Page 40 of Crushing Clover

I interrupted his morning swim, as I’d expected. It was the little things that made life worth living, and annoying Warren always made my day somewhat brighter.

The envelope with its gargantuan stack of bills was a lead weight. Maybe if I handed it to him now, he’d sink to the bottom and drown. Lord knew he wouldn’t let it go to save himself.

For a man old enough to have sired me, he was in regrettably great shape.

Most of the rich assholes I’d gone to school with were fortunate enough to have fathers who—if they weren’t good guys—at least had the decency to be prematurely old due to overindulgence in booze or drugs, if not straight-up dead.

But no, not me.

I got to keep living this fucking nightmare every month.

But hey, only two months after this.

“Saint John,” he said by way of greeting, wiping the water from his eyes and slicking back his hair.

“Warren.”

“I really wish you’d call me Dad.”

“I really wish you’d do me a favor and drop dead.”

He snorted, his smile a snide curl of his lip. “Well, no one can say I raised you to be soft.”

“You didn’t raise me at all. That was the servants.”

He cocked his head, conceding the point. “I was busy amassing the wealth you’ll be enjoying for the rest of your life. Very sad. Maybe you should get some fucking therapy, already.”

I set my jaw, unwilling to admit I’d been considering it, and not only because Clover kept telling me I needed to work through my feelings about Arabella. “I had a therapist, remember?”

Warren launched himself backward, doing a length of backcrawl before coming back my way, butterfly stroke.

The pool called to me. He’d made me do laps so often as a punishment when I was a kid it had become a secret solace for me.

Being underwater, like being in a well-stocked library, brought with it a quality of silence I enjoyed.

It helped calm the anger that had been seething in me since I was a child.

Not too much silence, though. I’d tried a float tank therapy place once and lost my shit after maybe two minutes. Those places were great for some people, but the last thing I needed was to be completely alone with my thoughts.

“Yeah, I remember your therapist. Lyanna. Cute little thing.”

“She was great until you fucked her.”

“Jealous?”

“I was ten,” I said incredulously. “I couldn’t figure out why she was always defending you, all of a sudden.”

He grinned, his aristocratic face begging for a fist. “When the dick is good enough, they get a little obsessed.”

Neither of us had ever been afflicted with false modesty.

He launched himself out of the water, making me back up to accommodate him on the pool deck.

It had been redone recently, reminding me of how shitty ours was getting.

There wasn’t money for anything except necessities and the odd splurge, and now with an extra mouth to feed, there was less. Not that she ate much.

“Speaking of women who are obsessed with me, how is our little Arabella doing?”

“I haven’t talked to her in years. You know that.”

“No, no. The lookalike.” He snapped his fingers a few times. “Candy?”

The lapse in memory was all for show. The man never forgot a name.

“She’s fine.”

“Has she been asking about me?”

“Of course not.”

Humming, he grabbed a towel, and draped it over his dripping shoulders. “Good. I warned her about what would happen if she didn’t please you. Asking you about me would be unconscionably rude.”

Did he seriously think that was the only reason Clover wasn’t asking about him? Probably. The man’s ego was as bloated as his bank account.

“So, what happens to her when I’m done paying the debt?” I tossed the envelope on the small table beside the chaise he usually chose when he was out here.

He shrugged. “I’ll arrange for her to be sold. Still not taking a shine to her? That’s disappointing.”

“What does it matter to you?”

“You’re my heir, and eventually you’ll need an heir.”

I stared at him. As soon as he was dead, I’d have a fucking party, then donate his grotesque wealth to every charity he turned up his nose at. I wouldn’t let his filthy money pollute me or my life any more than it already had.

“I don’t care if you keep your little boyfriends on the side, but they make you look weak. Even if you’re the top, everyone will assume you’re the bottom.”

“My personal life is none of your fucking business.”

He waved away my statement as if it was a wasp encroaching on his drink.

“Everything about you is my business. That’s why I took Clover for a long, rough test drive before handing her over. Had to make sure she was worthy of my boy.”

I bit my tongue. Sure, I was fucked up, but Warren was worse. What the fuck had his father put him through? He never spoke his name.

“Who are you going to sell her to?”

“I don’t care. Whoever offers the highest price, I suppose. Probably some illegal brothel that will work her to death.” He toweled his hair dry. “Does that bother you?”

I didn’t reply. Unfortunately, I was pretty sure it did bother me, but Warren was the last person I’d tell.

A vision rose to mind, of Clover tied to a bed, getting used by man after man until she died of neglect. I pushed away the thought, feeling sick. I didn’t want to keep her forever, but she was still a person.

“Maybe we can come to some other arrangement. Still two more months.” He brushed past me. “I have a meeting in five.”

He left me standing there, staring after him.

The money we’d scraped together, he’d left abandoned on the table for a servant to retrieve for him—an afterthought.

Just like I’d always been.