Valentine looked down at me as if he tasted bile in his mouth. "You're a poor excuse for a mother. Using my grief over Nina as an excuse to play hero and scoop her back to your place. Newsflash Lulu, no matter what you do she'll still be my daughter."
"Nothing about this moment is about you. My daughter called me because she was scared of her father."
He scoffed and walked back to his abandoned drink on the mantle of the fireplace. "I've come to expect lies from the likes of you."
"She said that papa was hurting over Nina and he was scaring her. I came over here as soon as I could because that's what a good mother does. Newsflash, Valentine you don't get to pick another mother. No matter how much you want it to be Nina," I said, using his words against him.
He threw a drink into the fire and it roared to life as shards of glass splintered everywhere. "Get out!"
I merely smirked. Kicking a man while he was down had never been one of my favorite pastimes. But I was sticking up for Charlotte. At least that's what I told myself. "Let me make you another drink. You need one if you think I'm ever going to accept another call from my daughter like the one I received tonight."
A servant must have wheeled in a bar cart for him to drink leisurely from like he was some kind of fish. I poured him a glass of Bourbon unconcerned with his drink of choice. After all, his drink of choice should be Battery Acid. Marching it to him like he was headed for the guillotine and not just upstairs to bed with a massive hangover.
"Like I'd drink anything you'd give me," he said, snatching it from my hand and placing it on the mantel just beside his head.
I folded my arms across my chest. "How funny because I have to drink to stomach talking to you? I wonder if that's how Nina feels now."
"You have reached a new low, but you never had far to fall did you, Lulu," he said, looking me up and down as if he were assessing my very soul.
"The only innocent person in this house just left with my mother. The only person that cares about you just left with my mother. You have a lot to apologize for, but it's not to me and it's not to Nina." I walked up to my finger pointed at his chest as I pushed him back against the fireplace. "Scrape your knees across the mud like the scum you are and beg that beautiful little girl for forgiveness. Because no child deserves their hero view of there father to be tarnished."
He pushed my hand away. "Don't tell me how to raise my child."
Anger pulsated through me like a five-alarm fire. I found myself pushing him back for whatever good that would do. Snickering as his umpteenth cup of alcohol teetered on the edge only to fall on his head. With the reflexes only a mother could have I managed to catch the glass before it hit the ground. Smacking my lips, I carried the glass back to the cart and set it down gently. Valentine looking on with a mixture of disbelief and shock. I won something tonight, outside of my daughter. Unfazed by the way he unbuttoned his shirt and used it to wipe at his face, before tossing it in the fire.
How uncouth? Wasn't he supposed to call a thousand servants from all over the house to tend to his every achy need? While he boohooed about how he had gotten wet. Droplets of wine traveling down his taut abs. A part of me wanted to know what he had been drinking to get this sloshed. Run my tongue along the trail of wine droplets to my dreams. No, what the hell am I saying. Nightmares.
"You are not getting away with that," he demanded, grabbing my arm and swinging me back around as I tried to make a hasty retreat.
"I didn't do anything. I'm innocent. Sound familiar," I said, through gritted teeth. The only difference was that I really was innocent. It was just an accident. But I didn't owe drunk Valentine any answers. No more than sober Valentine. He didn't hear that sweet girl crying. A precocious smart little girl, who was strong like her mother. Only brought to tears because her father was a raging lunatic whenever his heart was pricked.
"You little B****." Suddenly, he grabbed the whole decanter and poured it over my head. The cold liquid worming its way down my cleavage to soak the front of my dress. I instantly smelled like a brewery on the side of an alley next to the homeless. My hair wet and sticky. The smell covering up my already fading perfume. The worse however that I was going to go home and further traumatize a scared little phenom. I squeezed the remnants of the drink from my hair as I shook the liquid from my hands and boobs. My nipples hardening against the already thin fabric.
I grabbed the black towel that someone had left on the carts sidebar and wiped my face. Throwing it on the ground, I kicked it aside like yesterday's old news. "You scared a girl that thinks you hang the moon because a vapid, silly woman doesn't think she loves you anymore. You are not a Cassidine to be feared. You're stupid, and you have a very ugly soul. The only things that could love you are the stupid and confused. They mistook you for someone who actually gives a damn."
My chest heaving as if it took everything in me to face this true monstrosity of character.
He leaned in close to me. His eyes darting to my lips as if he might kiss me. "You are no better than the garbage wine I just wasted."
I smacked him across the face. Secretly wanting to cry because a part of me knew that he believed that, and it wasn't true. My bottom lip poked out in determination as I tried not to blink back tears.
"You run around here like some cute little puppy in your baseball cap and jersey. It's so pedantic."
I smiled at his roundabout compliment. "You can actually notice something outside of your shrinking little world. I'd clap, but then what would you strive for. You crave acceptance from the lowliest of sources."
He came up close to me and I found myself leaning into him. "I am going to clap for you thought," he said doing just so, "you actually strung a sentence together above a high school level."
"I am a reputable Journalist." Steam coming out of my ears.
He merely smirked. "I can't take Smurfette seriously. I'm a reputable journalist. Even the way you said that it's cute. I guess you can't help that you are half the woman Nina is literally and figuratively."
"Stop. Stop, saying those things." I balled up my fists and punched him in the chest repeatedly. The tears that I had tried to hold back, spilling across my cheeks like a river stream. My eyes stung until I could barely see in front of me. The only thing that happened was that he laughed.
"I'm sorry did I hurt your feelings?" He said snidely.
I pulled away from him and reeled back to punch him in the jaw. This time he actually fell on his butt and I was pretty proud of myself. My hands wet as I wiped up my tears and rubbed then feebly on my soaked dress.
"I've had just about enough of you." He hopped to his feet and grabbed me about the arms. Throwing me up against the wall as he squeezed my arms.
"What are you going to do? Hurt me," I gasped. Ignoring the slight sting to the back of my head that he caused when my head bounced off the wall.
"I want to hurt you!"
"Good, I want to hurt you," I said breathlessly.
"Me faire du mal alors," he said to me in French.
I was too scared to ask him what he meant. Except, it couldn't mean die b**** because he kissed me. Furthermore, I scared the mess out of myself because I kissed him back. We both tasted like expensive wine. The fire in the fireplace coming out to light the fire in our veins. As he worked to quickly undress me. Turning me around until my face was buried in 100-year-old wood as he trailed kisses down my neck to my shoulders. Sending tingles down my spine as he nibbled away.
"I hate you," he whispered in between kisses.
"You're a monster," I replied back, as he wrapped his hand in my hair and yanked my head back to claim my mouth as his own.
What were we doing?
