Flawed

by Tracy Wolff

  I cross to the coffee table to get my phone, but it’s gone, too. Of course it is. I pay the bill out of my trust fund every month.

  I turn back to him, start to ask if I can go back to the bedroom and get shoes since I forgot to pick up a pair when I was in there. But he’s smiling that smug grin of his at me, the one that says he’s won and there’s nothing I can do about it and in the end I decide to hell with it. I’m not asking him for another thing. Not now, not ever again.

  I came into this rich, rarefied life barefoot and I’ll go out the exact same way.

  Chapter 6

  Miles

  I’m still working at nine A.M., trying to eradicate that stupid video from the ’Net. I’ve got several bots crawling the interwebs, marking each and every time they find it, so I can go in and take it down. But the thing is spreading exponentially fast—getting posted on social media faster than my bots can find it. Plus, at this point I’m pretty sure that fuckwit Alexander Parsons is not only behind the leak, but behind the rapid spread of the video. Someone is giving major outlets all over the world the right to post it without retribution, and that could only come from him. If he didn’t want it out there, his publicists would have threatened the hell out of each of them until they took it down. The fact that it’s being picked up by more and more sites every hour says everything it needs to.

  Including that he’s an even bigger fuckhead than I gave him credit for last night.

  I finish with the site I’m working on, then move to the next one on the list. But the screen blurs in front of me—it’s been well over twenty-four hours since I’ve slept and I’m exhausted. I know I should put the computer down and let the bots do their thing, but between the amount of caffeine I’ve imbibed in the last few hours and how pissed off I am, trying to sleep would be useless. So I might as well keep working.

  I know this isn’t Tori’s fault, know that that fuckwit is completely responsible for the spreading of this fucking video. Still, there’s a part of me that wants to shake her, that wants to tell her she’s worth more than these jackasses she keeps getting involved with. Yeah, everybody gets a few jerks in their life, but the odds alone state that she should have a couple of decent guys in the mix. Instead, if Chloe is to be believed, it’s just one asshole after another. It makes me wonder if Tori’s trying to sabotage herself. And if she is, why?

  The question is still running through the back of my mind a few minutes later when I finally put my laptop down and wander into the kitchen for yet another cup of coffee. But I’ve barely gotten the beans in the filter when I hear the alarm system issue a series of beeps warning that the front door has just been opened.

  More curious than concerned—sometimes Ethan and Chloe’s housekeeper shows up on off days just to check in on me—I flip the coffeepot to on before winding my way to the front door to investigate. I get there just in time to see Tori tinkering with the alarm keypad hidden behind the painting Ethan has hanging on the wall next to the door.

  She’s breathing harshly, her shoulders shaking just a little, and I pause on the other side of the foyer to give her a second to compose herself. The last thing Tori ever asks for or wants is pity and if she finds out I saw her crying, she’ll make both of our lives a living hell proving how tough she is until she’s convinced I’ve completely forgotten her moment of weakness.

  I study her as I wait, wondering what the hell has gotten into her. I get her deciding to come here for a few days to hide from reporters or paparazzi who are looking for pics of Alexander’s newest girl, but logic would dictate that she at least put some shoes on and change out of last night’s dress. Oh, and maybe even comb her short hair, which is currently sticking up all over her head. I can’t help wondering how a picture of her like this will translate into tomorrow’s most obnoxious headline. I’d like to think it won’t, but I’m nowhere near illogical or optimistic enough to believe that.

  After she finishes tinkering with the alarm, she lets the overnight bag on her shoulder slide to the ground at her feet. All the strength seems to slip out of her with it, her whole body looking like it’s going to crumble. Part of me wants to go to her, to tell her that everything is going to be okay.

  But the more I study her, the more convinced I become that sympathy is the last thing she needs right now. Which is why I back up a few steps, just far enough to make sure I’m completely out of sight. And then I start to whistle, loudly.

  I give her a few seconds to compose herself before walking back into the foyer. By the time I get there, Tori’s shoulders are straight, her eyes clear, and any hint of vulnerability has been long banished, despite the fact that she has much of last night’s makeup smeared across her face.

  The term hot mess comes to mind, and a skitter of uneasiness works its way down my spine. Sex tape on the loose or not, in the year that I’ve known her, I’ve never seen Tori look like this. Even as I catalog the mess, I can’t help wondering if it’s going to make her easier—or harder—to deal with.

  “What the hell are you doing here?” she snarls the second she catches sight of me.

  Well, that answers that. Harder, definitely. “I was just about to ask the same thing of you,” I answer, brows lifted in a deliberate attempt to annoy her.

  It works. Her chin shoots straight into the air and her full lips tighten into an angry slash. “You didn’t answer my question.”

  “And you didn’t answer mine. But”—I hold up a hand to stave off the temper I can see brewing in her coffee-brown eyes—“I’ll answer first, even though I think it’s fairly obvious. I live here.”

  “You live here? In Ethan and Chloe’s house?”

  “I do.” She looks—and sounds—like she’s waiting for more of an explanation, but I don’t give her anything else. Why should I when it’s so fun to watch the way her jaw tightens and her teeth grind together?

  “Since when?”

  “Since they moved up to San Francisco.”

  “And Chloe knows about this?”

  “She’s the one who suggested it. I’m doing extensive renovations on my place and this seemed like a perfect solution to the chaos.” I eye the bag on her shoulder. “Guess she forgot to mention that when you asked if you could stay here for a couple of days, huh?”

  “I’ve got a standing invitation, so I didn’t have to ask,” she says as she drops her bag at the bottom of the stairs. “But maybe I should have. A little warning that I’d have to deal with you would have been nice.”

  She breezes by me then, and doesn’t stop walking until she gets to the kitchen. Once there, she grabs a mug from the cabinet and pours herself a gigantic cup of coffee. One that leaves only the dregs in the bottom of the pot for me.

  This time it’s my eyes that narrow. I don’t mind sharing the house for a few days until things calm down for her, but I’ll be damned if I share my coffee when I’ve been up half the night trying to help her. Which is why I swoop in and grab the cup as soon as she moves to get cream from the refrigerator.

  I nearly scald my mouth on the first sip, but the look on her face when she turns back around is worth the pain. “That’s mine!” she exclaims, outraged.

  “Really?” I ask as I take another, smaller sip. “Did you make it?”

  “Seriously? That’s how you’re going to play this?”

  “I never play when it comes to coffee.”

  “If you knew the morning I had, you’d let me have the stupid cup of coffee.”

  “If you knew the night I had, you’d let me have it.”

  She glares at me for a second, but she must figure out that I’m not going to budge because in the end she just rolls her eyes as she grabs the bag of beans I haven’t yet put back in the freezer. “Fine. I’ll make my own.”

  “Make sure you grind enough beans for a whole pot,” I tell her as I lean against the counter to watch her.

  She shoots me a disbelieving look. “You don’t actually think I’m going to make coffee for you, do you?”

&nbs
p; “I would have made it for you, had you actually called instead of just showing up and breaking in.”

  “I have a key and a standing invitation. I wouldn’t exactly call that breaking in.”

  “You don’t have permission from me.”

  “I don’t need permission from you. This isn’t your house.”

  “Maybe not, but I’m the only one living here right now. A courtesy call might have been nice.”

  “I wouldn’t hold my breath on that,” she mutters as she pours water into the pot.

  “Courtesy not your thing?”

  “That wasn’t quite what I meant, but now that you mention it…It’s hard to be courteous when I didn’t know you were even here, sponging off your sister.” She raises her voice to be heard above the coffee grinder. “Then again, you’re good at that, aren’t you?”

  It’s a direct hit, and the hint of maliciousness in her smile tells me she knows it. The old familiar guilt tightens my stomach but I try not to let it show on my face. If the last year has taught me anything about Tori, it’s that drawing blood only encourages her. Only has her digging in for the fight.

  “That seems a little like the pot calling the kettle black,” I finally answer when I can trust myself not to tell her to fuck off. “Considering I don’t see a rent check in your hand, princess.”

  “Like there’s one in yours?” she asks as she flips the coffeepot on.

  “I pay rent every month.” I don’t tell her that I end up putting the money into an account for the baby since Chloe refuses to take it.

  “Do you?” She fake-applauds. “Now, see, that’s the joy of never having forced Chloe to prostitute herself. I don’t feel the need to throw blood money at her every time I turn around to try to make up for it.”

  This time it’s my teeth that nearly crack as I clench them as hard as I can. She’s not wrong—I carry the guilt for my part in what happened to Chloe every day of my life—and so much of what I do is because I’m trying to earn her forgiveness. Not the money I pay in rent, because that’s only fair, but the rest?

  Giving this invention to Ethan at a fraction of the price I could have gotten if I’d kept it in the family company.

  Moving to San Diego so I can be close to my sister and her family.

  Taking on more of the day-to-day responsibility in the company while Ethan is away, when all I really want to be doing is hiding in my workshop and thinking up new shit.

  Everything I’m doing, I’m doing in an effort to make up to Chloe for what happened to her all those years ago. To make up for what my parents and I did to her all those years ago.

  It’s not enough. It will never be enough. But it’s all I can do at this point, and the way Tori keeps throwing the past in my face is really beginning to piss me off. Chloe can take all the potshots she wants at me—she’s earned every single one of them. But Tori hasn’t and I’m getting damn sick of pulling my punches with her, getting sick of backing off just because she’s Chloe’s best friend.

  I don’t answer her, largely because I don’t trust myself. Instead I concentrate on draining my coffee cup and keeping my mouth shut. Chloe will be less than impressed if I verbally savage her best friend, especially today.

  But Tori doesn’t get the hint. Instead, she takes my silence for weakness and goes on the attack. Again. “Seriously, Miles, don’t you ever feel like a whore? Giving up your dignity and self-respect, giving up your sister, all for money?”

  My restraint snaps like a rubber band that’s been stretched too far. I’ve been trying to be nice, but if she wants me to be an asshole, I can be an asshole. “They say it takes a whore to know one, Tori, so why don’t you tell me? Or isn’t that you, sucking dick on the home page of every major entertainment and news site in the Western world?”

  She gapes at me then, eyes wide and mouth open, and I smirk as I reach past her to pick up the half carafe of coffee that she brewed just to spite me.

  “Nope, it’s definitely you,” I say as I very deliberately empty the whole thing into my cup. “I recognize the look. Now get the hell out of my house.”

  Chapter 7

  Tori

  Miles’s words resonate in my head as he picks up his coffee and slips silently past me into the hall. Over and over, I hear the word whore drop from his lips. Over and over, I hear the condescension and the derision in his voice as he looks me over, as he comments on me sucking dick. Like he and the rest of the world suddenly have a right to voice an opinion on what I do behind closed doors.

  I know the videotape supposedly gave him that right, gave my father that right—gave everyone in the fucking world that right, apparently—but it still sucks. Still makes me feel like I want to scream and like I want to curl up into a tiny ball all at the same time.

  For long seconds it’s all I can think about, the word whore all I can hear, again and again and again. I’ve been working so hard to get my life on the right track, working so hard to be the person I want to be. And now because of one jerk’s careless actions, I’m right back where I started all those weeks ago. Or worse, really, because now I’m also an Internet joke. One who is somehow supposed to find a job when half the country has seen what I look like having sex.

  If I had anywhere else to go, I would do it. If there was anyplace else I could be, I would pick up my bag and get as far away from here as I possibly could. But I have nowhere else to go, no one else to turn to, and as that knowledge sinks in, the rest of Miles’s words finally register.

  As they do, panic skitters through me and I take off after him at a run. He can’t kick me out. He just can’t.

  He moves fast when he wants to, though, and is halfway up the long circular staircase in the foyer before I even have a chance at catching up to him.

  “Hey!” I call up the stairs after him. “You can’t just order me to leave!”

  He doesn’t even glance back at me, just continues taking the wide steps two at a time.

  “Hey!” I say again, ignoring the pain in my bruised, abused feet as I dash up the stairs after him. “This is Ethan and Chloe’s house. You don’t have the right to just kick me out of it.”

  I grab his arm, tug him around to face me. Then wish I hadn’t as he glares down at me out of ice-blue eyes that are as annoyed as they are frigid.

  “I think we’ve already established that I’m paying rent here, Tori. Which makes it, for the duration at least, my house. And since the last thing I want to do is share a home with a spoiled, self-centered little brat who drinks too much and has a talent for fucking all the wrong people, I am kicking you out.” He points at the door with a look on his face that says he knows he holds all the cards. “Don’t let the door hit you in the ass on the way out.”

  His words light a fire in me even as they strike with pinpoint accuracy. But just because he knows where to hit me doesn’t mean I’m giving up. Because I’m not. I can’t.

  “Oh, I won’t. Believe me. Because I’ve got no plans to leave and short of carrying me out of here, you can’t make me.”

  He lifts a brow. “Wanna bet?”

  “Yeah, I do.” I hold my arms out like I’m daring him to come at me.

  “We’re seriously going to get into this?” He glares at me. “You know, right, that I have no problem carrying you out of here? Just don’t complain to me when I drop you on your ass.”

  “You can try, but I’ll scream the whole place down the second you touch me. And when the cops come, I’ll make sure they call Chloe and tell her all about how her bastard of an older brother was manhandling her best friend. I’m sure she’ll be thrilled, aren’t you?”

  “She knows you well enough to know who’s antagonizing whom in this situation. And again, I’m the one who’s paying rent here—and who has the documentation to prove it.” He comes back down a couple of steps, closes the distance between us until he’s all but standing on top of me. “I was here, minding my own business, when you broke into my house without permission. So go ahead and scream until the c
ops are called. I have no problem having you arrested for trespassing. Let’s see how long it takes Alexander Parsons to bail you out of jail.”

  It’s another direct hit and Miles knows it. Alexander wouldn’t walk across the street to help me at this point—I hurt his ego too much last night. And even if he did, I’d spit in his damn face for doing this to me. And then I’d kick him in the balls hard enough to make sure he thought twice before ever doing this to another woman.

  I start to tell Miles that, but he’s got that look on his face again—the one that says he knows he’s won. It’s the same look my father wore this morning when he kicked me out, the same look Alexander wore when the elevator doors closed on him last night. Half pissed off, half triumphant, and one hundred percent pompous ass, it makes me see red faster than anything else ever could.

  I think about kicking Miles where it hurts, think about the million and one things I want to shout at him about women and human decency and getting his head out of his ass long enough to act like an actual human being occasionally. But I know if I say any of that then this situation is only going to get more out of hand and I’ll lose any chance I have of staying here until I can figure things out.

  Already the look on his face says that if I push him, he really will carry me out, instead of just threatening to. And since I can’t let that happen, I swallow down the bitterness inside me—all the hurt and rage and vitriol that’s welling up and begging to spill out all over him—and instead force myself to calmly say, “Come on, Miles. Please. Let me stay here just for a few days. It’s a big house, you won’t even notice me.” I nearly choke on the words, but I get them out.

  This time the look he shoots me is drily amused, like he knows just how much it cost me to say those words. Then again, maybe he does. I’m not exactly what one would call the shy, retiring type.

  “Yeah, right,” he says with a derisive snort. “Have you met yourself? You’re a force of nature, Tori. Impossible to miss and just as destructive. I can’t have that right now. I’m in the middle of some really delicate research and I need to give it my full attention.”