The Devil Behind Me(49)

“Is that you, Daimon?” I heard who I assumed was his mother.

“Yes, it’s me,” he said sounding already annoyed.

“I'm glad you’re here. I met someone today and invited her to stay for dinner,” she said happily.

Once Daimon and I turned the corner of this enormous home, I was confronted by a scene right out of Dallas, the TV show that is. A large fireplace was situated in the middle of the room lined with dark wood paneling. Large white drapes gracefully fell over the windows that looked outside to the busy streets of New York. That’s right, I was still in New York City. I stood awestruck at the sheer lavishness of the room. His mother, who looked younger probably due to plastic surgery, stopped what she was about to say. A thin line appeared where her lips were as she rose up from her seat and headed toward us.

“I’ve invited Clara,” she said looking at me. Her eyes were piercing right through me. “But I see you have also invited your own little friend,” she said with such disdain that I already felt horrid about being here.

“You have your friends and I have mine,” Daimon said as he squeezed my hand.

“I can see that.” She gestured for us to walk in. “So I'm assuming this is the Addie who Clara has spoken so highly of.” She looked at me as she pointed to the couch that faced her. Daimon, still holding onto my hand, sat us both down in front of her.

“Yes, I'm Addie Sakis,” I said quietly.

“It’s nice to meet you, Addie. You can call me Cindy. So I hear you work with your father at his little restaurant,” Cindy said coldly.

“Yes.” I knew I was walking into a minefield. I needed to tread lightly and carefully choose my words.

“It must have been hard to lose your mother at such a tender age, is that why you work with your father?” Cindy asked. I felt like I had just been hit, like a bomb blew up in my face. Daimon slowly turned his head at me and looked at me like all the pieces of who I was finally fit.

“Yes. Once she died, I needed to work. We had no other choice,” I said meekly. Daimon continued to stare at me; the sounds around the room were now muffled. His powerful glare and his intimidating posture, made me feel meek and small. I sunk back trying hard to hide behind Daimon. I not only wanted to shield myself from his mother’s constant barrage of questions but also from Daimon’s frightening demeanor. I watched as Clara snickered when she reached for her glass of wine.

“Are the unnecessary questions done? I mean whatever happened to the regular getting to know you questions?” Daimon said harshly as he turned back.

“Darling, I'm just asking her a few questions. If you were so afraid of that, then you shouldn’t have brought her here,” Cindy said calmly.

“You’re right, I'm sorry.” Daimon said.

“It’s quite all right, honey,” she said smugly.

“Not you,” he said to her in a cold manner. “You were right and I'm sorry I brought you here,” Daimon said as he turned to me. “Well we’re here now, so we might as well enjoy the food.” Daimon pulled me up from the couch and yanked me out the room. We didn’t stop until we reached the kitchen. All the staff who were working ran out, leaving Daimon and I alone.

“Why didn’t you tell me about your mother?” Daimon bit out.

“It isn’t something I easily talk about,” I said under my breath. “Besides, it’s your fault I'm here. If you didn’t have this weird need to control everything, I wouldn’t have been subjected to that,” I hissed and pointed to the door leading to the room we were in.

“You think I did it to control you? You always fucking think the worse of me. You tell me to trust you, but you’re the one who fucking doesn’t trust me. So I wanted you here, so what? So it wasn’t part of the contract, what’s the fucking big deal? I brought you here because you make it bearable. I hate being around them, but with you here, I at least have my own person with me,” Daimon said bluntly as he hit his chest.

“Trust? You want to talk about trust? You’re the one who can’t be fucking trusted. You do everything for your personal gain and nothing else,” I shouted in a hushed voice.

“Me? You’re the one who never told me about your mother’s passing. Had you told me I could have prevented that,” he said outraged, pointing to the living room.

“You think too highly of yourself, Daimon. I doubt you could handle your parents, remember?” I alluded to him having to marry Clara.

We both stood glaring, both of us breathing erratically. Our hissing match was interrupted by the sounds of high heels knocking on the handcrafted ceramic floors. Someone was coming. But Daimon and I didn’t move an inch, neither one of us wanting to give way to the other.