Some Kind of Perfect (Calloway Sisters #4.5) (6 page)

“What are you thinking?” Rose wonders.

Daisy slowly lifts her gaze to mine. “What if they objectify her like they objectified me, just because she’s my daughter?”

My muscles tighten, jaw hardening. I was there. I was there when she tried to reclaim her body. So she could feel like her arms and her legs and her fucking hips belonged to
her
first, not second.

It tears me apart imagining Sullivan
losing this piece of innocence. I wished, every fucking day, that I could’ve changed that for Daisy. That I could’ve done something more instead of just being there. Even if that might’ve been enough at the time.

“I was the model,” Daisy says to me. “I gave them permission to photograph me, and maybe they’ll think the same about her, just because she’s our…” She lets out a strained breath, staring up at the ceiling like it’ll give her the answer she wants.

“Hey, sweetheart.” I raise my brows at her. “We can fucking protect her from that. You know how we start?”

She thinks. She’s quiet. And then she nods more assuredly. “Yeah, I do. We don’t let her be photographed. We don’t let her be in the docu-series. It’s her body, her image, and I’m not letting them latch onto her like she’s a
thing
and not a person. I can’t.”

“We can’t,” I say. “I’m with you on this, Calloway.”
I’m always fucking with you.
Right now, I can’t imagine someone sexualizing Sulli. She’s just a baby. And I’m going to have an even harder time imagining that nightmare as she gets older. As a pre-teen—
no.
It’s fucking sick. It’s all fucking sick.

And I don’t think Janie will have the same issue. The Cobalts have filled the role of American royalty. Elegant. Classy. Janie has mostly been photographed for articles about fashion, not anything about
will she model?

Since Scott Van Wright went to jail, Rose and Connor’s sex tapes have also been synonymous with
breach of consent
. People fixate on Calloway Couture and Cobalt Inc. events and what Rose is wearing on Instagram. Not sex.

Lo spins around in his chair, his spirits higher. “And that’s why I’m glad I don’t have a girl.”

Will she be a future sex addict?
I hear the fucking condemnation.

Lily’s nose crinkles. “You were the one who wanted a girl!”

“Not anymore, love. People can change their minds. I just changed mine.”

I slow clap.

Connor joins in.

Lo claps for himself and flashes his usual half-smile.

Rose stands, palms on the table. “So it’s set then?” she asks. That’s when I notice the hoard of lawyers outside the office, waiting by the copy machine with manila folders in hand.

We all begin to nod, falling into silent agreement. Our children will be raised differently, and that’s alright. I sense our strength together, our support for each other’s choices.

Today, I’ve fallen in deeper love with these people.

No matter which direction we fucking move, we’ll all still be there.

[ 4 ]

July 2018

The Cobalt Estate

Philadelphia

CONNOR COBALT

I wait outside Jane’s bedroom door with my arm propped against the wall. From inside, dishware clinks. Gently, I push the door further open, granting me a better view.

Velveteen pale pink chairs surround a tiny round table, teacups and saucers spread over floral placemats. My three-year-old daughter nimbly skips around her guests, most of which are
inanimate.
Her favorite: a stuffed lion. Seated in the most robust and ornate chair of all six.

I never played pretend like this.

Not as a child.

Never as an adult.

Yet, I feel my lips rise.

Jane pours what looks like milk in a teacup. On the other side, her squirmy eleven-month-old twin brothers babble inarticulately, but they seem to play along. Inspecting their saucers and placemats with curious yellow-green eyes.

Hair in a sleek pony, Rose bends between both boys and fills a sugar bowl with Cheerios. Fire never extinguishes from her gaze.

My grin expands tenfold.

Beckett tugs on his mother’s black dress, one that just barely hides her collarbone, one that hugs her frame perfectly, like a dust jacket fit on a newly printed hardback.

Beckett asks her a question that neither of us would be able to piece apart, but Rose regards him with understanding.

“Of course. I’ll take up your requests with the hostess.” She kisses the top of his head, his brown hair much darker and curlier than Charlie’s.

Then Rose brushes her hands together and places them on her hips, eyeing the state of the table. Every place setting is symmetrical and identical to the next.

Her gaze suddenly lifts to mine.

I don’t move. I don’t cower. As her glare fastens onto mine, I only grin wider.
Hello, Rose.

Go to hell, Richard
, her eyes say.

Shoulders strict and chin raised, she marches around our child’s table. Even with her heels soundless on the carpet, I can still feel the hostility with each purposeful step.

She stops, grips the door like a weapon, and drills the
hottest
and
coldest
glare into me. Rose Calloway Cobalt has always been a series of contradictions.

I adore this one just as much as every other. “Rose,” I say smoothly.

She bypasses the perfunctory
Richard
and snaps, “You were given
one
direction and you failed.” She growls at the sight of my burgeoning grin. “I said
you failed
, Richard. Be angry.”

“I’m amused,” I say in a hushed voice so Jane can’t hear. “And a smile usually accompanies amusement, not anger.”

She huffs, her shoulders falling and eyes roaming my white button-down and composure. “Then you’re amused at your daughter’s loss. She wanted to surprise you with the tea party, but you’ve decided to go rogue and
spy
on us.” Rose lets go of the door, just to cross her arms. “I’d punish you for this.”

“You’d punish
me
?” I arch a brow. “Have you been reading Coballoway fan fiction?”

She rolls her eyes dramatically. Lily sent us links to fan fiction based off of
Princesses of Philly
. Willow first sent them to Daisy, then Daisy sent them to Lily, and Lily sent them to everyone.

I skimmed some, and I completely stopped reading when I crossed the title
Royal Love: Scott Van Wright & Rose Van Wright
. In the writer’s defense, this was published online long before Scott publically went to jail.

Regardless, anytime you attach “Van Wright” to my wife, it instantly becomes my least favorite fiction.

“You don’t think I can punish you?” Rose burns hot and leans close, just to say with a great deal of seriousness, “I’d cut off your tongue with a dull serrated knife, and I’d finish you off in a rusty guillotine.” She lifts her manicured nail at my eye. “Don’t fuck with me or my babies—”

“
Our
babies,” I correct her.

She skims me head-to-toe, her disdain only present to mask her love. I feel it in every glare. “I can’t believe I allowed my DNA to mix with yours and create
multiple
little monsters. What was I thinking?”

Standing tall above her, I reach out, my hand curving around the crook of her waist. She relaxes at my touch, and her chest collapses. I draw Rose closer, until her legs brush my legs. In a whisper, I say, “You were thinking ‘I’m undeniably, indisputably in love with the most
brilliant
and the most handsome
man on Ear—”

Rose puts her palm over my lips. “I hate you.” She feels my grin grow beneath her hand and she growls, dropping it.

“You love me.” I study her full lips but mostly the blaze in her eyes. I’m about to express just how much I reciprocate those feelings, but then a toddler abruptly cuts off our exchange.

“Daddy? Is that you?” Jane asks. I have a major height advantage over Rose, but I angle myself out of Jane’s view. In a quick second, I catch sight of her teal tutu behind Rose’s slender legs, and then Rose slams the door in my face.

“He’s still waiting for you,” Rose tells our daughter, her voice clear through the wood. “You can introduce him. Or you can exile him from the tea party.”

My lips curve up again.
You would love that option; wouldn’t you, Rose?

Jane gasps. “I can’t exile, Daddy.”

Did you hear that, Rose?
I picture her torrid glare and the roll of her eyes.

“What about temporary banishment?” she asks Jane.

“No banishment.” At three, her words are incredibly easier to understand compared to Jane at two or one, but it’s not as though she enunciates “banishment” perfectly. It’s partially garbled, and she only knows the word because we’ve used it before, just like
exile.

Jane also adds, “Daddy’s never been to a tea party.”

Never one with
toys
as the guests, but Rose doesn’t correct her and neither would I.

“Then you better hurry and introduce him. Even if Daddy says he’ll wait forever for you, no one
has the ability to stand in a hallway for eternity.” Her voice is frost, but every syllable heats my body.

“Introdoozing Daddy!” she announces. “Come in, Daddy!”

I open the door with the raise of my brows, mortaring on surprise like a mask I’ve worn before. I sweep her pale pink room, her toddler bed, armoire and regal chandelier before landing on the tea party arrangement and her eager blue eyes.

“Tu es de toute beauté, mon cœur.”
Such beauty, my heart.

Jane’s face lights, and she touches her black cat-ear headband, ensuring that it hasn’t fallen. Then without pause, she grabs hold of my hand and leads me further inside. With a partial smile peeking, Rose walks to her chair beside Beckett.

She catches me staring and reverts to a glare. Rose mouths,
rusty guillotine
and mimes slashing my neck. Then she triumphantly takes a seat, crossing her ankles.

I say hushed to Rose, “I’d believe your hyperboles more if they didn’t involve eighteenth-century machinery.”

Rose unties her hair and combs her fingers through the strands. “Guillotines were still used
long
after the French Revolution.”

She’s not wrong.

Jane stops me by two empty chairs and looks up with bold blue eyes. “What’s a googoniny?”

Rose tries hard not to laugh, hand pressed to her mouth, but she ends up snorting.

I can’t hide my smile. “Googoniny isn’t a word.” What I’m about to say next would make some parents balk or flame red. “It’s
guillotine
, and it’s a device used for executions.”

She has no clue what “execution” means, and before she asks, I take a seat in one of the free chairs.

“No!” she yells and grips my arm so I stand.

Rose is smitten at my misstep.

Matter-of-factly, Jane says, “That’s Sadie’s chair.”

I look to Rose. “You knew this seat was taken?”

“Yes.” She collects her hair on one shoulder, and I eye the base of her neck. Rose reaches over and spoons Cheerios onto Charlie and Beckett’s saucers.

I squat down to Jane’s height. “Sadie isn’t here.”

Jane puts her finger to my lips. “Uh-uh. Sadie is coming back!”

I collect her hand. “Not anytime soon, honey.” I don’t understand her loss. I can’t comprehend it, no matter how hard I try or how many ways I explain to her
logically
why Sadie can’t return. My cat nearly scratched Jane’s face, too unpredictable and aggressive. What if she scratched her eye?

I won’t take that risk.

I raised Sadie as a kitten, but my attachment to her is severely
less
than my attachment to these people in this very room. Call me callous. Call me unfeeling. Call me inhuman, but I raised her to be independent, to survive on her own. And I’ve given her a home with my therapist—this shouldn’t even be an argument anymore.

Jane refuses to hear me. “She’s coming back. That’s her seat.” She jabs her little finger at the seat. She even goes further to place her
Kitty Cats
coloring book on top, so I can’t sit there. I hear her mutter,
she’s coming back
once more.

I stand and wonder when a toddler will forget about a cat. If she ever will. I look to Rose, and her eyes have significantly softened. She mouths,
play along.

I nod in agreement. We’re still hoping she’ll drop all talk about Sadie.

Jane tugs the heavy chair, trying to pull mine out. I help her and then sit down. All six chairs are now occupied, so I ask Jane, “Where are you sitting?”