Page 75 of Wicked Brutal

Dad answers for me. “Harrington barely acknowledges her.”

There it is. It still hurts. I know it’s not true. I know what Ryan is doing. I know what happens when the music room door locks, what his voice sounds like when his hand covers my stomach, how many times he tells me he loves me when nobody else can hear him. Still, Wednesday morning lives somewhere under my ribs.

I take a drink. “The feeling is mutual.”

Dad accepts it. Victor does too. Of course they do. That was the point.

Then Victor reaches across the corner of the table, and his hand closes over mine.

I nearly pull away. Instead, I make myself stay still while his thumb slides over my knuckles. “There won’t be any need for boys like Harrington once we’re married.”

“No?”

“No.” His smile is almost paternal, and that somehow makes it worse. “You’ll have a husband.”

My stomach turns. “Right.”

“Your priorities will change.” His thumb moves again, slow, proprietary, and I hate his hand and I hate his voice and I hate that Dad is sitting there watching another man touch me like this and sees absolutely nothing wrong with it. Victor’s gaze drops briefly to my hand beneath his. “You’ve been very protected, Alison.”

Dad smiles. “I’ve tried.”

“And you’ve done well.”

They’re talking about me like a fucking show dog.

“She hasn’t had to concern herself with the uglier parts of the world,” Victor continues.

Dad nods. “She doesn’t need to.”

“No. She doesn’t.”

I look between them. Neither seems to realize how insane this conversation is.

Victor looks back at me, and when he speaks again his voice has gone lower, warmer, almost fond — which is worse than anything else he’s done all night. “You know, your father and I have understood each other about you for a long time.” His thumb traces my knuckle. “Since you were, what — thirteen?”

Dad doesn’t correct him.

The floor drops out from under me. I keep my face still with everything I have, but the number sits there in the middle of the table like a dropped glass. Thirteen. I was thirteen. Braces. A backpack with a broken zipper I’d fixed with a paperclip. I remember being thirteen. I do not remember being promised.

“That’s a long time,” I manage.

“It is,” Victor agrees, pleased I’ve said anything at all. “These things are done properly or they aren’t done at all. Your father was careful with you. Patient.” He says patient like it’s a virtue, like I’m a bottle of something that had to be laid down and left to age until it suited him. “I’ve watched you grow into exactly the young woman I expected.”

“You’ve been watching me since I was thirteen.”

“I’ve been waiting,” he corrects gently, as if the distinction is a kindness. “There’s a difference.”

There isn’t. I know there isn’t. But Dad is smiling into his scotch like this is a lovely thing to hear at his dinner table, so I curve my mouth up and say, “Patience is a virtue,” and Victor laughs like I’ve charmed him, and under the table my free hand presses flat against my own stomach where his gaze never once thought to travel.

“You’ll be able to focus on the things that suit you,” he goes on, thumb still moving over my hand. “Your home. Your writing, if you still enjoy it. Charitable work.”

“If I still enjoy writing?”

“Of course.” His fingers tighten slightly around mine. “Marriage changes women.”

I force myself to smile. “How?”

Victor smiles back. “You settle.”