Delusive (26 page)

His lips stopped their teases. His heat moved away from me, making me turn around to find out what happened. I sat up with my legs spread, surrounding his seated position on the bed. “Elias?”

His eyes found mine and he slowly smiled. “I think I want to meet your father.”

Thrown from my escape into a world where I could forget everything, I was thrown mentally off balance. My expression lit up, but it was for all the wrong reasons. Meeting my father was part of the mission, but now it felt like something else. An act on the part of the person I’d been dating to show me the severity and depth of his feelings for me. Or at the very least, I hoped it meant that. “Are you sure?”
 

He clasped the back of my head, bringing me closer. “It’s important to you. I have to do it.”

“Isn’t it important to you? Isn’t family important to you?”

He shrugged. “It’s really not.”

His answer left me befuddled. While Roth seemed to want for nothing, he didn’t know about Elias and I had no reason to think Elias knew about Roth, either. I could safely assume Lula referred to Keith when she spoke about the Cari’s secrets.
 

Knowing the way Elias was with Keith, I wondered why he’d bother to hold on to a man who wasn’t his blood—yet he referred to him as if he was—if family didn’t matter. I shouldn’t have taken much stock in a woman who willingly slept with a married man in hopes of receiving a payout.
 

“Is that why you haven’t met your half-sister?”

He looked toward the window and abruptly switched positions to sit on the edge of the bed with his legs dangling on the side. “Cunt bitch and her enormous mouth. Seems she hasn’t stopped the habit of boasting about her gold-digging. What else did that whore manage to tell you, Hanley?”

Gasping at his acidic words, I gaped at him. “Elias!”

“While I believe her daughter, Lurdes, is innocence personified, I’m not going to respect a whore who threw herself at a married man to gain a stake in his fortune. It’s not for that reason alone. I met my sister and was only allowed to be with her for a few weeks before Lula literally tore her from me.
 

“She placed a restraining order against me and bribed my parents into working out a deal with her. As a part of her gag order, the one I’m sure she conveniently forgot to tell you about, she made sure I was never allowed to see Lurdes again. Normally, I wouldn’t comply with anyone’s request concerning what I should and shouldn’t do, but my father”—he swallowed hard and his face became shrouded in sadness—“wants her demands met. Needless to say, I stopped caring about finding my siblings after that happened.”

“Don’t let her stop you from connecting with your family.”

The melancholy completed faded away, changing to an ice-cold mood that was so tangible, I could feel it against my skin. “I consider it a lesson learned. I no longer care.”

A person who affectionately labeled their half-siblings as a full brother and sister obviously cared very deeply.
 

“Then why are you still upset over her request or the fact she slept with your father? You know it takes two, Elias.”

The expression behind his eyes faded for the look he carried during his more deviant acts. “Are you calling my father a philanderer, Hanley?”

“No,” I backpedalled, keeping my tone soft. “It’s just that—”

“If you throw your pussy at a man a million times, eventually he’s going to want it. Even if it is only once.”

My body turned completely cold. My bottom lip detached from my top in awe. Elias, the distraction, became a reminder to keep my feelings guarded. Feelings I could no longer control, but I would at least continue to pretend our feelings were unequal.

He grabbed my waist, directing me straddle his lap. “Erase that look from your face, Hanley. It doesn’t apply to me. Only my father. I would never and have never been that kind of man. Another woman could throw herself at me repeatedly and it would only be you I want.”

“Would you really have that much self-control?” I croaked.
 

“You have a firm grip on a place that used to be elusive. I couldn’t want anyone else if I tried. I only see you. You block out so much it’s beginning to get me into trouble. Believe me, I couldn’t care less about what I’m missing, with you at the center of my world.” Brushing his hand against my cheek, he kissed me until my concerns disappeared.

SEVENTEEN

THE GALLERY WAS PACKED with people browsing the black and white erotic photos of a local artist Elias told me he had invested in—whatever that meant. The space was open with a loft-like feel due to the vaulted ceilings and brick accent walls. The building was split with varied statues on the lower level. Photographs and paintings were affixed to the white walls on the upper level. A grand staircase led to a darkened area I could only assume were offices.
 

The occasion was formal, but the atmosphere and the people made it feel very informal. It was a gathering of friends a little too intimately involved with one another.

The only excuse for their behavior I could find was they were all given a passion drug and didn’t share it with me. I’d never seen so many couples provocatively canoodling in public before. It was a sex party with fully clothed guests.

“You’re blushing and staring,
minha amada
.” Elias raised an amused brow and ran the back of his curled index finger down my cheek.

I turned my attention back to him. “This is
not
the best place to meet my father. I wish you would’ve taken him up on his offer to cook dinner.”

“It’s perfect.” He squeezed my hand—the one that was conjoined to his the entire time we’d been inside the gallery. They were almost glued together from the way my clammy hand clung to his cold, dry one.

I looked over the crowd again and finally spotted my father. I waved at him as he ascended the stairs directly in front of the vestibule. It would be the first time we’d been face to face since our blowout some weeks back.

“Never leave my side,” Elias whispered in my ear, reminding me of what he said to me in the car on the way to the gallery. He gave me a kiss, pressing for a reply.

“Okay,” I said, giving in.

Elias threw on a tepid grin and greeted my father, “Mr. Harper.”

“It’s not Harper. It never has been.” He extended his hand to Elias. “Just call me Marcus.”

Stunned my father used his real name, I studied Elias for a hint of recognition or alarm, but there wasn’t any.

They shook hands like gentleman and sized each other up for a while. Elias studied my father the way he did when he spoke to people. To the paranoid, it could be intimidating. You could easily feel the way he dissected your mannerisms and the way you spoke from the unshakeable way in which he looked at you.
 

“I’m sorry I’ve taken your daughter away from you.” Elias kissed the side of my head and brought me near. “I can’t be without her lately.”

“I’m not surprised.” My father’s posture turned rigid as he averted his eyes from the crowd around us, but lacked the capacity to directly regard Elias. “She’s a wonderful girl.”

“She’s a wonderful
woman
,” Elias corrected him.

Visibly uncomfortable, my father scanned the room, specifically focusing on one of the photographs along the wall. Upon seeing one of the more graphic photos, he gulped and set his gaze to the tile beneath our feet.
 

“Are you embarrassed, Marcus?” Elias snickered. “Hanley told you that this was an erotic exhibit, didn’t she?”

“She didn’t,” he replied.

Elias hadn’t told me about the nature of the art we’d see until we were already headed up the steps of the gallery. By then, it was too late to call and cancel with my father.

“Do you have issues with beautiful images depicting sex?” Elias asked, regarding my father with a mocking smile. “How else could she have gotten here unless you fucked her mother? From what Hanley has told me, it seemed you couldn’t get enough of fucking her mother. Since you're a gentleman who obviously enjoys sex like any virile, normal man would, there’s nothing to be uncomfortable about. After all, your daughter and I have had sex in your house while you were home. That leaves very little room for embarrassment, doesn’t it?”

“Elias,” I hissed, “what the hell are you doing?”

His hold on my hand firmed tightly, hurting me and warning me to keep quiet without stating a word.

My father took notice of the grimace on my face and looked at Elias’s grip on my hand. His friendly yet uneasy smile tempered. “May I talk to my daughter alone for a moment, Mr. Cari?”

Elias’s eyes were like lasers as they darted to the artist, Matt Cremin, standing in the corner as if awaiting orders. Matt began to call everyone’s attention to him. A table was wheeled out, and a woman in a red silk robe trotted down the grand stairs to meet the crowd on the gallery’s level.

“Later, Marcus. There’s something I want you to watch.” Elias guided me by my hand, and my worried father followed soon after us.

“My next and last live exhibition is called The Masturbation,” Matt announced to the crowd. “It’s the most beautiful piece of art ever created.”

My father immediately moved to leave, but was blocked by Jaco. Elias clamped down on my hand, ensuring I couldn't leave his side to usher my father away.

The woman removed her robe and lay down on the table. When Matt spread her legs and began to masturbate her, my father grew just as uneasy as I did. Broadening his shoulders, my father turned to leave again. He glared at Jaco, who stood in his way, willing him to move out of his path.

“Marcus,” Elias sneered, “you need to see this. I’ve done some semblance of the same thing to your daughter. Actually…this is tame. There are dirtier things I've done to her body. Some of which while you were sleeping down the hall."

Shaking with anger, my father gritted through his teeth, “Please, allow me to leave.”
 

I dug my nails into the skin on the back of Elias’s hand, intending to make him bleed. "Let him go and let me go."

Elias nodded to Jaco, who moved out of my father’s way.

I attempted to remove my hand from Elias’s hold to follow my father. Elias pulled me back, snarling in my ear, “What did I tell you, Hanley?”

“I’m not your fucking property,” I snapped, glaring at him. “Don’t treat me like I am.” I glanced at my father’s trail and shook my head. “I can’t believe you did this to him—to me. To us.”

“It’s time he stopped treating you like a little girl and realized you are a woman,” he stated through his teeth, his voice gravelly. “You also have a problem with letting go of that title.”

“Fuck you, Elias,” I shouted, loud enough to embarrass him and call everyone’s scrutiny. My shout echoed throughout the space of the lobby area, calling all attention on me. I pushed further. “You’re hurting me. Let me go.”

Under the pressing stares, he whispered, “This is nothing. Wait until you experience the punishment I’ve planned for you,” and released his death grip on my hand.

I quickly turned away to search for my father.
 

Sitting on the steps, his hands clasped over his lap, my father gazed into space. He was so enraged, his hands shook violently. I sat next to him, my head filled to the brim with regrets and unable to find the right things to say.

“He knows who we really are,” he whispered.

“No. Can’t be possible. Even when you said your name, he didn’t flinch. And you weren’t there at the accident. His father has never seen you, only me and I’ve changed since then. Elias was just being a jerk.” I lied to him in the moment. I had suspicions after my interaction with his father, but I was too far in to back down. The last thing I needed was for my father to worry about me. He was fragile as it was. Filling his head with things to cause further concern would’ve driven him into a darker state.

He shook his head vehemently and held my hand. “I’m so sorry, baby girl. I did this because I had to be sure he didn’t know who we were before you went forward. Sadly, what I thought was right. We shouldn’t have done this. I told him my real name for a reason. He knows. He recognized me. I don’t know how, but he does. I could see it in his eyes. Don’t worry about what you left at his house. Just come home with me. We’ll move again.”

“With what money, father?” Annoyance took a hold of my voice and heightened my volume.

He dropped his gaze from me. “You and I both know it’s not money that’s keeping you at his side. I won’t sacrifice you to that monster. What he did today. Oh, God. He’s worse than his father. I knew he would be. You assured me he wasn’t. If you were wrong about that, you could be wrong about other things.”

“You didn’t hear the things he said to me when you left. He didn’t do this because he knew you. He doesn’t know who you are beyond the father of the woman he’s dating. If he did know, I think he would’ve done something else to us. I have to do this. It’s not about how I feel about him, it’s because I’ve come too far to back out now. We need the money.”

“This wasn’t about the money alone. It was about revenge. It’s no longer safe for it.” Pausing, he dazedly cast a glance at the street traffic. “As far as money is concerned, I’ll sell the cars,” he offered, appearing convicted in thinking it would be enough.