The Escape

by Alice Ward

  “So what does this competition involve?” I was equally the master in the bedroom as I was capable of being in the boardroom. But Mason had me beat when it came to smooth moves.

  Uncle pulled two neat packets out of his desk, one for Mason and one for me. My stomach rolled.

  Our mini war had not only disrupted the family but upset Harvey. Which was why, I assumed, he’d called the meeting and decided to pit us against each other to battle for the lead role in his publishing empire. A last-ditch attempt to coerce us into calling a truce.

  “You’ll need to make arrangements to be away for a month, boys.”

  He had to be kidding. “A month? I can’t be away for a day, much less a month. I have—”

  “You will, boy…” the blue eyes turned cold as ice as they settled on me, “or you’ll forfeit.”

  Forfeit? I’d never forfeit to Mason. I shot a glance at my rival, who was relaxed in his chair as he considered what I knew sounded to him like an effortless fling slash ski vacation.

  My hands fisted in my lap. Glaring my rage at my uncle, I carefully unclenched my hands under Mason’s watchful gaze. Our eyes clashed and held. I hated how Uncle still referred to us as children when we were in our thirties and long past boyhood, even if I did want to take Mason to the floor and pummel him like when we were kids.

  “You name it, Harv, I’m on it,” was Mason’s idiotic reply, and he had the audacity to sound excited.

  I couldn’t leave my post at my investing company for a month. It would be mayhem.

  Hadn’t my uncle — the man who had been interviewed for Forbes magazine five times over his thirty some odd years in business — considered this? Of course he had.

  “I like the enthusiasm, Mason,” Uncle Harv said with a rousing, liver-spotted fist to the air.

  “Uncle, I have meetings scheduled, client portfolios that need—”

  “Always the pragmatist, Lucas,” my uncle scolded as he lifted the packets and laid one in front of each of us on his desk. “Do try to stretch your narrowmindedness a bit. You too, Mason. In the end, you’ll figure out why I’ve chosen the women I have for you.”

  I frowned. When he stood, signaling our absurd meeting was at an end, I was shocked to notice that my palms had become damp.

  Before turning to the door, Mason picked up his envelope and did a mock bow to me, a humorous glint in his eyes. “Good luck, cousin.” He chuckled on his way out the door.

  I wouldn’t let Mason win. I picked up my envelope and exited, making my way blindly to my Jaguar XJ.

  I’d do whatever it took to win the title of CEO.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Ava

  The one-hundred-year-old faucet made a gurk gurk gurk sound as I impatiently waited for the hot water to crawl its way up eight flights. When it finally hit the sink, I held my cold fingers under it, soaking up the warmth that eluded me in my frigid New York City apartment.

  Well, not mine. Lance’s. Who was the most likely contender for asshole landlord slash roommate of the year.

  The bathroom door creaked open, and my other roommate walked in without asking. Sylvia shuffled her feet across the older than the faucet black and white tile, her black, red-tipped hair sticking up in gnarls. When she reached the toilet, she dropped her pants and plunked down on the seat.

  “God, Sylvia, can’t you wait until I’m done?”

  In response, she murmured what sounded like, “Floofy cats,” and let out a masculine fart.

  I grimaced and grabbed my toothbrush, knowing better than to forfeit the bathroom for any reason. Sylvia had been known to sleepwalk. She could potentially lock herself in the bathroom and sleep off last night’s late-night party in the bathtub until afternoon.

  My stomach burned as the anger I was trying to tamp down gurgled up into my chest, and I bit down on my toothbrush. It was dangerous to wake a sleepwalker. Wasn’t it? Didn’t you risk giving them a shock? A heart attack or brain damage or something? I shot a look at Sylvia and narrowed my eyes, considering.

  A foul smell hit my nose, and I covered it with my hand, trying not to breathe. Scrubbing my face quickly, I snatched up my hairbrush and made a break for the bedroom.

  I just graduated from the New York School of Design and had survived several job interviews, but none were as prestigious as the one later this morning. I had two hours to be dressed in my latest thrift store designer finds and looking my best, and at the interview location for Chanel. A thrill ran through me at just the thought of Chanel, my blood pumping faster.

  Making a quick trip to the kitchen for something to settle my stomach, I wrinkled my nose at the stench of smoke. Not entirely awake still, I padded to the fridge and opened it to find my low-cal organic yogurt had been replaced with the kind that had hormones and cancer-causing artificial sweeteners.

  Clamping my jaw tight, I yanked it out of the fridge and turned, my eyes landing on the ruby red perfectly cut dress that was my best piece. I gasped. Now, my pride and joy featured two black circles drawn on the chest, with dots in the middle for bullseyes.

  My heart stopped.

  I dimly heard the plop-clank of my yogurt and spoon hitting the floor. My eyes flicked across the room, taking in my other creations — an aqua blue off-the-shoulder, a black and white jumpsuit with a lowcut back — dangling by their hangers over the room’s pictures on the wall, their protective plastic ripped off.

  My breath came back, stuttering in my chest, as I searched for the cream-colored minidress I’d put my heart and soul into.

  My eyes landed on a strange skinny man I hadn’t noticed before lying on the couch, snoring in soft snorts. The man who was wearing my heart-and-soul dream-cream dress that was the one I would have worn for my prom had I gone. But I didn’t date then, instead focusing on school and protecting my little sister. I still didn’t date, focused entirely on my career.

  I must have screamed because the guy on the couch did a reverse arch, looking like a scared cat, and the door behind me bounced off the wall.

  “What the fuck?” Lance Rowland, my asshole landlord slash roommate slash almost lover, growled from the doorway of his much-bigger-than-mine room. His sleep pants hung low on his hips, showing off the muscles that dipped low and all the cuts he worked so hard at to impress the women.

  Sylvia lurched into the hallway as I pointed at the ruined clothes. “M-my… oh my god.” My throat closed up, and I slapped my hand over my mouth to keep from vomiting.

  Lance’s eyes took in the living room in the calm way he did everything, and the heat in my chest ticked up ten degrees.

  “You dumb fuck.” Lance scowled at the minidress stealer.

  The guy gasped when he looked down, smirked, and turned red. He muttered, “Sorry,” and attempted to pull one arm out of a sleeve.

  Ripppppp.

  The sound was like a shot in the tiny living room/kitchen. My ears buzzed, and I thought for a moment I was going to pass out. Slowly, I turned and looked at my hungover roommates. My selfish, childish roommates.

  “You.” I pointed my finger at Lance and took a step forward.

  He frowned. It wasn’t like me to be confrontational, to be anything but the smoother-over-er.

  I pointed at Sylvia next, and by her surprised blink, I could tell she was awake-walking now.

  “And you.” I fought the head-spinning lightheadedness as I snarled at miniskirt guy. “Chanel. These,” I waved my hand, encompassing the living room, “were for Chanel.”

  Sylvia’s eyes bugged out, and her mouth popped open like she was just now processing the carnage. “Oh my god.”

  “Don’t you ‘oh my god’ me.” I took a step toward her, rage burning a pit in my stomach. “You were part of the party last night. The one that didn’t break up until four this morning.” I swung around and directed my words at Lance. “You couldn’t just leave them in the coat closet? You had to ruin my best chance just because you’re still embarrassed you couldn’t get it up?”

  “Wha—” ca
me from the dress thief, followed by a squeak and then a snicker from Sylvia.

  She’d been the only one to know about that night. The celebratory day I’d received my diploma in fashion design and rocked the night out. And ended up in Lance’s bed. Which hadn’t rocked. Cause he couldn’t get it up. Thank god.

  Lance just stared at me as his face turned a strange mottled color.

  I hadn’t meant to say that. My control was slipping. My careful control that made me the nice girl. The sweet girl. The one who never said anything mean. My eyes burned, and I knew that girl was forever gone.

  “I’ve put up with your all-night parties and your slobbishness.” I kicked a convenient crumpled up Taco Bell bag. I eyed the guy on the couch and lifted my chin. “And your trash.”

  “Yeah, well, I’ve put up with your neatfreakness and niceness, your gushing about colors and fine stitch work and the way you put things where I can’t find them.” Lance shot a death stare my way.

  “That’s called cleaning up, you-you—”

  “You can’t even come up with a proper insult.” Lance made a gesture that encompassed my body, as if I were insufficient.

  “You couldn’t get it up?” came from the couch. “That’s like the opposite of your name. Limp Lance.” Snicker.

  “Shut the fuck up!” Lance yelled at him.

  “I’ll help you fix—” Sylvia started.

  I swung back around. “Help? You want to help now?”

  Sylvia’s eyes grew even bigger.

  “Can’t you see it’s all ruined? This was my shot, my best shot.”

  “You weren’t going to get hired at Chanel anyway,” Lance snarled my way.

  I stood in complete silence for a long moment, everyone staring at me, waiting. Then the words poured out, the ones I’d held in, been too nice to say. “Thanks for the confidence, Lance. You people need to grow up. I’m sick of the reeking stench of smoke, the trash everywhere, the stinking dishes piled in the sink, the rotting food in our room.” I blinked rapidly, refusing to cry in front of them. “I’m sick of the little things, like buying what I like and someone just using it, even my deodorant. I’m sick of the bigger things, like you, Sylvia, giving your pervert of a boyfriend a key to our apartment.”

  Sylvia grimaced then looked guilty.

  “And I’m sick of the total disregard and respect for what’s important to other people. I’m so sick of all of this!” My throat closed up then, or I would have gone on.

  Lance disappeared into his room and returned momentarily with a folded paper that he placed in my numb hand. “Good, then this should make your day better.” He turned and went into his room, slamming the door.

  The vibration of the door slamming caused Lance’s favorite bobblehead of the NY Beast’s Ace Newman to nod his head as if he agreed wholeheartedly with his leader.

  I unfolded the letter and started to read… something that had the heading “Lease Termination Notice” and “Notice of Non-Renewal.” The heat in my body turned to ice.

  Evicted.

  I was being evicted.

  Because my landlord and I had drunkenly fallen into bed with less than stellar results on his part, and he was ashamed to have me around.

  Now, I was perpetually the chick-Lance-couldn’t-get-a-boner-with.

  My hand, which felt suddenly like it didn’t even belong to me, picked up the bobblehead and hurled him at Lance’s door, where he smashed to pieces, his head rolling to a stop at the foot of minidress guy.

  I dropped the letter and ran for my room, locking the door against intruders.

  Sylvia immediately started banging on the other side. “Let me in, Ava. Please. I didn’t know they did that. They must have done it after I passed out.”

  I didn’t answer as I fought to lower my heart rate back to normal and turn my brain toward somehow salvaging my eleven o’clock interview.

  I need to get out of here. Like, for good.

  Suddenly, I felt ages older than my roommates, even though Sylvia was only one year behind me in fashion school and Lance was a twenty-six-year-old perpetual frat boy.

  I needed to get out of this cramped, two-bedroom apartment and start living like an adult. Chanel had been my best shot, and I knew my other creations would fall short. I’d put everything I had into the samples aimed at the high-end brand.

  Drained, my knees gave out, and I plopped down on my daybed, taking in the plates of dried up pizza crusts that were encroaching on my side of the room.

  Sylvia banged again.

  Her side of the room was draped in dirty clothes, multiple glasses crowded together on the bedside table. No surface was visible.

  I shuddered and moved my eyes back to my side of the room, which was pleasantly neat and dust free. I could almost hear the armies of dust motes from her side planning their attack.

  A lone tear escaped my eye and ran down my cheek. Rapidly followed by more.

  I need to get out of here, soon.

  “Please, Ava, I have a plan, one that would get you a better place and help you start your business. If you’ll just let me in.” Sylvia sighed loudly and scratched on the door. “I know you worship Chanel, but don’t you want your own business? I know how you could get it.”

  I snorted and rolled my eyes. Right. But her words seemed to stick in my head and became so tempting that I reached over and flicked the lock, letting her in.

  “C’mon.” Sylvia’s hand ran across my back. “You have all kinds of creations. Let’s find what we can to replace the… um, others while I tell you about this contest.”

  “Contest?” I blew air through my nose and took several deep breaths, knowing I had to do whatever it took to make it to the interview. To not be a no-show.

  Sylvia grabbed my laptop and flopped down next to me on my bed, her many face piercings glinting in the early morning sunlight coming through the window, making her look like an over-stuck voodoo doll who had cried her mascara down her face the night before. Sylvia was the perfect fashion designer. We’d met in design school when she’d taken me under her wing, the too sweet country girl who was drowning in the overcrowded city of New York.

  Sylvia knew about everything that was “in.” I didn’t know much about her home life before design school and New York, other than that she had a mess of brothers and her parents lived together on Long Island. She never went home and was always either going out with one of the hundreds of people she seemed to know or throwing a raging party on our rooftop, which was a ghetto utility space that housed wires and pipes that we were expressly forbidden to use. The property owners lived in Florida and never came to check on us or fix anything that was broken, so we had a leaky faucet and full rooftop access — not a bad trade-off, if it was your style.

  Rooftop parties weren’t my style. Parties weren’t my style. Other than fashion, I didn’t have a style.

  “There’s this contest on Hedon.com.”

  “Hey what?” Didn’t hedon refer to pleasure? As in hedonism? Wasn’t that dirty or something?

  “Just listen before you spaz out. Look.” She pointed a black fingernail to the contest link and clicked.

  It was an advertisement for a contest of undisclosed requirements, other than the entrants had to be younger than twenty-eight — I was twenty-two — open to premarital sex, use of sex toys, and not object to the introduction to exotic fetishes.

  Um. No.

  Before I could open my mouth, Sylvia jumped in with, “The contestants get one hundred thousand dollars just to play and are competing for ten million dollars. You meet the age requirement.” Sylvia’s fingers flew across the keyboard. “The last day to enter is today. This could solve all your problems.”

  A guaranteed one hundred thousand dollars just for showing up? Ten million if I won?

  I shook my head, shaking the dollar signs away. “Yeah, if I was into promiscuous sex or didn’t mind… um… fetishes. Shudder. No thanks. Help me pick some other outfits for the interview. They won’t be—”

/>   “Screw that interview. There!” Sylvia hit enter with a flourish. “You’re entered.”

  “I-I’m what?” I sat bolt upright on the bed, sure she was joking. She hadn’t just entered me in a fuckfest?

  “You have a great chance at getting in, and a hundred kay will go a long way to—”

  “Are you out of your mind? I’m not entering that contest.”

  She glanced back down at the laptop, then up at me and shrugged. “Looks like you already did. You’ll be getting a call from Harvey Huffman’s personal secretary if you make the cut.”

  “The cut? Harvey Huffman? Of Gentlemen’s Review magazine? I won’t be answering.” I snorted as I went to the minuscule closet and yanked open the door. “Don’t help me anymore, Sylvia, please.”

  Sylvia didn’t care about being famous or even recognized, she wanted to do as little as she could for the most money. I wanted my name known in fashion.

  But now I’d screwed it up. All because I’d been drunk and high on graduating, and it had been so long since I’d had sex. The last time I’d been with a man was freshmen year. Now I had to find a place to live on top of finding a job.

  My eyes scanned over the options I had to take for my interview. They would never do, but I had no choice.

  This was a mess, and a hundred grand would go a long way toward fixing it. The Gentlemen’s Review was a tasteful one, even if it was a nude magazine. Hedon.com I didn’t know about.

  Hearing the bedroom door open and close, I gave in to my curiosity and went back to my laptop, clicking on a link that promised visual delight. I recoiled when a video popped up of a darkened room in which a sexy as hell guy was running what looked like a leather thing with tassels down a restrained woman’s naked back. When he reached her bare ass, he paused, then slapped it with the tassels.

  I gasped along with the woman and leaned in closer.

  He did it again, bringing the leather slowly downward then slapping it against her bare skin. This time she moaned.