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I knew he noticed my changing figure, but he never mentioned it, never teased me for it when we usually teased each other about everything. He seemed to sense it was a sensitive subject for me.
I was waiting for Dante in the intimidating entryway of their mansion when she approached me wearing her usual unpleasant smile.
“Scarlett,” she said, eyeing me with cold eyes. “Just look at you. Growing up so fast.” Each word was dripping in disdain.
I swallowed hard, my throat so dry the motion stung like sandpaper going down, and greeted her, keeping my most stoic mask firmly over my face.
“Come this way,” she ordered, turning her back on me to stride down the hallway to her wing of the house.
She just expected me to obey. She was a bitch like that.
I wished more than anything that I had the nerve to call her one to her face.
I hated that I followed her without a word.
As much as I rebelled against the very idea, she intimidated me, and some insecure part of me always ached for her approval.
She led me to her study, and my entire body clenched tightly in dread when she locked the door behind us.
I stayed where I was by the exit not moving a muscle as she glided with her smooth stride to her antique desk and retrieved something.
A picture, I realized as she brought it close.
It was of a girl, maybe my age or a bit older. She was beautiful, with pale blonde hair and wintry blue eyes. She was slender and elegant, and even in the picture I could tell she’d never had an awkward moment in her life.
She was dressed in the kind of clothes you never saw real teenagers wearing. The latest expensive trends, head to toe.
“Do you know who this is?” Dante’s mother asked me.
“A model?” I guessed. She fit the bill.
“She should be one, but no. This is Tiffany Vanderkamp. Have you heard the name?”
I shook my head. I knew this was headed somewhere bad, somewhere that would be disastrous to me, but I wasn’t quite sure which direction the disaster would come from.
“Dante hasn’t told you about her?”
I shook my head again.
She tutted, her face placing itself into something resembling sympathy. I knew it was a lie, but she still had me half convinced with her perfectly arranged expression. She was evil like that.
“Tiffany, or Fanny as we affectionately call her, is the young woman that Dante is going to marry when he graduates from college.”
Ah. There it was.
She was a dirty fighter, so of course she’d gone straight for my soft spot.
I felt my stoic mask slipping off, being replaced by something akin to dismay. I recovered it, but not quite quickly enough.
“Oh dear, I can see that he hasn’t been upfront with you about this, the boor.”
"I-i-i-i—" Oh God, the stutter was here. I’d known it wasn’t gone forever; it still came out to play at the most dreaded moments.
She smiled at me, looking delighted. “You’re upset, aren’t you? Did he lie to you? Did he say you were special to him? Naughty, naughty boy, just like his father. Are you two having sex yet?”
I was shocked. Completely. We hadn’t even kissed yet. "N-n-n-n—"
She threw back her head and laughed, the first time I’d ever seen her actually look happy. Apparently all it took was making someone else miserable.
