Breaking Her (Love is War #2)(12)

The first thing I noticed was the two girls on the pool table. They were naked, on hands and knees, facing away from each other, and they were moving. When I realized what they were doing, I felt myself blush.

The next thing my eye caught was my depraved father. He was sitting on one of the low leather couches with a glass in one hand, while the other was tucking himself back into his pants, his eyes glued to the pool table. The woman beside him, his mistress, I realized in shock as she straightened up from his lap, was wiping her mouth.

"Can I have a word?" I asked him sharply.

He sent me a glare that made him look like a spoiled child told to put down his ice cream. "Oh what now? You're not happy with your birthday party?"

"I'll be in the kitchen," I told him and left the room, having to shrug off two half-naked prostitutes as I went.

He didn't make me wait as long as I thought he would, only ten minutes or so, but in that time I had to kick five working girls out of the room.

"It's not my birthday," I said when he finally made his way leisurely into the kitchen.

He leaned against a countertop, his dirty blond hair mussed, part of it standing on end. I don't think he noticed.

He folded his arms over his chest, glass of liquor still in hand, staring me down. It wasn't very intimidating considering he was swaying on his feet. "It's not?"

"It's not." But that wasn't even the point. "You do know I'm only fifteen?" I asked him, curling my lip with the question. I wanted him to know how disgusted I was with him.

I always wanted that. It was the focal point of our relationship for me. I wanted, always, to establish how different I was from him.

How I was nothing like him.

He blinked a few times slowly, his mouth opening in what could only be described as a vaguely shocked, drunken pout.

I'm not even sure why his reaction surprised me. It wasn't at all out of the question that he'd forgotten how old I was.

"Fifteen?" he finally got out, taking a long swig of his drink and pursing his lips. "I thought it was fourteen. How the years go by. Damn, I hope you're not still a virgin?" He laughed. "Have I neglected my fatherly duties?"

I wanted to punch him right in his smug, drunken face. I was shaking with the urge.

"You're sick, old man," I sneered instead.

"Don't tell me you're queer." Something bright entered his eyes, and he smiled. "Actually, that would be just fine with me, as long as you can still manage to produce an heir. My God, that would be justice. Adelaide would lose her cunt mind."

I'd been rolling my eyes pretty hard, but he didn't seem to notice, so I finally just interrupted his strange tirade. "I'm not gay, and I don't want a whore for my birthday."

"I wasn't offering you a whore, son." In spite of everything, my heart jumped a bit when he called me son. It was pathetic. "I was offering you a room full of them. An apartment full. I was offering you as many different whores as you could stick your squeaky clean dick in between now and your next school day."

"No, thank you. I have a girlfriend."

"So? Is she here now? Grow some balls, boy, or at least get yours back. Gotta be a man sometime."

"Even if I didn't have a girlfriend, I'm not interested in prostitutes," I sneered.

That had him lifting a brow and calling, "Heather! Get in here."

"Why does she need to be here?" I asked him. I had no reason to like his longtime mistress. Just the opposite.

He grinned and it was unpleasant. "You're not interested in whores." Heather walked into the room, looking unfazed.

Well, dead behind the eyes if I was accurate.

The things she must see on a daily basis, I thought. I should have more pity for the woman.

"Heather, Dante says he's not interested in whores, but I still owe him a birthday present."

I still didn't catch on until she started to strip, her dead eyes on me. I was more naive than I'd realized.

"What are you doing?" I asked both of them, backing up a step, then another.

"Her tubes were tied after she had Lorenzo, so you don't have to wear a condom. You're welcome."

"You're disgusting," I told him.

"Is he gay?" Heather spoke for the first time.

Leo shrugged. "You prefer anal? Go for it. Heather's up for anything."

"Fuck no. Fuck you."

"He always was a brat," Heather noted.

This from the woman that had tried to smother affection on me in front of Leo when I was a child, then had shown me nothing but cruelty when his back was turned.

I gave my despised father the coldest stare I could muster over my rage. "I said I'm not interested in prostitutes. Get her out of here."

She left in a huff, like I'd deeply offended her.

"I'm going to tell Mother about this," I told him when she was gone.

I hated that I sounded like a child as I said it.

"Ha!" He got a real kick out of that. "Go for it. You think she doesn't know what I'm up to? I can't divorce the cunt, but she sure as hell doesn't get to tell me where I put my dick."

I stared at him, glared, and hated that aside from the eyes, I was the very image of him. Only on the outside, I told myself.