Chapter Two
Parker
My father is a pompous ass.
He’s been this way my whole life, overly eager to whip out his dick whenever he feels threatened by those in the room. And if it’s his son, if it’s me, he’s even more inclined to set up a pissing contest.
I’m not sure what’s worse—the fact that my father competes with me or the fact that I gladly respond to his taunting challenges.
Jaw tense and shoulders taut with friction, I stare at my domineering father, the great Osmond Somerville, whose only concern seems to be lecturing me about my recently acquired hobbies. Can’t a guy take the edge off? It’s the beginning of the fucking school year, and I have more on my mind than most teenagers my age.
Then again, most teenagers probably aren’t swapping the maid back and forth with their father.
“Alexandra—that girl,” he spits, his face reddening with anger, “is supposed to be your future wife per the marriage contract we were promised.”
I bite my tongue. I don’t give a flying fuck about a contract. He knows how I feel about the Morettis. It’s in the way my demeanor sours as I cross my arms over my chest and cast my annoyed glance toward the thick drapes guarding the windows. Bright sunlight shimmers into the room, providing a sunnier disposition than I’m inclined to accept.
“Regardless of your childish goddamn feelings,” he proceeds, reading my stance alone with the kind of critical gaze taught by a lawyer—by my mother, “you’ll do well to drop whatever stupid game you’ve decided takes precedence over your duties as my only son.”
Glaring at him won’t make the anger go away. Nothing could possibly quell the rage that builds inside me on any given day. For years, I’ve had to deal with my father’s efforts to upstage me at every turn, making me wonder how the fuck either of us is still alive. Everything save poison has been attempted.
Shit, I should poison his precious liquor.
No, glaring doesn’t help, but imagining his death at my hands? It helps. A little bit, but it helps.
Will his death grant me control of the family business? Most certainly. The way he whips his dick out and swings it around pisses me off endlessly, forcing me to come up with something better, something stronger, something much more impressive to knock him down a peg or two.
Regardless of how much it might satisfy me, murdering my father would be reckless. He’s in too much control, claws stuck in the business so deep that prying them out will take far too much effort, the kind I can’t currently obtain. It’s better to let him spin himself into madness first. Having a front-row seat to that is precisely how I want to spend my Friday evening.
You know, instead of having my ear chewed off by the damn pig.
“Do you hear me, Parker Somerville? You’re breaking up with that useless slut of a girlfriend, Tabitha, tonight,” he growls as he clutches the Steuben in his pudgy fingers. Can’t afford to break another one of those. I mean, he can, but it’s best if he doesn’t slice up his palms again. Mother hates it when the floors get stained with his…fluids. “I said, do you fucking hear me?!”
My upper lip curls enough for me to spit, “Yes, sir.”
“You’re fucking dismissed.”
Red splashes my vision. Rage, fury, and irritation prompt my limbs to move. I’m acutely aware of the crisp air greeting my nostrils, the plush carpet softening my footsteps, the shift from carpet to tile. And then the sturdiness of the banister beneath my fingers gives me a little more of reality to grip.
But I can’t get a fucking grip when my old man is breathing down my goddamn neck about a marriage contract.
After taking the stairs by twos, I march to the left and drop my bag to the ground in my bedroom. Four giant strides inspire me to whip off my shirt, planting me in front of a punching bag kept near the closet.
I land one punch, then two. Rearing back my elbow intensifies my irritation, ire lacing through the motions that produces another punch, and then another. Each active jab does nothing to reduce my rage. If anything, the useless punches only cause it to swell, a wall of stifled resentment climbing high into the sky to block out the sun.
I’m seething.
No. Seething hardly seems to be the right term. I’m downright oozing with the kind of fury that could kill a man. One glance would send anyone running away from me. Maybe even my father.
I sneer. He’ll just take it as a challenge.
A clatter echoes from the bathroom, breaking me out of my thoughts. I wander toward the open door, chest heaving as I realize a young maid is working diligently to scrub the shower. Gloves guard her hands as she raises a brush above her head to scrub the mirror in the shower, oblivious to the fact that I’m standing in the doorway. The white buds in her ears signal that she has no idea I’m here.
I snarl, “Stupid slut.”
My nostrils flare as I march into the bathroom and whip open the glass shower door. White luxury surrounds us, perfectly scrubbed tiles sparkling with opulence. No mirror in the vicinity—which happens to make up the walls of my bathroom, and for good fucking reason—harbors a smudge, reflecting my determined expression, my tightened jaw, my wild eyes.
I grab her hips and spread her ankles wide with my shoe. Her resulting gasp makes my cock twitch under my shorts, the fabric tightening as I harden. Pressing my length to the slit of her ass inspires her to tilt her hips, arching her back. She fucking likes it. I know she fucking likes it.