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I nod. “Fine. I’ll hear him out. But I’m not doing it for him; I’m doing it for you.”
Ivan presses a kiss to my forehead. “That’s a good enough reason for me.”
When he walks away from me, I want to wrap my arms around him and hold him in place. But I calm my racing heart and turn back to my father.
Marcus St. Clair looks exactly like I remember him and nothing like it at the same time. I almost forgot how similar we are. We have the same dark hair and green eyes. I now remember where I got my pointed chin. It certainly wasn’t from my mother.
But he looks different, too. There are gray strands speckled through his hair. His jawline is less sharp. I remember him being a tall beanpole—even as a little kid, I could get my arms most of the way around his legs. Now, he’s rounder. Softer. He hides most of it behind a sharp suit, but it’s easy to notice those kinds of things when you haven’t seen each other for…
“Well, how long has it been?” I ask, a surprising amount of venom in my voice. “A decade? Longer?”
“It’s good to see you again, Cordelia.”
He sounds so calm. So level-headed. I hate that, too.
“My name is Cora,” I grit out.
“That’s right. Ivan said something about that. Sorry. Old habits and all.”
I snort. “Not much of a habit if you haven’t seen me since I was a pre-teen.”
His mouth twitches. “There were a lot of years where I was there.”
“You know, when you put it that way, there were a lot of years where I didn’t know Mikhail and Alexander wasn’t trying to force me into marriage. Maybe those few pesky weeks were just a blip.”
“Don’t compare me to him, Cordel—Cora. It’s not fair.”
“Don’t talk to me about what’s fair,” I spit. “If life was fair, I’d tell Ivan to kick your ass out on the curb and I’d never see you again.”
Marcus glances over his shoulder towards where Ivan’s silhouette is visible just behind the glass. “You could. He’d do it, too. I think he’d do just about anything for you.”
If he thinks complimenting Ivan is going to put him on my good side, he’s wrong. It just makes me want to push him farther away. What I have here is good. I don’t need anyone from my past coming along to ruin it.
“Maybe that’s why you should hear me out,” he adds. “If he thought I was a bad guy, would he have let me into his house?”
“You don’t know anything about us. Don’t talk about him. This is about you and me. This is about whether I want you here or not.”
“You’re right. I’m sorry.” He looks down at his feet.
Is that shame? Does he feel guilty? Did he think of me while he was gone? I’m not sure if any of it makes any difference.
He looks back up with a sad smile. “I guess that’s all I can say: I’m sorry. I want to know you. Who you are now. Who you’ve become.”
“Convenient that you decide you want to know me now that life is finally good. I’m living in a big mansion and thenboom,here you are.”
“This has nothing to do with where you’re living. I didn’t know where you were before this or I would have come to you then.”
“You knew we were in a homeless shelter,” I interrupt. “Didn’t you? After we left, you knew we were living on the street. Mom said you refused to help us.”
He looks away from me. It’s as good as an admission. Neither of us have ever been able to lie for shit.
“That’s what I thought. You didn’t care what I was up to back then,” I sneer.
“Your mother took you and ran. I didn’t know—”
I want to plug my ears, but I settle for shaking my head. “Youleft!Youabandonedus.”
“No! No. She ran away. She met Alexander and didn’t want anything to do with me. I wanted to help you, but I didn’t know if the money would go to him or… I just wasn’t sure what to do.”
