but that wasn’t true. I got her artistic talent. Dad couldn’t draw a straight line with a ruler and the moral support of a stadium.
“Are the public blow jobs your way of proving something?” He frowned.
What the fuck? I was running out of patience. Not to mention fucks. This was not why I came all the way from Carlisle Castle to the rectum of Berkshire on foot.
“Yeah. It’s to prove I don’t give a shit about reciprocating,” I deadpanned. “Now can we move on with the program?”