The moment her hand grasps me, I almost come. The moan that comes out of me is unreal and I need to back away. I need to buy some time or this is going to be over too quickly, and I want to savor her this summer, this golden-haired goddess that takes my fucking breath away. I drop to my knees and bring my lips to the small heart-shaped birthmark that lays just above her panties. “How come I never noticed this before? You have a birthmark shaped like a heart.” I want to work my way down with my lips and tongue. I want to see what she tastes like this summer.
We jump apart because of a noise.
That’s when we find them.
Our parents.
Her mother bouncing up and down on my father’s lap like a professional porn star.
Claire keeps screaming she’s sorry.
Why is she saying that? Why does she keep repeating it over and over?
She knew what was going on, didn’t she?
She knew this whole time and she’s sorry.
She should be, I can’t believe this. I can’t believe her. She knew. She knew about this and didn’t tell me. She didn’t tell Chloe?
When the housekeepers usher us out of the room, Chloe and I push them away and listen at the door. My sister’s face is streaked with tears and nothing I could say could stop them.
Behind the thick oak door, our parents’ war begins.
“Nothing is ever enough for you, is it? Why her?” A hand slaps a face. “And here, in our home. Jesus, Silas.”
My father mumbles words I can’t hear.
“Oh my God,” Chloe says, “I think Dad’s crying.” She presses her ear to the wood of the door.
“Is this why you’ve been paying for Claire’s schooling? Is this why you offered to give Libby money tonight? Did you think I wouldn’t find out?”
“No, Margaret, you don’t understand.”
“Oh, Silas you bastard. I understand now. Now we all understand. I can’t believe you did this to me.” Glass shatters and there’s an anguished cry. “You’re sick and perverted and disgusting. I won’t let you see her again, Silas. Ever.”
“It’s not that simple,” my father stammers. His heavy footfalls pace back and forth.
“End it!” Someone slams something down hard—or maybe it’s Mom throwing something heavy across the room. “End it or I will take you for every penny you have just so you give none to her.”
A prickling of heat rises in the back of my eyes, but I stamp it down. I’m not crying over this. I’m not a pussy.
My mother’s voice lowers, “Silas, I’ll go public if you even whisper the word divorce to me. I will tell everyone about your sick sexual appetites. Your fans will be disgusted by you, your entire career will go down in flames if I let everyone know who you really are. You’ll look like a fool, a sick, dirty, disgusting fool.”
“Margaret,” my father growls. “You can’t be serious. We’ll lose everything. And without me to feed into your exuberant luxuries, what would you do? You’re too old to trick another billionaire into marrying you.” His words drip with anger and scorn.
“My God, Silas. I can’t believe what an ugly, horrible person you really are inside. I can’t believe I ever thought you were someone good. I believed in you and what you stood for.”
My father’s entire multi-billion-dollar career is centered around his marriage and family self-help books and his motivational speaking. If anyone found out he was unfaithful, he’d look like a fraud. What the hell was he thinking, cheating on Mom?
I slide down the wall until I’m sitting, crumpled up on the floor. “Do you think Claire knew?”
My sister’s eyes narrow, and she nods sadly. “She told me she needed to tell me something important. Something she hoped I wouldn’t be angry about. So, yeah. I think she knew. And right after dinner, I heard Mrs. Radcliffe telling Mom about them going bankrupt.”
“What else did you hear?” I ask.
“Mrs. Radcliffe was upset. She said she needed to get away before it was too late.”
I climb back up to my feet and hurry to the front window to watch Claire and her parents below, on the front circular driveway. She’s sitting in the back of her father’s car. Even from all the way up here I can see her shoulders trembling as she sobs. Mr. and Mrs. Radcliffe are screaming at each other over the roof of their car, he’s banging his hand along the outside of Claire’s window as he yells. Then he yanks open the car door and drags Claire out by the arms. She’s fighting with him, crying and pleading. He doesn’t stop.
Claire falls to the ground, and he just leaves her there. She and her mother, their faces full of dirt and tears. Then he climbs into the front seat of his car and speeds away. His taillights flicker at the end of the estate and then disappear.
I stare out the window silently watching.
Claire’s head is in her hands, her legs sprawled out along the blacktop, and she’s slumped over crying.
I feel numb.
No, that’s a lie. I feel nauseous. My stomach churns and twists until it forms a fiery lump in my esophagus.
I run to the bathroom and vomit into the wastebasket. The smell of sour regurgitated champagne makes me retch a second time. I don’t want to be a wuss and cry, but I do. I’m so goddamn angry. It’s mortifying—the effect this girl has on me––making me eye level to a toilet, the palms of my hands on the tile floor. Right now, everything looks strange to me. There’s a hairline crack in the wood of the bathroom cabinet. A small chip in the corner of my mother’s expensive Italian tiles. My life is ruined.
What’s going to happen to my family?
To Claire’s?
No, I can’t think about her anymore. I can’t care about her any longer. She and her mother ruined everything.
I try to gather some semblance of dignity. I try to set my head right. Why should I cry over someone who obviously isn’t who I thought she was? Claire’s nothing now, she’s nothing to me. She makes me feel dead inside. They were just here for my father’s money.
How could she use my family like that?
Why was Dad paying for Claire’s tuition?
I can’t believe I never saw the truth.
There’s a soft knock at the door.
“Yeah, one minute,” I say, wiping at my eyes. I stand up and run the water, splashing it over my face and the back of my neck.
“It’s me,” Chloe’s voice calls.
I kick the basket of puke into the corner. One of the housekeepers will find it at some point.
“What?” I snap as I open the door.
“They’re gone,” Chloe says, raggedly.
“Yeah, so?” What did she want me to say? I walk out of the bathroom as if I didn’t leave my heart at the bottom of the bathroom’s trashcan, and head back to listen to the rest of our parents’ fight.
Chloe stumbles to keep up with me. “One of the groundkeepers had to drive them. Mommy will probably fire him in the morning.”
I shrug, pretending I don’t care. “That’s what the groundkeepers are supposed to do, Chloe. They get rid of all the trash.”
I stop by the door to my father’s office and lean against the wall, listening.
“That’s what this all about, Silas. Money. She never loved you. She told me she was leaving him because of all their money problems. Libby Radcliffe was just trying to find her next big paycheck. You’re a fool.”
I guess we both were.
And there was no way I would ever forgive Claire Radcliffe for this.
Chapter 10
Hello, Claire.
My phone stopped working. The network is down.
And the electricity went out in your apartment, Claire.
There’s a blizzard outside the door. I guess it’s time to hunker down.
I lay in Claire’s bed.
Claire, your bed doesn’t have enough room for someone else. That thought makes me hard again. The image of you, always alone. Just like me. I come again, this time over the tiny whimsical flowery pattern of her sheets.
Claire, by the time you get home my semen might cover every inch of your apartment.
I wonder if she’ll smell it when she walks in.
I don’t like waiting.
Claire, why are you keeping me waiting?
Are you stuck in the storm?
You fucking better be.
Chapter 11
Claire
I can feel the cold, down in my bones. A deep-rooted icy ache that solidifies my blood and freezes the marrow deep inside me. My lungs bite with it, little glass shards, cutting me from the inside out. Above me the sky is unclear, I can’t tell where the clouds begin and the snow and wind end. Yet, it feels as if it hangs just an inch above my face. I lie unmoving, dazed and confused. My temples pound strangely as I watch the swirling shapes of ice and snow spiral past me. It’s oddly beautiful. But deathly silent.
“W-w-w-w-where am I?” I force out the question through my chattering teeth. I’m not quite sure who I’m asking, though I vaguely remember I’m not here—wherever that is—alone.
I struggle to pull myself up. My head swims violently with the movement and there’s too much heaviness pressing me down. I have to claw my fingers free from the weight, until my hands burn and tingle with pins and needles. Panic tornadoes through me. I kick out my legs, flailing them back and forth. A prickling sensation crawls over my ears and nose and cheeks.
“W-w-w-w-what h-h-h-happened?” Ice and snow fill my mouth.
What happened to my car? Wasn’t I just sitting inside it? Why can’t I get up?
There’s a muted sound. A faint ding-ding-dinging, like I left my car door open. Did I get into an accident?
I thrash my body frantically. I have to get up. The throbbing in my head increases and picks up speed as the horror of it all comes flooding back.
My mother is dead. She hanged herself because of Silas Montgomery.
The house on top of a remote mountain they stayed in together.
The text messages.
Offshore accounts where they hid money.
Someone is blackmailing me with horrible, indecent photos that will get me fired.
What else? There was something else.
Oh my God.
It hits me like a brick to the chest. Seeing the only boy I have ever loved as a grown man for the first time in ten years.
Vaughn Montgomery.
Vaughn Montgomery shouting at me about an avalanche.
Oh Lord, did I just live through a mountain crashing on me?
“V-V-V-Vaughn-n-n-n,” I try to call his name, but I barely get it past my frost-covered lips. How can it be this cold? And why does it feel like it’s getting colder by the second?
I need to get out of the snow. I have to stand up and get my bearings. Vaughn has to be here somewhere. I keep scraping and digging at the snow that has blanketed me like an icy tomb. My body shivers and shudders so wildly, it’s hard to stay focused, and I’m losing all feeling in my limbs. But I don’t stop.
The open car door ding-ding-dings, mocking me.
Tremors rock through me as I finally break free.
“V-V-V-Vaughn!” I stammer, glancing around desperately. My teeth rattle so hard in my mouth I’m afraid they might break right out.
I clamber and struggle to stand. The snowbank is waist-high, and to my utter surprise and horror, it’s much colder in the whipping wind. Spinning around slowly, I search for Vaughn. Around me it seems like the snow has frozen over, as if a thick sheet of ice covers everything. Every pine needle, every branch, and tree trunk; sheathed in ice.
My stomach drops.
I dive back into the accumulation and wade through it. Immediately, I’m exhausted, and I’ve only moved about a foot or two, but that’s just enough. Right over the next mound of snow I find him, almost fully emerged in the snow.
I’m surprised by the relief I feel when I touch the steady beat of his pulse. He’s still alive.
I start digging.
I can’t believe we were out here in this blizzard fighting like two idiots. All because of the stupidity and selfishness of both of our parents, and because of the hate we both have for each other. Heat prickles in the corner of my eyes, and a tear spills over my lashes and turns to frost. I can’t let my emotions get the best of me, I just need to get him up and back inside. Then when this storm is over, I can get off this tainted mountain and purge my mind of anything Montgomery. A complete brain-bleach.
It doesn’t take too long to get him fully uncovered, thank God. I slap lightly at his cheeks and shake his shoulders. “V-V-Vaughn, get up.” I still have no control over my convulsing teeth.
He stirs a little.
“V-V-Vaughn, wake up. If we stay out here, we’re going to die.”
“I’m already dead,” he mumbles, “and Hell smells like vanilla and roses.”
What’s going to happen if I can’t get him up? Am I strong enough to carry him through the snowdrifts all the way back to the house?
That’s a hard no.
“You’re not dead, Vaughn. Not yet.”
His eyes open wide, then narrow back down to slits. “But I’m still in Hell it seems.”
“If that’s a knock on me and not the weather, you can just stay here and harden into a Montgomery-favored popsicle. I really don’t care.”
His jaw clenches as he slowly sits up. He must be in pain.
“Funny, I remember you caring. I remember you really liking me hardening into your very own Montgomery-flavored popsicle.” He tries to chuckle, but his eyes squeeze shut tight. Yeah, he’s definitely in a lot of pain. Good, he deserves it after what he just said.
“How about you just forget that ever happened?” I grumble.
“Can’t,” he grunts, making his way slowly to his feet. “It’s etched right into my brain matter.”
“Then let’s pretend we’re total strangers,” I sigh. Doesn’t he realize I hate him just as much as he hates me? I may even hate him more.
“Then, I wish we were better strangers,” he mutters.
Oh, forget it. He’s not worth fighting with right now, it’s too damn cold. I spin my back on him and start trudging my way toward the only huge snowy lump that has a glowing window and hope it’s the house. Behind me, Vaughn drops back to the ground.
“Really?” I growl, glancing back at him over my shoulder. “You have enough energy to snicker back and forth with me, but not enough to move, huh?”
He sits in the snow, his hand touching the side of his forehead. His fingers fall away covered in blood. Confusion pulls his brows together.
A violent shiver rips through me.
I’m at his side in a flash, faster than I could have ever thought possible.
“W-w-why am I bleeding?” he asks.
“I don’t know—I don’t know,” my words are panicked, frenzied. I lean down and steel myself against his heavy body, flinging his limp arm over my shoulder. “Try and climb back up to your feet. Come on, Vaughn, help me. I can’t carry you.” I want to stop the world from spinning and look at his head, but what good would it do, we’re still out here in the storm. We have to get back inside and warm up. I can’t even feel my fingers, how can I possibly help him with frozen fingers?
His face pales, his lips turn a sick purplish-blue. Pulling him up to his feet, I see the gash just behind his hairline. I remember from taking a first-aid class in school, no matter how small, head wounds always bleed a lot. More than any other wounds, so most of the time it’s not as bad as it looks. I hope that’s true. What could he have possibly hit his head on?
I try to walk him forward, but his legs buckle. Vaughn Montgomery is a heavy son-of-a—let me not even go there. I need to just concentrate on getting us back to the house, even if I have to drag him all the way there.
“R-r-really dizzy,” he mumbles.
The pressure of his weight on my shoulders is making me a bit dizzy too. This man is like nine feet tall and made of solid muscle.
“Just keep walking, Goliath.”
We climb through the snow, slowly. It’s so raw and bitter out here tears and snot have frozen on my face. I catch him looking down at me, side-eyeing what an icy-cold mess I am. He’s probably having a good hearty laugh in his head right now at my expense.
“H-h-how much did he leave you when he d-d-died?” he sputters and swears at me.
I blink up at him, confused. Who is he talking about? Who does he think he’s talking to? He must have brain damage. He thinks I’m someone else.
“Th-th-that bastard left my mother and Chloe nothing.” His voice is flat and dark. “D-d-did you get it all?”
“Just shut up and move your feet. You’re confused and you don’t know what you’re saying.” Now that we’re moving, and I’m doing most of the work, my body is sweating from exertion. This is how you get sick, isn’t it?
“I-I-I know exactly w-what I’m saying. Y-your m-mother was like a d-dog. I-if my father threw a stick, she’d run right after it.”
“And you and your father are the reasons why the gene pool needs a lifeguard,” I snap back.
“Your gene pool needs chlorine,” he retorts.
“Stop talking. You’re making yourself look more stupid than you already are.”
“Yeah? Well, you look blue.”
“Yeah, well, I’m cold.”
We’re almost at the house, but the closer we get the harder it is to walk. My clothes are frozen and stuck to my skin, every movement is a struggle. It’s like my clothes are fighting back, trying to barricade me from getting someplace warm. And Vaughn’s blabbering isn’t helping, it’s making me want to clonk him back into unconsciousness. He was much nicer like that.
“Still beautiful, though. That part sucks,” he grumbles. “And don’t touch me when we get inside. None of that Radcliffe voodoo vagina magic. I’d rather die out here.” He’s losing it, rambling incoherently. “My father could never say no to her, could he?”
“Are you trying to talk me into leaving you out here?”
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