Elements of Chemistry: Heat Read online

  “Marty.” This came from the top of the wide staircase and echoed through the foyer. The man waited until both Martin and I looked at him before continuing. His pale blue eyes rested on me. “I thought you’d left the island.”

  Denver Sandeke, Martin’s father, was taller than I thought he’d be. Taller and not nearly as scrawny. He wasn’t a good-looking man; his chin was almost non-existent and his nose was oddly shaped, thin and long. As well, he was either a member or the president of the hair club for men. With his entrance I felt a shift.

  Whereas before Martin was and had always been the center of focus, the “alpha of the pack” as Sam put it, now his father’s presence demanded the spotlight. In truth, neither of them clearly dominated the other. It wasn’t shared power; it was dual power that co-existed very, very badly, like when two acid-base reactions are after the same proton.

  “No,” Martin said. The frost in the single word seemed to lower the temperature of the room by several degrees. It seemed that Denver, like his wife, brought out the Abominable Snowman in Martin.

  Denver didn’t respond to Martin. Instead he sauntered down the steps, his eyes still on me, a friendly smile affixed to his lips. I noted that the shape of his mouth was similar to Martin’s. “You’re Joss Parker’s daughter.” He sounded immensely pleased. Meanwhile something about the way he used my mother’s first name made me want to pluck out all his nose hairs.

  I started to respond, but Martin tugged on my hand and shifted so he was half blocking me from his father, like he was protecting me with his body. “We’re leaving.”

  Denver ignored his son and offered me his hand. “It’s so nice to meet you. I know your mother quite well. She is,” he chuckled to himself, “she is certainly a force.”

  “Don’t touch her.” As Martin said this he moved me completely behind him, and with one hand on my hip, guided us a step back toward the door. I noted that he still faced his father, almost like he knew better than to turn his back.

  My view of his father was obscured now that the mountain of Martin was between us, but I heard the change in Denver’s voice as he addressed his son.

  “You finally did something useful, Marty. You’re still the village idiot, but at least your dick makes smart choices.”

  I heard Ben fake-suppress an obnoxious guffaw, but I barely registered it as my brain was still trying to grasp the venom that had erupted from Martin’s father’s mouth.

  His father!

  And yet, even knowing what I did about Martin, even knowing he had a history of callous indifference toward the feelings of others and had no qualms about yelling at men, women, children, and turtles, I was completely unprepared for his response.

  “Better the village idiot than the village pervert and impotency expert. By the way, Ben here used your entire stash of Viagra earlier this week. You two flaccid assholes have so much in common.”

  Martin’s father tsked and responded coolly, “Careful, Marty. Or I might decide to break your new toy.”

  “You even fucking look at her and they won’t find your body.” Martin took another step back, taking me with him.

  This was completely crazy. I thought the run-in with his stepmother was vicious—this took vicious to a whole new level.

  “You forget who bankrolls your life, son.” I winced as Denver said the word son. In context, coming from Denver’s mouth, it sounded more like whore. “Your toys are my toys, and I’ll use them whenever and however I please. Now step aside, you’re not going anywhere until I say so.”

  I felt Martin tense. He released my hand and I saw both of his were balled into fists. He shifted on his feet, his stance bracing, like he was about to throw a punch. Martin was big, but his father was also big; as well, Ben the rapist was clearly on Team Evil’s side. Two against one was hardly fair. I might be able to call for Eric before the situation escalated, but that was unlikely.

  Tangentially, I wondered how many times Martin and his father had come to blows, but pushed the thought away for later contemplation. I couldn’t stay where I was, silent, hiding. Now was not the time for me to hide, not when Martin was putting himself into harm’s way on my behalf. I needed to do something.

  Now was not the time to bow out gracefully. Now was the time to fight for Martin.

  Since Martin was no longer holding me behind him, I stepped to his side and slipped my left arm around his right elbow.

  Placing a thin smile on my face, I addressed Denver. “You’ll forgive me if I don’t shake your hand. As I’ve met your wife and see the company you keep,” I nodded toward Ben, “you’ll understand if I’m wary of communicable diseases. As Ben will tell you, not touching people I don’t know is one of my life rules.”

  I was gratified to find my small speech had stunned all the testosterone in the room into inaction. Three sets of male eyes stared at me as though I were a strange creature.

  I cleared my throat and continued, “I have no interest in knowing you, Mr. Sandeke. All I want is my vector calculus folder and then we’ll be leaving.”

  Though Denver’s eyes were on me, he spoke to his son. “I’m looking at her now, Marty. What are you going to do about it?”

  Martin shifted restlessly at my side but I tightened my grip around his arm and responded for both of us, my voice conversational. “Again, I’ll just take my vector calculus notebook and we’ll be on our way.”

  “No. You won’t.” If Denver’s wife had dead-face, Denver Sandeke had dead eyes.

  Channeling my mother, I drew myself up straighter and glared at him square in his beady dead eyes. “Actually, we will. You see, Martin told me before we came over that you were a wee little worm of a man. Therefore, I made a call to my mother’s security team. You may have heard of the US Secret Service? …Yes? …No?”

  Mr. Sandeke shifted a half step back, his gaze narrowing on me.

  “Ah. I see you’ve heard of them. Despite all their guns and shooting and whatnot, they’re actually very nice men.” I moved to side step him and pulled Martin with me, careful never to give him our backs. “Now, we’ll just be getting that notebook then we’ll get out of…well, we’ll get out of your hairpiece.”

  ***

  On the up side, I had my folder. I also managed to collect my missing textbook and clothes—so, double bonus.

  On the down side, Martin had barely spoken since we’d left the mansion. He also wouldn’t look at me and had made no move to touch me beyond helping with my bags, offering me his hand on the boat, and guiding me to my seat on the plane—so, double whammy.

  Also, his father was basically Satan, but with no chin.

  Regardless, I didn’t regret meeting the man. Meeting Denver swiftly explained many things about Martin, brought so much of his behavior and motivations into painfully sharp focus.

  Now, as I eyeballed Martin from my seat, I noted that his face was red, flushed with color, and his eyes were a bit wild. I knew he was still thinking about his father and I knew his emotions were very, very near the surface. His seething anger radiated from him, like a billowing cloud of dark rage.

  Honestly, I felt like one wrong move, or word, or glance, and he might trash the inside of the private jet…or scream at me. As such, all four of us had been silent. Even Sam saw fit to keep her sarcasm bottled up as she thumbed silently through a magazine like it held the answers to the perfect tennis game.

  I was again faced with the reality that I didn’t know the right thing to say to my boyfriend. As I stewed in this realization, I further recognized that being held hostage by his anger bothered me more than the possibility of getting yelled at.

  My nagging disquiet grew as I watched him, his jaw clenching and unclenching, his breathing purposefully slow. He was so alone, entirely focused inward, lost in a dark place. This was where Martin Sandeke lived and how he’d learned to survive. I couldn’t stand it.

  I loved him.

  Watching him fumbling through the labyrinth of his wrath was akin to my unreachable itch, e
xcept this time it was in my brain and heart.

  Therefore, and acting completely on instinct, I unclicked my seatbelt, crossed to him, and sat on his lap. He stiffened, his razor eyes cutting to mine, laced with a fevered fury and severe warning. I ignored them.

  Instead I encircled him with my arms, threading my fingers and nails into the hair at the nape of his neck, and whispered in his ear, “I love you, Martin. I love you.”

  He grew rigid for a split second, but then he embraced me. Really, he crushed me to him with his powerful arms and his forehead fell to my shoulder. We sat like that for several minutes—me gently scratching the back of his head and placing soft kisses everywhere I could, given my limited range of motion, and him holding onto me like a life raft. I silently rejoiced when I perceived the inflexibility wane, ease, relax, and his breathing grow normal, less measured.

  He broke the silence with a growled, “I hate him.”

  “I can see why.” I wanted to add that hating his father was counterproductive, as it gave his father all the power. But I didn’t. I figured we’d have plenty of time in the future for me to help Martin deal with his poorly controlled rage where his father was concerned.

  “He sent Patrice.” He said this against my neck, his voice a broken whisper.

  “On Wednesday morning? When I was in your room?”

  “No. When I was fourteen. He sent her…to me.”

  My eyes narrowed with confusion and I stared at the side of his head. “I don’t understand. What do you mean he sent her to you?”

  I felt Martin gather a deep breath before he lifted his face from where it had been sheltered in my neck. He avoided my eyes, opting instead to stare at the cabin’s ceiling and rest the back of his head against the headrest.

  “After my mother died, I moved in with my father. I’d never…I’d never spent time with him before, but I’d always thought of him as a way to escape my mother’s manipulations. During the first year he ignored me. Then something changed when I was fourteen. Everything was a test, all of our interactions were mind-games and I was always failing, and he always let me know how much of a disappointment I was. I wanted to prove myself to him. I thought I could earn his respect.”

  Martin’s eyes darted to mine and he gave me a wan smile shaded with bitterness as he continued. “I was so fucking stupid, naïve. I thought no one could be worse than my mother, and I’d worshiped my father. But I was wrong.”

  I studied him, thought about what it must have been like for him as a shy, beautiful boy to be at the whim of a fame-seeking mother, then thrust upon his unfeeling, manipulative father. I’d been allowed to hide in closets. He had not. My heart broke for him.

  As well, his earlier statement, about his father sending Patrice to him nagged at me, filled my stomach with dread.

  I prompted gently, “What did you mean, your father sent Patrice to you when you were fourteen?”

  He heaved a sigh. “When I was fourteen she climbed into my bed. She was naked. I was asleep. She put my hands on her body and kissed me, touched me…” He said this like the words were sour and swallowed. “I woke up and realized what was happening, so I pushed her out of the bed and my room. The next morning I went to my father and told him what happened—this was before they were married, so I figured he’d leave her. Instead he laughed at me. He told me he’d sent her, that it was a test, and that I’d finally passed a test.”

  “Test? What kind of test?”

  Martin held my gaze as he explained, his tone hollow. “He had to marry her, she has something incriminating on him, but I’m not sure what. But he wanted to keep his money out of her reach, so it was a loyalty test. I think he liked the irony of using her to ensure her undoing. Shortly after that he transferred all his property into my name using a trust.”

  “What about his bank accounts? Surely she can just raid those in a divorce?”

  He shook his head, adding impassively, “No. In their state of residence, draft accounts existing prior to marriage, even new deposits, aren’t community property, nor are retirement, stock options, and savings. That’s why the houses—the ones he owned and the new ones he’s purchased—are in my name. They’re in a trust until I turn twenty-one.”

  “So…next year?”

  “No. Four months.”

  I stared at him, nonplussed. I’m sure my eyebrows were drawn together in a severe frown of equal parts anger and disbelief. I shook my head at this elaborate scheming, the disgusting test of loyalty that had obviously humiliated and scarred Martin, and felt the acidity of furious indignation rise in my throat, building a concrete structure in my chest.

  But before I could vocalize my horrified amazement, Martin added in a voice so quiet I could barely make out his words, “Then he told her. He told Patrice she could use me if she wanted.”

  “He what?!” I blurted. Actually, it was more like a shriek.

  “She didn’t—she tried, but she didn’t get a chance. I wasn’t at the house much after that.”

  I was so angry. My eyes were burning and fury choked my throat. Therefore, without meaning to, I expelled my acrid thoughts. “What a goddamn, motherfucking sonofabitch.”

  He laughed a little, obviously surprised, and his answering smile was small and sad. “I don’t know. I never met my grandmother.”

  I huffed a laugh, but my features twisted with sadness and anger, and I wanted to make everything better for him. Yet I felt completely helpless. I noted he was avoiding my eyes again; as well, his earlier rage had dissipated and seemed to be replaced with a simmering and fierce determination.

  I moved my hands to frame his face and feathered a soft kiss over his lips. “I wish I could drop a house on your father,” I whispered.

  His mouth tugged to the side, so I kissed the side of his mouth.

  “No...I’ll make sure he gets what he deserves.”

  I lifted an eyebrow at this statement and leaned back just far enough so I could look in Martin’s eyes. “What he deserves is your apathy.”

  His eyes flashed and I felt his fingers flex on my body as he contradicted through clenched teeth. “No. What he deserves is to be ruined and humiliated.”

  My gaze moved over Martin’s features and I saw passion there. It was dark passion, potent and fathomless. I was certain he was absolutely intent on being the instrument of his father’s destruction.

  It hadn’t occurred to me until that moment that he might not want to work through the issues with his father. Rather, it appeared his zealous loathing for his father might currently be the driving force in his life.

  “Martin—” I started, but stopped, unsure how to proceed but needing to say something. I swallowed as I searched his eyes for some thread of sanity and reason where Denver Sandeke was concerned. I found none. “Martin, maybe take a step back from this. I understand your father is a horrible man who has done horrible things, but what can be done? He’s very powerful.”

  “He’s not untouchable,” he was quick to point out, his eyes growing a darker shade of blue as he added, “and I have a plan…”

  “But why waste your energy on him? Why not forget him, cut him out of your life like the cancer he is, and move forward with your—”

  He shook his head while I spoke, his jaw tight with steely determination, and interrupted me. “No. Fuck no!”

  I flinched and his grip tightened on my body as he continued with a harsh whisper, “Nothing else matters other than making him suffer. I’m going to be the one to destroy him. Seeing him humiliated is all I’ve thought about and planned for since I was fourteen. If I achieve nothing else in life, if I do nothing else…” He ended there, his eyes losing focus as his thoughts turned inward to a dark place I couldn’t follow.

  My disquiet spread, trepidation ballooning with the dawning comprehension that Martin had allowed this passion—this hatred for his father—to define him.

  And most of all, more than the tragic and twisted tales of his childhood, this realization broke my heart.
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br />   CHAPTER 12

  Factors Affecting Solubility

  The plane landed and I was in a mood. An introspective, anxious, overthinking-the-situation mood.

  Whereas Martin’s mood had lightened considerably.

  When we stepped off the plane and piled into the limo, my mood did not improve. Eric and Martin discussed what to do about Ben’s abdication from the team. Sam tossed me searching looks. I stared out the window.

  When we arrived at the dorm and the boys carried our luggage into the building, my mood did not improve, not even when Martin pulled me into an abandoned study room on the first floor and motioned for Sam and Eric to go on ahead. Not even when he backed me up against the door, crowded my space, his eyes dark and hot with intent.

  Not until he said, “I told you because I trust you, Kaitlyn. I don’t want anything—least of all my fucked-up past—coming between us.”

  I held his gaze and felt some of the tension ease from my shoulders, leaving me feeling merely melancholy. “Thank you for trusting me. I’m just…I’m just so sorry you had to go through that. I know trusting can’t be easy for you.”

  “You make it easy.” His eyes lit as he caught my wrists, and used his body to press me against the door. Martin’s voice dropped an octave as he added, “Being with you, listening to you play music, calling you on your bullshit…”

  I lifted an eyebrow at this, feeling acutely peeved and opening my mouth to protest. He grinned and spoke faster to keep me from interrupting. “…touching you, kissing you, watching you come, making love to you…you make everything right.”

  I felt my cheeks warm as he held my gaze and his lips slowly descended to mine. I lifted my chin to meet his mouth, anticipating his kiss, hungry for it.

  Martin released my wrists as his mouth slid over mine, his greedy hands moving under my shirt to the bare skin of my torso. When we parted, my fingers were twisted in his hair and I was breathless; as well, he’d built a fire in the vicinity of my pants.