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When the servers brought out the first course, Jonathon rubbed his hands together and smiled at the three of us. “I hope you don’t mind, but I ordered us the Field Guide Menu. Their food here is absolutely sensational.”
I openly rolled my eyes. “Sensational” usually meant so weird it was inedible. The server put enormous clam shells down in front of us. They had come from a rolling cart that had been filled with ice and had been artfully decorated with the raw seafood dishes. We had to crack through a thin film of beeswax to get to the raw clam beneath. I didn’t bother breaking mine, though. There wasn’t a chance I was eating that.
While my parents slurped raw seafood dishes and chatted about marine biology, I stared at the bricks above Jonathon’s head, trying to make my brain an empty, safe space from this insanity. When they placed a plain ceramic dish in front of me with some kind of white eel cube that looked like a marshmallow, Jonathon paused with his fork over his dish. “Mattie, love, are you not hungry? You haven’t touched a thing.”
Mattie, love. Gross. I blew a bubble, filling the sudden quiet at our table with the hiss of my breath as it inflated the gum. When it popped, I sucked it back in loudly. “I’m good.”
Jonathon chuckled, shaking his head and looking down to scoop up a forkful of caviar and eel mousse. “Only you would pass on rare delicacies in favor of bubblegum.”
My mother and father laughed awkwardly. “She is unique,” my mother said with some strain in her voice.
“Oh, I know that,” Jonathon winked. I pulled a face. Ignoring me, Jonathon scooped another bit of fluffy, white seafood into his mouth. “I love unique things. Have I ever told you about my Fabergé egg collection?” I chewed gum with my mouth open, glaring silently instead of answering.
“I didn’t know you collected them,” Mom said with interest.
Jonathon wiped his mouth with his napkin and smiled at me placidly. “They’re extremely rare—the best of their kind. Lots of us collect them, of course,” he amended with a self-deprecating smile for my parents. They chuckled in agreement, like all the wealthy people had delicate, jeweled eggs. “But my collection is the best. The Kremlin thinks they have the best, but…” he shook his head, smiling. He pointed to himself. “They wouldn’t admit it, but I have the rarest, most delicate ones.”
“You must be very proud,” I said with oozing sarcasm.
Jonathon leaned his chin on his hands. His mouth pressed into a little “no” gesture. “Not quite. See, I have a lot of collections. A lot of rare valuables. Some of them are easier to obtain than others, but I won’t be proud until I’ve collected the rarest ones.” His dark eyes fastened on me with unnerving intensity. “Because it’s not about the pride of what I’ve collected. It’s about the chase to obtain them.”
Goosebumps erupted on my arms. We weren’t talking about eggs. We were talking about the deal he’d made with my father to own me. The deal that killed two birds with one stone for my parents—securing millions in assets for their company while simultaneously getting rid of the liability daughter who threatened to topple their empire. I clenched my fists under the table. “I imagine those are difficult to hold onto.”
Jonathon chuckled, his smile not touching his eyes. “That’s what makes it exciting.”
I found myself completely speechless with fear. I forced myself to hold his leer, but it made my hands shake. I clutched them together, willing some intelligence to return to my frightened brain. He couldn’t touch me. No matter what my parents had planned, I would take them down first. This entire luncheon was just a shadow of what might have been. It wasn’t my future. “I wish you luck with that.”
Jonathon slid a look to my father, like he’d been indulging a child. “Who needs luck when I have fantastic business partners? Hm, Auggie?”
My father slurped a forkful of caviar with a shout of a laugh. “It’s the only way to live, Jon. I couldn’t agree more.”
My mother laughed nervously, but I noticed that she didn’t touch the rest of her five-course meal. Neither did I.
I endured the rest of our meal in silence, my parents telling Jonathon about my “adventures,” and Jonathon watching me with predatory eyes that bordered on manic. He knew very well that I hadn’t been on a world tour or whatever tale my parents were spinning for polite society. He knew I’d been running from him, and rather than angering him, it had seemed to pique his interest more.
I ignored him, saying nothing and not bothering to contradict the lies Alicia told about my trip to Rome or the story about how I’d gone viral during a family trip to Germany’s Oktoberfest. With each lie that fell from my parents’ lips, the gleaming interest in Jonathon’s eyes only grew brighter. I felt sick and shaky. Like I was coming down with a stomach virus and would need to run for the toilet at any moment.
The realization that Jonathon had planned to collect me, display me, and keep me had knocked the sense clear from my brain. I’d known it, of course. He’d said as much before when my parents had first taken me to his château two years ago. But hearing him say it again, watching his renewed interest in me, it struck a chord of fear in my heart that hadn’t been there before. And it occurred to me then that if things hadn’t gone the way they had with Kael, I really might have ended up a human prize.
They still might if I didn’t see this plan through. If I didn’t sink SynthoCare for good, this crazy psycho was going to chase me down until he had me.
So, I had to take away my value.
I had to end this.
Ishould have bugged Mattie with a microphone during lunch. Ever since she’d returned from the restaurant, she’d been unusually obnoxious—even for her. From the oversized, wearable blanket she still wore to the carton of rocky road ice cream she had carried around her apartment while loudly delivering a scathing discourse on the experimental, high-end meal she’d been forced to sit through, Mattie had been unbearably Mattie. Or, rather, an insecure, terrified version of Mattie.
I knew her well enough now to recognize her false bravado when I saw it.
I’d asked Tabitha to dig further into Jonathon Cohen, but the only information available conjured a sterling resume for Mr. Cohen, genius CEO of Elysian Robotics. His company had pioneered cutting edge tech for robotic-assisted surgeries, and on top of that, his joint venture with SynthoCare looked brilliant on paper. With their combined expertise bringing together advanced robotic tech with SynthoCare’s clinical research and trial framework, they were poised to deliver targeted drug delivery systems that would rock the scientific community if they succeeded. Their research into nanobot tech, targeted delivery systems for cancers, and enhancing drug efficacy with robots looked world changing—philanthropic, even.
It was unclear why the venture had been delayed by two years. I knew Mattie had something to do with it, but I couldn’t make myself believe that a father—even one as shitty as Augustus Thorne—would take part in something so archaic as a marriage deal with a successful entrepreneur in his thirties. It was baffling, and there was no evidence that they had anything like that planned. Besides which, there was no reason for Jonathon Cohen to engage in a deal hinged on a marriage to a socialite. The venture was beneficial for them both if it succeeded.
And Mattie had nothing useful to say, of course. She’d gone on and on about clams covered in wax and insisted that she’d been served an eel marshmallow. When I had tried to corner her and weasel some useful information out of her, she’d shoved a spoonful of rocky road in my mouth and told me if I didn’t relax, I would get more gray hair.
Now, we were sneaking out of the apartment building to meet Tabitha and give her Mrs. Thorne’s laptop, which held the slideshow she planned to display in honor of Mattie. Naturally, Mattie couldn’t do anything like a sane person—she had to wear her enormous blanket sweater thing, and she kept making Mission Impossible song noises while I dragged her across the busy street.
“You’re a little cranky tonight, aren’t you?” she prodded.
