by Nikki Sloane
The women in the room were thankfully oblivious. They both rushed toward me.
“You’ll wear your hair up,” Alice said. She gathered my hair in her hands and held it against the crown of my head.
Donna’s cold fingers slipped into the back of the dress and tugged it tight. “It’ll have to be taken in.”
“Earrings?” Alice asked the designer. “Or necklace? I don’t want to ruin the neckline.”
There was no discussion if this was the right one, and Royce hadn’t given his approval. I turned and looked at him over my shoulder while the women continued to fuss at me. “Do you like it?”
“I do.” His voice was thick like honey. “Very much.”
God, that stare. My mouth went dry.
For the first time ever, I wanted the initiation to get here quicker. All the sooner we’d both be able to satisfy our cravings.
I stood in the kitchen and lay my hands flat on the countertop to prevent myself from hurling the stack of envelopes at my mother. I was livid. So angry, it solidified my muscles and made my back ache from the weight of it.
It had been a month since Macalister had shattered my world. And in that time, miraculously, no bills had arrived.
Last week I’d started going through the mail as soon as I was home from my appointments with Alice or the event coordinator. But there’d been nothing. Not even an electric bill.
Something wasn’t right. Macalister had said the house was in default, so there would be notices. Foreclosing wasn’t something that just happened overnight. It was a long, tedious process with a paper trail. Even if he’d stopped his bank’s foreclosure, it’d take days before the system processed it.
This morning I’d told my family I’d be gone all day, but I’d lied. At one o’clock, I’d lurked in the guest bedroom upstairs that had the best view of the driveway, and I waited. The mail truck rumbled up twenty minutes later and deposited a thick stack of envelopes into our mailbox. It had only just pulled away when my mother walked down the drive.
My suspicions rose exponentially as she stood at the mailbox, sorting the letters into two piles. Maybe she was weeding out the junk mail, but in my gut, I knew it was wishful thinking. As she disappeared from view and back into the house, I closed my eyes and said a little prayer.
Downstairs, there were footsteps as my mother moved around in the kitchen. A cabinet door creaked open and then thumped shut. More sounds as the water ran in the sink.
I’d seen my mother do dishes before, but up until recently, it had been a rare occurrence. Delphine had been let go, and we were all feeling the loss, but my mother had been hit the hardest. Not just in housework and meals, either. Delphine had been part of our family.
I forced myself to sound light and casual. “Hey. Did the mail come yet?”
“Oh, I didn’t know you were home.” She bobbed her head in a nod. “It’s there on the counter.” She used one wet hand to point to the stack, and a sickening, sour taste filled my mouth.
“Where’s the rest of it?”
“What?” she asked over the running water.
My voice was loud and pointed. “The rest of the mail, Mom.”
She stilled. Slowly, she turned off the water and turned to face me, her panic barely disguised. “I don’t know what you mean.”
Shit, she was a terrible liar. I strode over to the cabinets that weren’t used often, throwing open the doors, one after another, searching.
“Marist, stop,” she cried.
It only fueled me to keep going. When I reached for the next one, she sucked in a deep breath. It was because when I jerked the door open, I was meet with several shelves of mail. The cabinet was fucking full.
Weeks’ worth of bills had been hidden here.
I scooped out a stack of letters in disbelief, some of them spilling onto the counter below. There were red ‘past due’ and ‘urgent’ stamps on a few. Not a single one had been opened. I set my hands on the counter, infuriated and crushed with disappointment.
She whispered, “I know you’re upset, but—”
“Yes.” The voice that spoke didn’t sound like it belonged to me, but it couldn’t have come from anyone else.
Her bottom lip trembled. “It’s just . . . you have so much on your plate right now, and your father and I didn’t want you to worry.”
“Oh, my God,” I snapped. “That’s such bullshit.”
She scowled. “Don’t talk to me like that. I’m your mother.”
I snatched up one of the bills before me, tearing open the envelope as I spoke. “Except I’m the only one with any responsibility around here. What are you thinking? You can’t just ignore this and believe it’s going to go away.” Tears of anger burned my eyes, making my vision bleary and the credit card statement I’d opened hard to read.
“We’re not ignoring it, we just need a little more time.”
“Time for what? For Macalister to write me a five-million-dollar check?”
It looked like I’d kicked her in the stomach, but it was hard to feel much sympathy for her right now. My anger burned so hot inside me, it consumed all other emotion. I stared at the charges printed on the paper and my focus zeroed in on the date.
“What the fuck is this?” I jammed the statement at her, my finger on the line pointing it out. “You spent four thousand dollars at Chanel last week?”
A range of emotions played out on her face. Surprise, followed by guilt, and then defensiveness.
“You don’t know what it’s like!” Tears spilled down her face. “It’s so overwhelming. I feel awful all the time, Marist. I’m miserable every second of every day, and I just . . .” She tipped her head back and stared at the ceiling. “I needed some relief, all right? I saw the bag, and I just wanted to be happy for two seconds. I needed an escape. I’m sorry.”
I swung away, unable to look at her, but there was no escape for me. The Etonsons crest was on one of the letters in the pile. It was far too late to apply for a student loan, and who would give me one, anyway? My family was supposed to be American royalty with coffers full of money.
“I’ll take the bag back,” she mumbled.
Like that would solve anything. My mother had lived her whole life as an entitled and privileged woman. Her behavior would never change.
I said nothing to her. I simply stared at my family’s financial ruin and tried not to cry. In five days, I would be armed with Hale resources and this would be a mountain I could climb. My silence drove my mother away, and I was grateful she wasn’t near. I assumed she went to her room to feel sorry for herself some more, rather than do anything about her situation.
I pulled down the ignored bills and notices, flinging them to the floor until they were a puddle of debt at my feet. I dropped down beside it, my back against the lower cabinets, and began to open each one.
Some time later, Emily found me there, neat piles sorted by priority gathered around me. She barely blinked at how I was sitting on the floor of the kitchen or what I was doing. It wasn’t all that surprising. My parents had passed on the avoider gene to her. She’d put the pregnancy test off for weeks so she wouldn’t have to face reality.
As she slid down the cabinets to sit beside me, I sighed. I was still upset with her about what she’d kept from me. She was supposed to be my best friend. Did she feel like she couldn’t trust me? That I’d judge her? It hurt.
But this wasn’t the time to talk through our issues. Couldn’t she see that? I was frayed and raw, and there were bigger things to worry about than my feelings.
“You’ve been avoiding me for weeks,” she said. “And I’ve been avoiding this too, but we have to talk.”
“I know, but not now, Em.” I scanned the papers surrounding us. “Just let me get through this weekend, and then everything’s going to get better.”
“No, it isn’t. I shouldn’t have let this go on as long as it has. I should have told you weeks ago.” She grabbed my arm to let me know she was serious. My breath cut off as he
r expression turned to desperation. “You can’t marry Royce.”
My pulse slowed to a crawl. Hyperawareness tingled across my skin, warning me something big was coming. Oh, God. Was this where she told me she was secretly in love with him?
My voice wavered. “Why’s that?”
“Because for him to join the board?” Her hand squeezed so hard it was uncomfortable. “He has to fuck you in front of them.”
THIRTEEN
INCREDULOUS LAUGHTER WELLED UP and erupted from my throat. Emily’s joke was so ridiculous it wasn’t even that funny, but I needed the stress relief, and it felt good to let it out.
My sister didn’t laugh with me. Her eyes were full of fear, and—damn—she was really selling the joke.
“Stop it,” I said. “Where’d you even come up with that?”
“Marist, I’m serious.” She frowned, trying to assemble convincing words. “I thought it was like an urban legend too when I heard it. You know people talk all sorts of shit about the Hales. But this? It’s true.”
“Okay.” I patronized her with a look. “Sure.”
Yet an unwelcomed sensation folded my stomach in two. It whispered to listen to my sister.
“My friend Jenny,” she said, “used to babysit for the Scoffields. She said one night when they’d come home after a party, Mrs. Scoffield was shitfaced and started screaming at her husband about how she let him fuck her while they all watched.”
I pressed my lips together. “She could have been talking about anything.”
Money made people crazy. It lowered inhibitions and sent them on power trips. Everyone knew there was a seedy underside to Cape Hill. Plenty of the higher-ups had been caught in compromising positions. Everything from underage drinking and affairs, to drugs and prostitutes.
I was sure there was kinky shit going on as well. Most of the executives at HBHC acted like the Gods on Mount Olympus. They did whatever fucked-up thing they wanted and didn’t worry about consequences.
My sister shook her head. “Mr. Scoffield gave Jenny three hundred dollars that night. He said it was a joke and not to repeat it to anyone.” Emily’s focus left mine. She pulled up her knees and stared at them as her voice sank further. “I asked Royce about it when we went out last year.”
I tensed. She made me wait a decade before elaborating.
“He’d been an asshole to me all night, but when I told him I’d heard a rumor about it, he changed. It was like he became a completely different person. He said it wasn’t true, of course, but he spent the rest of the night wanting to know exactly who I’d heard the rumor from.” Her gaze wandered back to mine. “He was angry, Marist. And I think he was scared.” Her blue eyes had been soft, but they turned hard. “He was terrified I knew the truth.”
I shifted uncomfortably on the floor, wanting to get away from what she was telling me. The whole thing was fucking insane.
Yet . . .
Why did I think there was even the tiniest chance it could be true?
My gaze swiveled to peer through the open kitchen door that led to the dining room. Macalister had sat there last month and announced his family had a tradition, and a woman played a significant role in it. How the board needed to approve me before I could become Royce’s wife. There’d also been the invasive questions during my interview.
And Macalister had lectured me about sex being necessary for a healthy marriage.
I scrambled to my feet, knocking over some of the piles I’d spent more than an hour organizing. “If it was true, Royce would have told me.”
Even as I said it, I knew it was a lie.
All the Hales had only given me the information they thought I needed to know. Surely, Royce wasn’t allowed to tell me. If he had, I could have bolted, and they wouldn’t want that. A lot of time and money had been invested in me, and besides—it was win at all costs. It was the Hale family motto, he’d said.
“Oh, my God,” I whispered. I pressed a fist into my stomach, desperate to feel anything other than the nausea sweeping through me. I settled on anger and whirled to face my sister. “Why are you telling me this now?”
She climbed to her feet, scattering more of the bills around us. “I tried, and . . .” She looked lost. “I thought you’d back out, or it wouldn’t get this far.”
My rage went from scalding hot to icy cold in an instant as the realization hit me. “You thought I’d fail.”
“No,” Emily said quickly, but it was pointless. I could read it all over her face. “No, but I . . .”
She might have said something else in her defense, but I didn’t hear it. Instead, Royce’s comment in the back seat of my car flitted through my mind, how he’d been worried our first time would be traumatic.
There was so much he wasn’t telling me, how could I believe anything he said? A lie by omission was still a lie. Yet the way Royce had looked at me as I tried on the red dress—even if everything else was manipulation, that moment was real, wasn’t it?
“What are you going to do?” Emily asked, jarring me from my thoughts.
I didn’t know.
If it was true, could I actually go through with it? Let Royce take my virginity as the rest of the board watched? Including his father? Oh, my God.
The whole idea was like something out of the myths I enjoyed. A dark ritual of sex and power, and I’d be at the center. It made me shudder. Mostly in fear, but the part of me that loved the twisted, fucked-up stories in Greek mythology, it found this appealing.
Jesus, what was wrong with me?
I had to focus. It was too late to turn back, and there were no good options. I stood in the nest of bills, put a hand to my forehead, and closed my eyes. Emily had asked me what I was going to do, and I gave her the best answer I had. “Whatever I have to.”
This was the last time I’d see Royce before my final meeting with the board. The initiation, as he and his father had called it. He’d had his driver pick me up, and we rode in the back of the car alternating between stilted conversation and uncomfortable silence. Royce seemed as agitated as I was, but he did a better job at trying not to reveal it.
Maybe he was nervous about the promotion, and not whether he could perform in front of eight other dudes, one of whom was his father.
I was under no delusions what this “date” really was—a photo op. A show. We would get ice cream, then go for a hand-in-hand stroll down Cape Hill’s main street to maximize viewing opportunities for the public. Some of the guests for Royce’s celebration had already arrived, and since the town was small, it was likely we’d run into people.
“Are you okay?” he asked, stabbing his spoon into his hot fudge sundae. “You seem weird.”
“Yeah,” I said coolly. “You too.”
He frowned, pressing his lips together.
The shop was decorated like an old-fashioned ice cream parlor. It had pink and cream striped wallpaper and white wrought iron chairs with patterned seat cushions. The ice cream dishes were tulip shaped and footed. It was like the 1950s, and I didn’t need a reminder of a time where wives were expected to be subservient to their husbands.
“Saturday’s going to be difficult.” He wiped his face with his napkin, wadded it up, and tossed it on the table. Then he leaned back in his chair and gave me a serious look.
My breath caught. “Difficult how, exactly?”
“We hate parties, remember?”
“Oh. Right.” My mood worsened. For a hot second, I’d thought he was going to tell me. But, no.
Last night as I lay awake in my bed, I came fully to terms with it. I’d adapt. I’d give him every opportunity to confess what was going to happen, but if he didn’t—I wasn’t going to let on that I knew. Information was power, and I’d hold on to it as long as I could. Let him see how much he liked being left in the dark.
I tried to envision what the initiation would be like. It lined my stomach with lead, but also made me uncomfortably hot. Tension wrapped around my body, cinched me tight and kept me still as I b
urned from the inside out. It was scary and wrong, and I was willing to admit to myself a little exciting too. The big picture was I’d get what I wanted.
Maybe I was prepared to win at all costs to get Royce.
It was June and summer was in full swing, and the ice cream place was busy. I hadn’t noticed the blonde girl waving at me until we locked eyes. I wanted to turn and look behind me to see who she was waving at, until I remembered we were seated in the corner and there was no one else it could be.
Noemi Rosso was waving at me.
She rose gingerly from her seat, careful of her pregnant belly, and made her way over to me.
“Emily, right?” she said, extending a hand.
My smile froze. Of course, she thought I was my sister. I’d only met the heiress a few times. Her father owned a media empire, and like Royce, she was poised to take control when he retired. Rosso was as much a household name as Hale was.
“Actually,” Royce said, turning in his seat, “this is Marist, not—”
He blinked at the sight of the woman, and a smile flashed across his lips as he pushed back his chair to stand.
“Noemi.” His tone was warm. “Good to see you.”
“Royce.” She grinned.
Although they clasped hands in a businesslike handshake, it all seemed so familiar, and an unwanted emotion spiked through me. I’d never seen him act sincerely friendly before. It probably didn’t help that Noemi was beautiful. She was close to him in age, maybe the same or a year older.
“Congratulations on the promotion,” she said. Her hand fell to rest on her belly, and the wedding rings glittered on her finger.
“Thanks. I was surprised you decided to come.”
“Of course. This worked out great. Joseph and I wanted to get out of Chicago for a weekend while it was still just the two of us.” She gave a sly smile to the man I hadn’t noticed standing beside her until now. “I don’t think you’ve met my husband. This is Joseph Monsato.”
The men engaged in a cursory handshake and exchanged hellos.