Shady Blue (GoodNovel Exclusive)

03 "Lover, Leaver"

I

Staring back at the man she wished so desperately was Vincent, Blue found it rather difficult to force a stiff smile. Cocking a warmer, thin-lipped smile of his own, hair so covered with gel, Richard gently kicked at her foot as he had one time too many and smiled as though the gesture somehow sexually pleasured her. Blue wondered if the mug she wanted to club the man over the head with so desperately would shatter from his hair alone. Wondered if he could find the clitoris even with a map. Carefully sipped her green tea.

She'd long since given up eyeing the clock across from her. It had been precisely eight fifty-nine for five minutes by then. As the longer arm ticked over, she found it would make a gentle retreat each time she glanced away. Or so she felt.

She had to give her mother some credit for not springing a chaperoned date on her at the very last minute. And while dinner with Richard wasn't exactly what she'd consider an ideal night, she'd had a large chunk of the day to rehearse her excuse for going to bed early. Then, she would be free. Free to climb from her bedroom window, indulge the man she never thought she would in a quiet, romantic dinner, and bed him as she'd envisioned since he left her alone in her father's study—cunt throbbing and heart racing. Face flushing at the very thought, she set down her tea.

"You know," Blue slouched in her chair as the man leaned forwards. Elbows bracing the sides of his plate and suit so close to falling in his soup dinner, the girl found her upper lip curling in every discouragement she could manage. Yet smiled sweetly. "If you want me to put a good word in for you over at Harvard, I'm more than happy to,"

"That won't be necessary," she spoke almost a little too quickly, fingers twisting in the hem of her stiff, tweed dress. Glancing at her mother who sat to the man's immediate left, eyes cold and eyebrows cocked as though asking if she wished to live out her days sealed in her bedroom, she smiled at the man again. Knew it looked as though she had a gun to her head. Spoke quickly. "Not that I don't want to, I just don't think I have the grades for it—the last few years have been kind of rough, academically speaking," and as her mother cast her gaze to the floor, laced fingers tucked beneath her chin and mouth set in the same dissatisfied grimace she was never without, Blue released a breath she hadn't realized she was holding.

"I'll tell you something now they didn't tell you in school," taking a brief pause, reaching across the table and covering Blue's hand with his own, the girl was again reminded of just how sweaty they happened to be. "Everything has a price tag," and he kicked her foot again.

"I'll certainly think it over," pulling her hand from his own, wiping it across the hem of her dress and ignoring the fact she felt as though she'd just dipped it into an unflushed toilet, Blue glanced between her mother and Richard rather nervously. And did as she had many times; smiled stiffly because she had no clue what else to do with herself. "Thank you for being so kind,"

"You don't need to thank me, just let me take you to dinner sometime,"

Suddenly, Blue was on the cusp of turning down yet another dinner invitation.

"I'm not sure, I'm not really allowed to go on da-"

"Nonsense, Blue, Richard is a family friend," sending her daughter the same pointed stare she had many times over, Marian smiled at Richard as though he was her very own son. And stared between him and her daughter rather malevolently. "If anything, the two of you have been practically married since birth," and as Blue forced a laugh and gazed at the man as though she had every intention of accepting his offer, she couldn't stifle the thought they'd apparently been married since she was a new-born, and the man was a teenager. Laughed at the fact people were jailed for less. At the fact this pedophile was so celebrated by her own mother. At the fact the man who had been a perfect stranger some twenty-four hours ago was now being peddled as some lifelong companion.