Total pages in book: 20
Estimated words: 18480 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 92(@200wpm)___ 74(@250wpm)___ 62(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 18480 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 92(@200wpm)___ 74(@250wpm)___ 62(@300wpm)
“Daddy.” The hairs on the back of my neck stand up at the sound of the sugary fake voice filling the room. Speak of the fucking devil. “Mom said you had a guest.” I turn to see Tia standing in the now open doorway to Cooper’s office.
I’m guessing from the way she’s dressed that she is about to go out for a night on the town, but it’s only two in the afternoon. Which tells me it’s not a coincidence, and she was aware the second I got here. She’s spent that time doing herself up in a way I’m sure is alluring to most men. I’m not one of them.
Tia is pretty in what I would consider a very basic sense of the word. What others might consider to be beauty. That’s all it is, though. A board room of people sit around and decide what people will find attractive, and the rest of the world allows themselves to play into that.
“Don’t play dumb, Tia. While it might suit you, I’m not in the mood.” Her eyes widen a fraction.
“I don’t—”
“Tia, I hate nothing more than repeating myself.” Her lips purse. She fights hard to hide her anger, still wanting to keep up the façade of being some sweet girl.
“I thought we had a moment at the New Year’s party. Was I wrong?”
“It’s not a question. I think you knew you were wrong the second I removed your hand from my arm. It wasn’t appropriate.” Tia steps into the room more. I’m sure she has another plan to try to lure me in using some of her seduction. Or maybe her plan was for this all to get back to Petal and make Petal want nothing to do with me. But little does she know that Petal will never be done with me. Not as long as I breathe.
“Is there something you find unsavory about me?” Tia’s bottom lip puffs out as if I’ve wounded the woman.
A woman I know that has dated a few pro athletes, a rock star, and I won’t even touch on those random flights she took out of the States a few times that ended with her having more than a few million landing in her bank account afterward. For a half a second, my mother’s voice fills my head, telling me to be kind. In that half second, Tia has my mother’s words slipping away from my conscience.
“It’s her, isn’t it? Petal. Why her? She’s not even pretty anymore. The scars.”
“The scars?” I laugh at how ludicrous the comment is. Does my Petal have scars? Yes. Thin faded white ones that show in random spots on her body from broken glass.
Glass she crawled through to reach my own mother as she ripped her blouse from her body to hold it to my mom's stomach trying to stop the bleeding before she passed out herself. A girl who could already see her own parents were dead. I’ve always thought Petal was beautiful, but those scars, they made her breathtaking. They did something to me that no others could do. They are a reminder of how strong, selfless, and loving my Petal is. And I’m a greedy bastard that wants all of her goodness for himself.
You can’t see inner beauty with a glance. That’s what many say. That isn’t true with Petal. Those scars bleed out the beauty and pureness of her soul and heart. They left behind the marks of an angel willing to do whatever it takes to save another. To save my mother after having lost her own.
I didn’t need those scars to know what was inside Petal. She was the same little girl that was deathly scared of spiders but wouldn’t let me kill them. I’d have to trap them and set them free. Once I had to drive all the way over to her house to do it. Not that I complained. Even in my youth, I truly knew what Petal would come to fully mean to me. I seized every moment I could to be her hero.
Too bad I couldn't be one for her now. I granted those spiders and bugs freedom, but I couldn’t grant her the same.
“Valen, please just—”
“Vaughn,” I correct Tia. No one calls me Valen, and I know Tia is aware of that.
That name is reserved for Petal. When we were both younger, Vaughn would come out as a mess of a word when she said it. Then it became easier for her to call me Valen. It stuck for her. Said it reminded her of a warrior's name. I didn’t question it. If she wanted to perceive me as such, I wasn’t going to turn that down. One Halloween, our parents even had her dressed as a princess, and I’d been her guard. The pictures sit on the entryway table into my parents’ home to this very day.