Chapter 174 PROVOCATIVE
AURORA’S POINT OF VIEW.
Returning to Mountville, I had not known what to expect. Sure, my father had ordered me home after three years of kicking my mother and me out of his life. When I heard the news, I thought he would finally embrace us again. However, he only let me be a scholarship student, and never checked in with me ever since I arrived.
This was the first time I would be doing something he did not like…well, besides my refusal to abandon my mother for my place in the will, I would finally choose me. I had no other choice. When a tiger has it’s foot on your neck, it is only for so long until you decide to rescue yourself….I could not let my mother take her last breath before getting her the treatment she needs because my father still believes I am not loyal to him.
I could no longer be his precious baby girl…I had to be my mother’s battle axe.
No matter what.
Kai had moved like a storm. Quick, fast, and instant. Less than an hour after I took his hand, he made a phone call. One phone call, and the next thing I knew, as if he had them on standby, my mother was wheeled out of the small hospital and taken to his family’s own. It happened so fast, so smoothly, I was sure I’d been in a simulation.
She now had new doctors, new scans, and approved experimental treatments I'd begged for were approved before they even hit the desk. In less than seventy two hours, I’d learned a daunting truth.
My mother did not have cancer… nor did she have lung disease. It’d all been a fucking lie. She was purposefully been placed on toxins with side effects to mirror the symptoms. When I was handed the news, I’d bawled so hard, I was sure a blood vessel had burst from my forehead.
All leads would point to Denise, and her daughter… and I would make sure my father knew about it.
‘If she’d stayed in that hospital for one more hour, with the level of toxins in her blood, she would have been dead by now.’ I remembered the doctor’s words, and how they made me feel two things;
Sadness mixed with despair….and rage. Pure, unadulterated rage. I wanted their heads on a spike. When Kai had made me take his hand, I only thought of my mother’s recovery. Now, I wanted everything I could get.
The fourth day after I became his fake fiancée, I got an email from my dad’s company.
‘Meet the family at the estate tonight….’
The message had been so formal, you’d have thought he referred to an employee and not his own daughter. He never asked after my mother, after me, how I was handling the move…. I’d left a whole country with my sick mother because of him, but I was not worth anything to him.
When I’d shown Kai the email, he’d said, “My father would be there too……and that can only mean one thing, green.” I paused, and a glint lit in his eyes with an evil smile. “We need to go shopping.”
“Why?”
He turned to me with a smirk. “Because this is war, green. Your sister has reported to the one man she believes can make you, and worst of all, me, do anything. And if I can control anything, it’s what you wear. You are not heading in there alone, or dressed in anything without a couple of thousand on the price tag.”
“I can’t afford it!” I panicked.
“Who says we’re buying it?” He chuckled, and in less than no time, we stopped in front of a glass building with the name Mercer boldly on it.
Shit….his family shopping mall.
Everyone knew one thing about the Mercers, and it was that they had their names on everything they used. From cars to hospitals, to clothes…even their mugs were reported to have been made by their company. It was a tradition that had gone on for centuries, and now….he wanted me dressed in one of their clothes.
“But, doesn’t your family hate it when a non-family member puts on something of theirs?” I turned to see that he was staring at me. His dark eyes settled on my face as if he were committing it to memory.
“Yes. However, we’re getting married, aren’t we?” he gave me that cocky smirk I’d seen the first day I resumed school. I gulped, turning away immediately. I felt my face heat up at the scrutiny. He said the word as if that would not mean war between the two families.
"Don't look so terrified, Green," Kai murmured, leaning closer until the scent of his expensive, woodsy cologne filled the small space of the car. He was so close….so close, if I moved an inch, we would kiss. I stared at those lips….those attractive lips he had, my heart hammering at the thought of us even brushing our lips. Just then, his eyes trailed from my eyes and settled on my lips, too.
However, he pulled back immediately, giving me room to breathe air that wasn’t his. "It’s just a label. A very expensive, very useful label that is going to act as your shield tonight."
As we stepped out of the car and headed into the mall, the glass doors of the Mercer store slid open as if sensing our presence. Inside, the air was chilled and smelled of wealth, something I had become unaccustomed to ever since I turned fifteen.
I’d learned early that wealth was now unreachable for me….as long as father, Denise, and Morgan lived anyway. A row of stylists in identical black suits bowed their heads in a synchronized wave the second he appeared before them. He looked nothing like a high school student at this point….he rather seemed like a king in his kingdom.
"Mr. Mercer," a woman with a perfectly styled bob and a tape measure draped like a snake around her neck stepped forward. "We have the selections your father suggested for the dinner your father informed us about. The pastels, the lace….everything has been…"
"Burn them," Kai said, his voice as flat as a guillotine blade as he interrupted.
The woman froze, her eyes wide with surprise…just like mine. "S-s-sir?" I’m not so sure I heard correctly…sir.”
"My father wants her in peach lace because he thinks it’s what young ladies should have on anytime they want to see him….he wants someone he can control. And tonight is a way to test that," Kai drawled, his eyes sparking with a sudden, wicked wit. He turned to me, his smirk widening. "But we aren't here to play house, are we? We’re here to burn it down."
He began walking through the racks, his fingers trailing over the fabrics with a practiced, predatory ease. He pulled out a dress that made the lead stylist gasp audibly, horror clear in her eyes as she watched him.
"The special scarlet silk?" she whispered. "But Mr. Mercer... your father specifically said red is too... provocative for a family dinner."
"Exactly," Kai quipped, headed to me, so he placed the dress over me with focus. “I believe this would be perfect for an uprising…don’t you think so?” I’d never felt such raw silk in so long….to know that it was now on my body….i must be dreaming. "My father is a man of tradition, green. He likes his women quiet, dressed in colors that blend into the wallpaper so the men can do the talking. He thinks red is a distraction…..he thinks red is for whores."
He stepped into my space, his height looming over me, his voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper meant only for my ears. "Tonight, I want you to be the most beautiful distraction he’s ever seen. I want him to look at you and realize he’s lost his grip on me, and I want your father to look at you and realize he’s lost his grip on everything."
“But…would that not be a problem? He must own all these….if you cross him, he could get quite mad.” I was worried this dinner would be more than the simple, quiet thing I thought. Kai leaned even closer, that same glint back in his eyes, but this time, it was even more wicked. He smiled at the prospect of it going awry, as if I’d just told him the cure for world hunger had been discovered.
“That’s the plan, green.”