Page 23 of Dream On

I refrain from looking him in the eyes as I storm away. “Somewhere not here.”

An ambush of noise ricochets behind me, sounding like he tipped over a fucking a table or something. I slow to a stop and glance behind me.

Yep. It was a table.

“I’ve had it up toherewith your reckless, cavalier attitude.” Dad slices a flat palm through the air two inches above his head. “Your mother has been in shambles over you.”

“Interesting take, suddenly giving a fuck about Mom.”

“Watch your damn mouth.” He kicks at a pile of broken glassware, courtesy of the tipped-over side table. His white sleeves are rolled up past his elbows, top two shirt buttons undone. A royal-blue tie is loose and crooked as he takes a deliberate step toward me. “You swore you’d get your shit together if we moved you out of Los Angeles. And the only reason we agreed to this astounding inconvenience was so you didn’t do any more to embarrass the family name.”

My lips purse.

I may or may not have told a potential agent to eat a bag of dicks.

“My shit is together,” I volley back, gaze panning to the havoc at his feet. “Is yours?”

The slider door rolls open. Mom pokes her head in from the patio, everything about her going meek the moment she takes in the mess of glass shards and ruptured wood. “Everyone okay?”

Dad’s cold eyes narrow at me.

“Mortimer?”

“Go back to your lemon martinis, Veronica.”

She does.

She always does.

It’s ironic, really. My father, a man linked to wealth and prestige, carries a name that traces back to “dead sea.” Seas are immense, powerful, teeming with life, much like the prestigious law firm he’s built from the ground up. But the sea in his name is dead, lifeless. Just like him. Standing before me now, he’s not the man of influence people revere—he’s a decaying force, tainting everything he touches, rotting from the inside out.

The silence is deafening as we face off from a room away. My jaw clenches, teeth scraping together like grinding gears. “I have an audition,” I lie for the sole sake of saving Mom after I disappear out that front door.

He blinks at me. “An audition.”

“Yeah. Bianca managed to set it up.” The name alone is sulfuric acid on my tongue.

“You fucked it all up with Bianca.”

“Mom talked to her.”

Two barrel-like arms cross over a broad chest as the light from the ugly chandelier glints off his product-stiff hair. “What’s the audition for?”

I try to think fast. I never cared to get the details. “A pilot for Paramount.”

Dad nods slowly, taking another step closer, then another, the fragments of Mom’s fancy dishware crunching beneath his shoes. When he’s an inch away from me, he stops, only his eyes moving as he maintains full height and assesses me from head to toe. “I want the audition details when you return.”

I swallow, try to keep my hands from shaking. “Sure.”

“All of them.”

“You bet.” My skin crawls as his hot breath beats down on me.

I fake my way through indifference and fold my arms. We all have our coping mechanisms, and mine is dissociating—it’s an undervalued superpower.

But the truth is…he terrifies me.

I’ve seen what he’s capable of. I’ve lived through the bruises and the outbursts and have witnessed more than my fair share of broken glass and beaten-down side tables over the years. I know that when I pretend to be immune to his wrath, it only summons the beast.