Page 49 of Pretty Savage: Defy

“Profanity is unnecessary,” Father, the same man who used to wash my mouth out with soap when I swore, tuts.

“The fuck it is. You’re about to send us out on a job we might not come back from. I’m sure as shit going to ensure Laurel can survive without me.” I lean forward, put my elbows on my knees. “And if I return to find that you let anything happen to her, you can expect to lose me as an heir. All your hard work, the Ashford legacy, will be for nothing.”

“What are you implying?”

I firm my jaw, let him see my determination. “From now on you can consider her life tied to mine. If she dies, I have no problem putting the revolver you trained me to use into my mouth and pulling the trigger. The Ashford line will end with you.” I lower my voice. “Don’t test me on this, Father. I mean it.”

Thomson raises his eyebrows from where he sits. This is the hardest I’ve ever pushed back on my father, but then again, I’ve never had so much on the line before.

A woman I want to come home to.

A woman I need to protect if I don’t make it home.

Father has no tells, has deliberately trained them out of himself. If he played poker, he’d win every game. So I have no idea which way his decision will go until he opens his mouth and says, “Agreed.”

“Fantastic.” I smile. “When do we leave?”

Chapter twelve

Four Days Until Bonding

Laurel

I’m having a dream, a nightmare actually, about my parents. We’re on a boat, and it’s storming, waves tossing us this way and that. Rain soaking our skin, plastering hair to our faces. Mom falls into the water. Dad rushes to save her, only to topple into the sea as well. I run to the side of the boat and bend over, reaching for them, but they’re floating away from me, sinking deeper with their arms outstretched and their eyes wide open.

The boat bucks beneath my feet, and the dream dissolves into wisps of smoke, a memory half-forgotten.

The bed bounces again. “Wake up, Laurel.”

I know that voice, feminine and lilting.

“Laurel,” Samantha sings out, “time to wake up.”

I let my eyes crack open. Above me a clumsily painted plane spins on a gossamer thread of fishing line, so translucent it almost looks like the toy is flying. My blurry vision moves over to a shelf that holds a worn baseball glove and books with bent spines. The walls are painted navy blue with white wainscoting taking up the lower half.

I sit up, and the bed squeaks. I blink, taking in the large white, brass bedframe with its delicate spindles and finials on each bedpost.

“Where am I?” I croak.

“Carrson’s bedroom.” Sam rolls her eyes. “I keep telling him to update it. Looks like an eight-year-old lives here.” She shakes my shoulder, not bothering to be gentle. “Get up! I’ve been instructed to bring you to the ballroom.”

I pull the covers back over my head and groan, “Go away. I had a rough time yesterday.”

She yanks them down, and I hiss like a vampire facing sunlight.

“I heard. You’re a Bellefleur. Even richer than me.” She pokes me in the ribs. “Stop being such a show-off.”

I peek at her, alarmed that our old rivalry is back. That she thinks I’m stealing one more thing from her. First Carrson. Now this.

But Sam’s smiling, her confidence unflappable.

“I don’t want to be a Bellefleur. Didn’t ask for it,” I confess, the heaviness of yesterday hitting me all over again. “I’m not trying to take anything from anyone.”

She pats my knee through the sheets. “I didn’t ask to be born gorgeous.” She fluffs her long strawberry blonde hair and gives a theatrical sigh. “We all have our burdens to bear.”

When I don’t laugh at that, she sighs for real. “See? You’re already terrible at being rich.” She nudges me again. “You’re supposed to say something insulting about my shoes.”

A laugh slips out of me, a little rusty but at least it’s a laugh.