“Pictures can be faked. You know that as well as I do. Evidence only says what it’s meant to.” Even from here I can hear the undercurrent of warning in Byron’s voice. My father is at his mercy, he means. Byron is the one in charge now, despite the deference he still shows my father in public.
There is more murmuring. Then the clap of a fist on a solid wood desk.
“Don’t worry so much,” Byron says in an easy tone. “The governor and I go way back. Pledged to the same frat, a few years apart.”
“It’s not only Clara I worry for,” my father says. “Honor. There are marks…”
Oh God. He’s really bringing them up? He’s really seen them? I shudder, running my hands over my arms. There are goose bumps there. This is too strange a conversation to hear. I wish I’d walked away.
I’ve never been sure whether my father has noticed the bruises. On the worst days Byron would lock me in my room. A cell-phone photo taken by a maid and sold to the tabloid could derail his political ambitions, after all. I guess I’d assumed my father was too distracted—too much in pain—to notice the smaller marks Byron left. It almost hurts worse to know he saw them but did nothing.
Even if he’s standing up to Byron now.
“She doesn’t concern you any longer,” Byron says softly. “She’s my fiancée. Soon she’ll be my wife. Whatever we do behind closed doors is my business.”
“Yes…yes, of course. But Honor is a woman now. And Clara is still just sixteen.”
“Honor is mine to take care of. Clara too, by extension. I’ll watch over them when you’re gone.”
Now the threat is explicit, potent in the air. Even through inches of cherry wood paneling I can feel it. I wait, holding my breath, to see if my father will stand up for his younger daughter the way he didn’t for me.
“Besides,” Byron says, his tone lethal, “Clara isn’t even yours.”
I flinch. Th
e idea doesn’t come as a surprise—everyone in the house, everyone in the extended family, must know the truth. But I’ve never heard anyone speak it before. And instead of growing angry, that seems to win my father over. Or at least wear him down.
“She would only have to date him now,” my father finally says. “A governor’s son. Great connections. Clara will be happy. And Honor too.”
* * *
Anything you do with other people ends up being a performance. I learned to smile the right way, to walk the right way. The way my father wanted me to.
Like many six year olds, I had an obsession with ballet. But unlike other six-year-olds, I wasn’t placed in a classroom full of giggling children and pink ribbon. Instead a tutor was hired—a ballerino from the Royal Ballet in London and award-winning choreographer. There was no room for error. No room for the chubby layer of girlhood. Hours of practice every day honed my body and my mind until all I knew was how to please.
How to perform.
My father had molded me into the perfect stripper, although he would be horrified to find that out. Or maybe he already knew. Fucking me over my father’s desk, the bruises. He’d looked the other way.
“Want to grab a bite?” Lola asks as I head out the back.
I shake my head. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”
I don’t bother telling her an excuse, something she’d know was a lie.
She looks me up and down. “Wouldn’t hurt you to eat.”
We’re all slender here. The difference is she has curves that balance out. I trained my way through the time I would have grown breasts, and at twenty, I doubt they’re going to grow. “The men seem to like me okay.”
“Because you dance like a fucking ice princess. You’re untouchable.”
“The men seem to touch me okay too.”
She smirks. “You should borrow Candy’s outfit. You’d pass for thirteen.”
I make a face. “Don’t be like that.”
“Honest?”