The upside of pretending since the day I was born is that most people can’t see the real me.
Hell, even I can’t see that bastard sometimes. It worked just fine for years, and we’re talking about a lifetime subscription.
The difference between me and, say, someone like Teal — who’s currently glaring at me from the top of the stairs at her house — is that she can’t hide.
She’s too real, too raw, even if she has this ‘fuck off’ aura. She can’t fake or say things she doesn’t mean, and it’s why she’s never fit in the hypocritical game of RES’s halls.
When girls did everything to fit in, she just followed what she liked. She never once laughed or smiled because it was expected. She’s a socially awkward bean with a twist. Most socially awkward people don’t want to be in that category, whereas Teal likes it — if anything, she might even take pride in it.
Her glares are real, too. They’re probably the most real thing about her, the way her thick brows scrunch and her skin reddens with pent-up anger. Without words, she communicates that she hates having me here. She hates my guts and my existence, basically.
Get in line, belle.
For the past week, I’ve been picking her up for school, despite her protests and jabs and attempts to throw me under the bus like a mechanic every time an adult is around.
She tries to brush past me, ignore me, pretend I don’t exist. When that doesn’t work, she attempts to make me look bad.
Teal still doesn’t understand that she can’t win against me in the peopling game. I’m way too loved, too approachable, and I don’t give off the deceptive calm façade like Cole. For that reason, people like me and naturally gravitate towards me.
It’s not a gift. It’s a commitment I made to myself when I decided I’d never be alone.
Not for one second.
Not even for a blink.
To accomplish that, people needed to take a liking to me. Before I knew it, I was becoming the epitome fantasy of any person looking to socialise.
Teal and I are opposite that way. She’s a loner by choice, never by force. She wasn’t bullied into it, because even when people called her a social outcast and Satan’s worshipper, she didn’t give them the time of day. She just rolled with it and gave them the middle finger.
So how come someone like her, someone who doesn’t fit in my image of peopling, can consume my thoughts?
I haven’t stopped thinking about her. After the day she left my house with her clothes and hair dishevelled and her lips swollen from me fucking her mouth, she became Ron Astor the Second’s fantasy come true.
Every night, I dream of her black eyes as she stared up at me, and I can almost still taste her on my tongue.
I can still hear her tiny voice saying I’ll be good. Fuck. I’ve never loved words as much as those, never thought of a girl as much as I do of her.
Thankfully, I have the best solution to get rid of this unwanted attention. If I get close enough, I’ll eventually tire of her. The reason she’s occupying my thoughts is that I still know little to nothing about her aside from her being manhandled kink and her bad taste in men.
I should be her type.
Anyway, that’s why I’ve been showing up every day since. She’s starting to slip away by avoiding any alone time with me, probably scared about what I’ll do with her.
My head has been going into overdrive since that day, obsessing about the best way to fuck her so thoroughly she’ll forget everyone before me — and after me.
Wait. She gets people after me? I don’t like that thought.
Knox clasps my shoulder as she huffs and goes back to where she came from. She’ll buy more time before she has to go to school — it’s her pattern. Doesn’t matter. Sooner or later, she’ll come for me.
Pun intended.
“Never mind her. She’s always like that.” Knox grabs an apple from the bowl on the table and crunches loudly.
“Has she always been like that?” I grab an apple myself and toss it in the air, pretending to be nonchalant.
Knox and I have been getting close over the weeks, but he’s been distant lately, even during football practice. He also doesn’t like talking about his sister, which I understand considering the sibling relationship.
But something tells me he’s trying to hide something else.
Holding a secret for so long gives me certain perks; the most important of all is that I get to sense when someone is hiding something.
Knox, for instance.
“Why are you asking?” He takes another huge bite. “You want me to tell you her deepest, darkest secret so you can use it against her?”
I lift a hand in the air, pretending to wave a white flag. “I just want to end an engagement neither of us wants.”
Or at least, I didn’t want it. I’m not so sure anymore. The thought that she could be with someone else as soon as we’re over makes me want to grab her by the throat and fuck her until she no longer thinks about anyone else.
I’ve never had those thoughts about a girl before or even viewed sex that way.
For me, shagging was another way to keep people close, to never spend nights alone. Even when some fucked-up ideas barged in, I usually shooed them away without a problem.
Not with Teal.
It’s almost as if she brings them to the forefront of my messed-up brain.
Knox chews slowly. “She does want to be engaged.”
“Why would she?”
He lifts a shoulder. “I wish I knew. You think I want my sister with a womaniser like you, mate?”
“Then we can help each other.”
He raises a brow. “Or you can do right by my sister.”
Fuck that.
“We’re not in the middle ages anymore, Van Doren.”
“Apparently, your father thinks otherwise.”
I sigh, pausing before I throw the apple. “At least give me something about her so I can treat her right.”
Or rather, learn her better. Even after seeing her in her most intimate moments, she’s still a puzzle. It’s the way she shuts down, immediately building up fortresses and walls.
Knox chews, looking me up and down. “Don’t startle her.”
“What?”
“Don’t come out of nowhere and surprise her. Don’t touch her when she’s not aware of your presence. She has a bad reaction to that.”
A few things click into place — the way she jumps slightly then instantly hides it, the way she was breathing heavily as she sought refuge in that closet.
She has some sort of attacks.
But she didn’t have them when I pinned her to the wall. Was it because she was already aware of me?
I fully face Knox. “What’s the reason?”
“Childhood trauma.”
“The stuff with Elsa’s mother?” When Knox and I were getting close and smoking weed in dark corners at parties, he told me about how he and Teal became a part of Ethan Steel’s family and what his wife did to them.
I suspect something similar happened to Aiden, but the fucker never talks about it.
“Nope. Something deeper.” He tosses the finished apple in the bin. “That’s all for your psychological class of the day.”
Something deeper?
What’s deeper than being kidnapped by a mentally deranged woman, being made to pretend to be her dead son, and being cut by her? Teal and Knox have faded scars on their knees — evidence of those times.
He places a hand in his pocket and his eyes droop a little as he shoots me a glare. “I know you don’t want this engagement, but hurt my sister in any way and you’ll see evidence of my origins. Our origins.”
Street kids. A prostitute’s offspring who don’t even know their father because even their mother doesn’t.
That is the reality of the Van Doren twins. Everyone knows it, Edric included. Just because Ethan Steel became their father doesn’t mean it changed their origins. And yet, Edric agreed to the engagement for a partnership with Ethan.
He didn’t care who he had to throw me to.
Earldom 101: selling out your children for arranged marriages like whores.
“Just a piece of advice,” Knox says.
“Yeah?”
“Don’t fall in love with her.”
I laugh, tossing him the apple. “That will never happen.”
He catches the fruit above his head. “Good, because it’ll never be reciprocated. T doesn’t know how to feel.”
He says it with an edge of sadness, like it’s bothered him for a long time and he doesn’t want others to be caught in the same position.
Just then, she descends the stairs. This time, she’s accompanied by Agnus, Ethan’s partner or adviser or what-the-fuck-ever. She’s asking him about some of her stuff and he replies with curt, detailed descriptions of everything.
Then something happens, something that makes me grip the table so tightly I’m surprised my tendons don’t snap.
When they’re at the base of the stairs, she stares up at him, and her lips curve into a sensual smile — soft, warm, fucking angelic.
I know it’s honest because she can’t fake a smile to save her life. I know she means it because her entire body is angled in Agnus’ direction.
My type is at least fifteen years older, experienced, and doesn’t smile the entire time like a gigolo on crack. In short, not you.
Her words play at the back of my head in a loop.
My gaze snaps to the man she’s spent the last ten years with, the man she’s smiling up at.
Her fucking type.
It takes everything in me to plaster a smile on my face. I push off the table and stride towards them. Her smile falls and she shoots me a ‘stay away’ look.
Stay away? Stay fucking away?
I place a hand on the small of her back, and a slight shiver goes through her body as she remains completely still.
There. Much better.
“Agnus, right?” I grin at him, showing my teeth.
He gives me a curt nod, pretending, like I am, that it’s the first time we’ve met.
“If you’ll excuse us, I’m going to drive my fiancée to school now.”
“Agnus can do it.” She tries to wriggle away, but I dig my fingers into the tender skin of her waist, making her wince under her breath.
“I’m sure he’s a busy man.” I smile. “Right?”
“Yes, indeed.” He ruffles her hair, and she blushes so furiously her pale skin turns rosy. “Call me if you need a ride home.”
I grind my molars, but I speak through my usual smile. “No need. I’ll do it.”
And with that, I drag her with me outside. In just a few seconds, my mood has gone from grey to black. No, not black — red, and fucking murderous.
“I told you not to pick me up,” she protests.
“And I told you that’s not how it works.”
“Let me go, Ronan. I can’t keep up.”
I stare back at her as we reach the entrance. I’m clutching her by the wrist, and she stumbles on her own feet in her attempt to catch up to me.
Instead of letting her go, I slam her against the wall. She gasps as her back is flattened against the blunt surface. “You don’t need me to pick you up because you have Agnus?”
“Well, yes.” She stares up at me despite the tremor in her voice.
“Well, yes?” I laugh, but there’s no humour behind it. I know she sees it too, because she swallows, her black eyes filling with what resembles fear.
Fear is good. Fear means she knows her fucking place.
“So does that mean I’m ruining your daddy kink, Teal?”
“Screw you, okay? I won’t allow you to talk about Agnus that way.”
“And in what way should I talk about him? Is he the reason behind your fantasies, ma belle? Is that it?”
“I don’t have to tell you anything.”
I grip her by the chin and force her neck into a bent angle so I’m glaring down at her. “Forget about him, starting right fucking now.”
“Or what?”
“Or I’ll make you regret it.”
Something sparks in her features, a challenge, a ‘game on’ of sorts before she puffs out her chest. “No.”
“Oh, Teal.” I caress her skin, my voice calm and touch gentle though my insides are on fire. “You’re fucked.”
