Page 83 of Liar
“This—what you’re doing. Telling me the secrets to your heart, baring your soul, or however you want to put it. You will help me steal millions from my father and stop him from killing yours. I’ll reward you with good fucks. We can put an end to it there.”
I swing around to stare at him. Bite my lower lip. “What if I don’t want to?”
His jaw locks after my question. He stares straight ahead.
“Have you ever considered there’s more to us than sex?”
Thorne’s answer is to swing the car sharply around a curve until I grip the holy-shit bar and bite down on a cry of surprise.
Thorne’s trying to scare me into shutting up, meaning I’m right. He does think about it.
“If you believe I’ll consider more than your pussy after using you for what I need, you’re sorely mistaken.”
His barb hits its mark. I put a hand over my heart, rubbing out the pain. “Stop denying what you know is true, Thorne. You like me.”
“Shut up and focus, Ember. This isn’t the time.”
If he had it his way, there would never be a moment like this again. I sit back, allowing Thorne the seconds required for my revelation to sink into his thick skull. “What are you going to do if we succeed?”
“When we succeed,” he corrects, his tone moving into a more neutral tone now that I’ve cut him some slack. “I’ll be fine. I’m eighteen and won’t need a guardian, but our butler, Josh, is a good man. A great one. I’d stay on with him until we graduate.”
“And the money? Where will it go?”
He stares at me out of the corner of his eye. “Why, you want a cut?”
I shrug, mirroring him by staring straight ahead. “It’s not out of the question.”
“Well. Some of it belongs to Sav, with everything she endured. As for the rest, I’ll distribute it to the members who Father has made suffer the most, like Julie.” Thorne glances at me once, then twice, once he realizes he’s under my quiet scrutiny. “The Nobles and Virtues who are basically eating out of trash cans. They deserve a few bills or two.”
“It’s not working, you know.”
He sighs as we slow in front of Winthorpe’s gates. “What’s not working, Ember?”
“Your dismissive tone when you talk about helping people who can’t help themselves. Your warm and squishy side is showing.”
“The fuck it is.”
“What about your mom?”
We’re turning into the staff parking lot when Thorne slams on the brakes. I’m grateful for my seat belt when my forehead is prevented from splitting open on the dash.
“Conversation over,” Thorne bites out, then puts the car in park.
“I take it she’s not in the picture,” I say once my heart slides back down to where it belongs.
Thorne shoves the driver’s side door open, then whirls on me. “Yeah, a lot like yours.”
My shocked suck of air is cut off when he gets out and slams his door.
“Fucking jackass,” I mutter while shoving my door open. “What do you know of my mother?” I give my door a good slam, too. “Either one of them? That’s right, asshole. I have two, unlike your sorry self. How is Julie as an unwilling stepmother, huh? I’ve always wondered.”
Thorne’s shadow seems to grow out of him, elongated and clawed, as he storms over to where I stand. I expect him to unleash and come under a dusting of his saliva as he tosses the most cutting insults in his repertoire to get me to shut up and stop talking about his sore spots.
I expect it, but I get the opposite.
“See this, right here? This is why I don’t care for you. We don’t belong together. You, with your sweet face and stupid fucking fantasies.” Thorne jabs a finger at me. “I come from a world of hate, and what you don’t understand is I don’t want to leave it. I could give a fuck what Julie wants or thinks—Do you know, at night, when my father comes home and fucks her, I listen to her screams?” He pauses to enjoy the horrified gasp that I give him. “Yeah, I’ll give her money to pay her off from publicizing her abuse. And those Nobles and Virtues I spoke of, that’s to buy their silence, too. As for the rest, I’m using it for my own investments. And I’m taking all my father’s collateral with me. All the blackmail and leverage he has on the cloud against every single sorry soul who crosses the Briars. I will be king, Ember. Far from the Prince Charming you think I am.” He rakes me with a cold stare before stepping back. “How’s that for soft and warm?”
Thorne turns on his heel as I search for the right words. “I’m not drawn to that side of you.”