Avenging Angel (Pounding Hearts 5)

Two weeks.

It’s been two long, hellish weeks since my father essentially kidnapped me and blackmailed me. True to his word, once I agreed to submit to his demands, my father immediately brought me back to his house. After confiscating my phone for my own good, I was locked inside my room like a prisoner.

Completely cut off from the outside world.

Less than an hour later, I was forced to face Tristan and his smug, punchable face across a dining room table. Without any input from me, all the details of our impending engagement and marriage were ironed out between our two families.

And tonight, during the biggest political fundraiser of the year, it will be announced to the world.

“You look beautiful, Aubrey,” my stepmother, Valerie, says in her soft, throaty voice before she offers me a sweet smile.

She looks stunning herself in her shimmering white gown. Seated beside my father, she practically glows like an angel.

Failing to live up to the evil stepmother trope, Valerie has always been kind to me, and I’ve always wondered how a woman like her could marry a man like my father.

Did he have to blackmail her too in order to get his hands on her money?

“Thank you,” I murmur in response and manage to work up my own smile to offer in return.

Trapped once again in the back of my father’s limo, everything inside me is screaming for me to find a way to escape. To get out before it’s too late. My hand wants to reach for the door and my legs want to run for my life.

I want to run back into Emmett’s arms.

But I can’t. I can’t save myself. I have to see this through, for Casey.

“Yes… you do look beautiful,” my father agrees, glancing over at me.

My smile instantly tightens as his eyes meet my eyes.

“That little hunger strike of yours has done wonders for your figure. I’m sure Tristan will be relieved. You put on quite a bit of weight while you were away.”

Valerie visibly stiffens at my father’s little barb, but I keep smiling at him, not letting him get to me.

Over the past few days, locked up in isolation with nothing but my own thoughts to keep me company, I’ve finally come to terms with the fact that no matter what I do or how hard I try, I’ll never be good enough for him.

I’ll never live up to his expectations.

And I’m okay with that. I’m okay because he no longer lives up to my expectations.

In fact, he’s fallen so far below them, there’s absolutely nothing he could do to redeem himself in my eyes.

Nothing he could do except for having a change of heart and calling off this farce. But that would require him to have a heart in the first place. And even if he did call this off now, the damage he’s already done…

Oh god, I can’t even think about it right now.

If I do, I’ll completely fucking break down.

After a couple of minutes, when I make no effort to respond, my father sniffs and glances away.

With his attention focused on his window, I force myself to relax and focus on getting through tonight.

Despite what he said, I haven’t gone on a hunger strike. Yes, I probably haven’t been eating as much as I should, and I have lost a little bit of weight, but it’s not done out of protest or self-punishment. I simply have no appetite after enduring that dinner with Tristan and his family.

How can I eat after what I’ve done? How can I eat when I have a lifetime of being stuck with Tristan waiting for me?

Besides the little looks of pity Valerie keeps sending my way, the rest of the car ride to the event is quiet, uneventful, and goes by too quickly.

I’m still not ready or prepared to face what’s to come when the limo slows then crawls to a stop.