Page 35 of Cruel Promise
“Yeah. Equal to her yearly salary at the time.”
“Hush money?” Fifty-grand isn’t life changing money, but it is still a lot. And given that she was young — if it were me, even growing up with money, I probably would have taken it.
Deacon nods. “Yeah. To a twenty-one-year-old kid who grew up poor, it was a lot of money. More than she’d ever seen..” He shakes his head. “But kids are expensive and when you don’t have a job and the medical bills pile up between checkups and ultrasounds and shit, you burn through your bank account a lot faster than you think.”
“He didn’t help after that?” The fifty grand should have been just the start of it.
He shakes his head. “Not a dime. She did it all on her own.”
“Why didn’t she fight him on it?” I ask. “She could have sued for child support. Forced him to help her. To support you.” Dad paid child support for both Aaron and me, and not once that I’ve heard of did he ever fight Mom on it. Even after Aaron turned eighteen, he still paid his part, helping Aaron with tuition and with competition fees before Aaron picked up sponsors for boarding. He made a donation to Kappa Mu to secure my spot in the sorority. Footed the bill for my car so I could get around easier on campus. My dad is well off, but it’s a drop in the bucket compared to the kind of money Dom’s dad has at his disposal.
“Why would she?” His tone is dejected. “After I was born, she reached out. She messaged him a picture of me and asked if he wanted to meet me, and you know what he said?”
A gnawing sort of dread fills me.
“He told her he’d never fathered a half-breed bastard and that unless she wanted to find herself in court for defamation, he suggested she lose his number and never bother him again.”
I gasp.
“That’s what I am to him,” he says. “A half-breed.” His voice cracks on the word and I have to blink back the moisture in my eyes. Hurt ripples out from Deacon in invisible waves, and I wish I could help.
“Do you get it now?” he asks. “Appearances are everything to that family, and hell will freeze over before they allow a white woman into the fold.” He gives me a sobering look. “And any child of yours would be a half-breed bastard like me, too.”Unwanted. Rejected. Ignored.He doesn’t say those words out loud but they hang in the air between us, sinking poisonous claws of doubt into me.
Deacon leaves after that and for the next hour, I play his words back in my head. What Richard Price did to Deacon’s mom is bullshit. But Dominique and I aren’t in a relationship. We have no secrets or lies. Not between us, anyway. Or at least there weren’t until Deacon spilled his.
Shit.I can’t tell Dominique about this.Double shit.
Throwing myself back on my bed, I release a frustrated groan.
I don’t owe Dominique anything. Not my secrets and certainly not Deacon’s. But even at our worst, when our dislike for one another borders on hate, the loyalty we share has not once wavered. And keeping this from him, already it feels like a betrayal.
“Why did he—” My bedroom door swings open, and I cut off the rest of my words.
“Why did he, what?” A deep and familiar voice asks, sending a shiver of nervous energy down my spine.
Bolting up from my bed, I pat down my riot of curls in a vain attempt to tame my hair.
“What are you doing here?” It’s the first thing that pops into my head, and judging by the displeased look on his face, it’s the wrong question to ask.
Whoops.
He’s here to punish me. Right. I may have looked forward to this whole punishment thing before, I’m definitely not looking forward to it now. I have too much on my mind. Too many scenarios playing out in my head.
Dominique’s eyes drink me in and his already brooding expression darkens only this time, his dark brown eyes are flecked with heat, his heavy lidded gaze laced with desire.
He closes the door behind him. The snick loud in the quiet room. Dominique hesitates with his hand hovering over the door handle before flicking the lock and ensuring no unexpected visitors can come in. His long legs eat up the distance between us and he uses his broad shoulders and sheer size to crowd me back onto my bed.
“You know why I’m here.” His chest vibrates with each one of his words, eliciting a small shiver beneath my skin.
I don’t move as he lifts one hand, casually tracing the line of my jaw before cupping my cheek in his warm, calloused hand.
Eyes boring into mine, he strokes his thumb over my bottom lip. On instinct, my lips part and my tongue peeks out to taste the pad of his finger.
A growl of approval works its way up his throat and his eyes flood with a feral sort of need. The unmasked emotion is stark in its intensity as his gaze hones in on my mouth.
Tension builds between us, blanketing the air with the promise of pleasure.
“It’s late. I didn’t think you’d show.” Any previous thoughts I had before evaporate when Dominique shifts his grip to the back of my neck, holding me captive before leaning in to capture my mouth in a bruising kiss.
