Hooked: A Dark, Contemporary Romance (Never After #1)(56)

The corners of Peter’s eyes tighten as he nods, his lips breaking apart to show his gleaming white teeth. “Yes, that’s true.” He looks around. “And where are they tonight?”

My body stiffens, rage spiraling through me like a windstorm. Wendy’s face snaps toward mine, her eyes trailing up and down before they go back to her father, narrowing the slightest bit. She drops her fork, and the noise of it clanking against the dish grates against my eardrums. Her hand reaches out, pressing against my chest and rising, until her palm cups my jaw. The shock of her touch is enough to clear the red haze filming over my eyes.

She leans in, pressing a kiss to my cheek. “Take a deep breath. People are starting to stare,” she whispers.

My lungs expand as I collect myself.

Wendy sits back and pins her father with a look. “What is that supposed to mean?”

My chest pulls tight at her question. Because again, if she was part of Peter’s plan, she would know exactly what that meant.

“Wendy, it was a simple question.” Peter sighs.

“That’s quite alright.” I smile as I pull Wendy in close, my hand smoothing down her hair. “I’ve found much more enticing company.”

Peter’s jaw tightens and he leans in, his eyes pleading with his daughter. “You have no idea who you’re sitting next to.”

Her jaw stiffens. “I know exactly who he is. It’s you I’m beginning to question.”

My heart stutters, his phrase cementing what I’ve been theorizing for the past few minutes.

She doesn’t know about her father.

And that means she never betrayed me at all.





32





Wendy





The rest of dinner is filled with tense stares, nothing but the scraping of silverware and the people who speak on the stage waxing poetic about solving injustices in the world by throwing million-dollar parties with thousand-dollar seats.

But my insides are raging.

“Shouldn’t you be at the mansion?”

He didn’t even know I was gone. I was kidnapped, and he didn’t even know I was gone.

I’ve been telling myself for months that I need to admit he isn’t the man I remember, but this is the moment where the piece of my soul that was clinging on finally breaks, falling to the floor and shattering into a hundred jagged pieces.

He didn’t even know I was gone.

But of course, he could show up here.

God forbid his image ever take a hit. His public image, that is. It’s clear as day to me now that he doesn’t care how I see him.

And there’s something going on with Hook’s friend, Ru. The silent conversation with the commissioner, the way his name sends Hook into a tailspin, and now my father mocking his missing friends—it has my nerves wired and on high alert.

I know why Hook has me here, that’s become very obvious, but I can’t for the life of me figure out why my father is taunting him.

Why he even deals with someone like Hook in the first place.

Unless he’s not who he pretends to be.

And that, more than anything else, has me feeling like the stupidest person on the planet. Because how can you live with someone, how can you spend years breathing the same air, worshiping their every move, loving them with your whole heart, and not really know who they are?

The realization splits through me and breaks the lock on all of the things I let go unsaid, all of the times I’ve wanted to strike back, but nodded and smiled instead. I know Hook is most likely going to hurt me for lashing out, but I can’t find it in me to care. Finally—finally—being able to speak my mind is liberating. And when Hook not only allows it, but encourages it, I feel like I have someone at my back.

As twisted as that may seem.

I glance over to watch him as he nods along to something a man next to him is saying, my stomach somersaulting from my completely upside-down emotions. How is it possible that this man—the one who threatened my life less than an hour ago, the one who chained me to a basement wall—how is he still the only one who seems to treat me as if I’m valid?

He made the police commissioner apologize for insulting me and rubbed my neck while I stood against my father and his bitch of an assistant. And that doesn’t feel like Hook.

That feels like James.

I shake my head, reminding myself that he’s putting on a show. None of the way he’s treating me is for my benefit and forgetting that won’t do me any favors.

My eyes slide past Hook’s frame, noticing that one of the twins is walking in our direction. They reach us and bend down to whisper in his ear. Hook’s fingers, which have been trailing along the top of my thigh, freeze in place, and he straightens. With a squeeze on my leg, he moves, placing his napkin on the table. “If you’ll excuse me for a moment, there’s a pressing matter that needs my attention.”

He stands, cutting a glare to my father, before leaning down to press a kiss to my cheek, his fingers tangling in my hair. “Behave,” he murmurs against my skin. “There’s nowhere you can run that I won’t follow.”

Anxiety mixes in my bloodstream as he walks away, my stomach tightening with indecision. My father is sitting right there, and he’s the one man on this earth who could save me, but at what cost?

I won’t do anything unless I know that Jon will be protected, and he’s proven time and time again that he doesn’t make him a priority.