“He was fucking Devlynn’s mom,” I blurted, not thinking about how callous and insensitive my words were.
I was a selfish, self-absorbed teen. Yes, I missed my father, but the world I had constructed so perfectly was tumbling down, block after block, on top of my head.
“Daddy is dead, and all you can think of is your rich girlfriend? Her whore mother is the reason our father is dead!” my sister hollered, her ice blue eyes filled with pure venom and lasered in on me.
“No, Sarena. Dad is the reason he’s dead. He killed himself.” My voice was level and emotionless, yet I felt the pain.
My father wanted to be part of that world more than he wanted us, his children. My rage and hatred for the upper crust set in at that moment, and my whole world changed.
My father had died because he valued money and prestige more than his own flesh and blood.
Chapter 8
Devlynn
“Hello again, Princess,” his familiar voice hissed in my ear.
Even after all these years, that voice still made my entire body tingle with need and want. I despised myself for it. I should hate Elis. But I didn’t. That made my anger and confusion mix together like an overdone stew.
I turned, my face almost touching his and my heart vibrating even more than it was a moment ago.
Elis’s lips curled into a smile. He looked so smug and sure of himself, something I hated and found immensely attractive. I backed my chair away from him, needing space, needing to breathe. I’d come to this coffee shop down the street from my apartment for some peace, and his smiling face was the furthest from it.
He barked a sardonic laugh that curled through my bloodstream like a spider web and sat down across from me, grin half-cocked and eyes trained on mine.
“What do you want, Elis?” I finally asked, exasperated with the game of cat and mouse we’d been playing. Everything about him pulled me in and made me resentful of his presence at the same time.
“Can’t a guy just say hi to an old friend?”
“Is that what we are? Friends?” I asked, zeroing my eyes in on him.
“Maybe not,” he said, taking a sip of his coffee. “But I want to be.”
“Elis, please stop messing with me. I’ve had a hard couple of weeks.”
“Well, I’ve had a hard couple of years,” he spat, his voice low and laced with anger.
I lowered my head to avoid his face. I knew what my mother had done and how it had impacted his family.
It’d also impacted mine.
After it happened, my parents lived as nothing more than roommates. If they could avoid each other, they did. My father had threatened divorce, which—thanks to their prenup—would have left my mother penniless. She’d begged me to talk to him, to convince him not to go through with it. Her eyes had been wild and flowing with tears. I hadn’t wanted to help her. I’d wanted her to suffer like my father and I had suffered. But at the end of the day, she was my mother, so I’d convinced my father to stay with her—something I now regretted.
“Elis, none of that was my fault.”
“No. It wasyour mother’s.” Cold disdain laced his words as he shrugged his shoulders. “Anyway, that was a long time ago. Time heals all wounds and all that crap,” he said nonchalantly. “Listen, Princess. I don’t want to feel the way I do. From the moment I saw you, I couldn’t stop thinking about you. I thought I was over you, but I’m not. I don’t think I ever will be.”
His words floored me. I stared at him silently. The words caught somewhere deep inside me, desperate to get out but unable to unbind themselves from the bonds holding them in place.
“So what do you want?” I finally squeaked.
“I told you. I want to be friends.”
“Elis, you and I can never be friends.”
“Probably not.” He leaned over, his face so close to mine. “Because every time I look at you, Princess, I want to bend you over and fuck the life out of you.”
I grew warmeverywhereunder his hard gaze, and I was sure a flush was now plastered on my face.