Page 40 of Worth Every Moment

He folds his lips, shaking his head as though I’m the disappointment. The stupid kid who doesn’t know a good business deal when it slaps him in the face. “Then you’ll go to jail. For a long, long time. Maybe you won’t make it out. Despicable man like you. Your behaviour has paved the way for this. Everyone will believe it. Dug your own grave, if you will.” He chuckles. “Is it really worth your freedom? Your money? Your entire life?”

Is it?

I grip the edge of the table and hold my tongue, not wanting to expose my true feelings to him. But I know he sees the weaknessin me. I know he’s interpreting my hesitation as contemplation. Knows that I’m considering this. And I fucking hate that I am.

How hard would it be to marry Diana? And why am I so against it, aside from the rebel in me not wanting to bow to my father’s bullying?

Erica.

Why does she have to pop into my head at the most inconvenient moments? Would she even give a fuck if I got married to someone else? She’d probably kick me down the aisle herself. If she’s the reason I’m saying no, then I need to get my head examined.

“You have four months of freedom,” Dad oozes. “Do whatever you want with it, but keep it discreet. Then you marry Diana. Pop that cherry.” A lecherous chuckle slips through his dry lips. “Pump her full of pretty little Hawkston babies to secure this fucking hotel deal. After that, you can walk away. Give her a nice divorce settlement. And as a kicker, I’ll leave you the hotel in my will.”

“Fuck you. No. I won’t do it.” I thump my fist on the table. “You will not control me like this.”

He leans back, chin propped in one hand, his elbow resting on the armrest of his seat. He doesn’t look remotely troubled by my refusal, like he knows it’s only a matter of time before I bend to his will. “You were always so eager to please as a child. Desperately trying to make us all laugh. To make us happy. What happened to that little boy, Sebastian?” He croaks out a laugh that has me convinced my father is truly evil. “Tell him I miss him, won’t you? He would have done this for me.”

“You killed him.” I push up from my seat, intending to leave before the urge to physically maim him takes over. I’m drawing the attention of other diners but I hardly see them. The world is a fucking blur.

He snorts. “Four months, Sebastian. Then we’ll announce the engagement.”

“The fuck we will,” I spit over my shoulder.

I stride through the restaurant, hoping I never have to see that fucker’s face again. There isn’t even a trickle of love in me for that man. I hope he dies a slow and painful death—preferably before Nico gets married in three months, so I won’t have to see him at the wedding—and that damn hotel never gets built.

But, as good as it feels to walk out on him, he’s the one with all the power. If he wanted to, he could rip me a new one and leave me to bleed out in the street. He’d do it too. No doubt about that. So while it might feel like I’ve achieved something as the door crashes shut behind me—my own little rebellion—I can still hear him laughing out here in the corridor, and it feels like shit.

No one wins against William fucking Hawkston.No one.

14

ERICA

Iam a glutton for punishment. Either that or I’m completely spineless, because I’m in the waiting room of the Harley Street plastic surgeon’s room sitting next to my mother. Sometimes it feels like her influence is a vine wrapping its tendrils around me.Inescapable.

Where would I be if I truly cut myself loose?The thought raises the hairs on the back of my neck. We’re energetically enmeshed, and as much as I’d like to sever our connection, I don’t know where I would be—who I would be—without her.

A glance around the waiting room tells me I’m not alone in this codependence; there are an alarming number of young girls in here, sitting with their mothers.

Am I really going to let her force surgery on me? Isn’t that a step too far?

Nerves crawl in my stomach like insects disturbed from under a dark log. I remind myself that Mum is doing this to help me. She only wants to help.Doesn’t she?

People keep looking at me.Sometimes, I really wish I wasn’t famous.I’m wearing a short summer dress, but my hair istucked up in a baseball cap. A huge pair of sunglasses are perched on the bridge of my nose, even though we’re indoors. I must look crazy, but Mum insisted. Because how awful would it be if someone recognised me and told people I was considering surgery?

“Miss Thomas?” calls a nurse.

I don’t react, but Mum grabs me. “That’s us. I had to use a fake name.”

Us.

My body revolts over that one word, but when Mum hauls me out of my chair, I don’t resist. We follow the nurse, who leads us to a fancy consultation room on the first floor with a wide bay window that looks down over Harley Street. The surgeon, a man in his fifties with salt and pepper hair, sits behind a desk.

He stands and gestures to the seats opposite his desk. “Miss Thomas?”

Mum shakes his hand, and I sit. I remove my cap and my glasses, and let my hair fall. The surgeon does a double-take, blinks, and clears his throat.

“Erm…”