by Lyla Payne
“I don’t know where to start,” I whisper.
“How about you start with what you’re doing squatting in my apartment?” She raises an eyebrow but she’s not angry. Blair puts on a good front but her heart is huge.
Her generosity with everything—except her secrets, it turns out—is the reason I felt okay about holing up here without her knowing. She doesn’t care. She wants the gossip.
I sigh, tugging my fingers through the snarls in my hair. They come away greasy, leaving me struggling to remember the last time I stood in the oversized shower and let the fifteen superjets try to wash away the stain my relationship with Logan Walters left behind. “I’m sorry I left without telling you. But you’d been gone so long and I didn’t want to interrupt whatever you had going on… . I’ve seen you and Sam on TV, by the way. You seem happy.”
“Yeah.” A totally new kind of grin sneaks across Blair’s face, like someone shoved sunshine down inside her and it’s leaking out of her pores. “We had a rough go at first but things are pretty fucking amazing. Which is hard for me to admit still. Like I’m afraid saying it will make it all go poof in a cloud of smoke.”
“I can’t even believe this is you talking. Have you been replaced by a happy, in-love pod person?”
“Maybe.” She swats me, her smile falling away as her eyes narrow. “Don’t change the subject. You left school early, and instead of coming back two weeks ago, you came here. It took me a few weeks to find you, by the way, so good job.”
“Ha. Only because you have property stashed all over the world.”
“The Stuart family has its fair share of vacation homes,” she points out. “I got super curious when I found out you didn’t stay with your family, and Cole had no idea you weren’t coming back to school.”
My heart twists at the mention of my family, my teeth coming down on my lower lip. It’s so raw that the taste of blood springs to my tongue. “Is he worried?”
“Hell yes, he’s worried! What the fuck did you think would happen? Nox and Law are freaking out but none of them want to pull the trigger and call your parents since you’ve been checking in with them. I told them I’d track you down.” She pauses, watching me again with an expression that says it’s my turn to spew answers.
“Logan and I broke up.”
“Oh?” Blair tries to rearrange her face into a sympathetic expression, but we both know she never liked my ex. Turns out her instincts should be trusted on most matters, not just those having to do with money.
“Yeah.” I take a deep breath. “Which is when I found out he’d been recording us having sex for weeks. I have my own porn website.”
“What? Oh my god, that fucking dick-licking asshole, I am going to find him and rip his balls off.”
Warmth tickles under my embarrassment, breaking through it like rays of sun through the clouds. I’ve confessed the worst part and she’s said nothing about how could I have let this happen. “Thank you for the sentiment, but he’s not answering his phone, so good luck.”
“He’s still at school. Shouldn’t be too hard.” She pops off the couch, the squint of her eyes and the way she paces in front of the window letting me know she’s entered plotting mode. Something to fear when it comes to the mind of Blair Paddington. “Can you prove it was him?”
“No. He kept his face away from the camera. In the videos he’s in.”
“What do you mean, the ones he’s in?”
My face tries to melt, nausea whipping up chunks in my gut. The memory of that day, the one that created the most awful of the terribly personal videos, eggs it on. “The, um, most popular video is just me. He asked me to … you know.”
“Get yourself off in front of him?” she supplies, as blunt as ever.
It’s odd, but having her state it that way, clinical and obvious, as though I’m not the only girl in the world to ever acquiesce to such a request—which obviously, I’m not, it just feels that way—straightens my shoulders. Logan has stolen my comfort and my life; he doesn’t get to damage the healthy sexuality I’ve worked hard for years to cultivate.
Having four older brothers tends to make a girl a little shy and a lot overprotected, but my parents weren’t prudish and it didn’t take me long to accept that it’s okay for me to feel good.
“Yes. Anyway, I don’t know enough about computers or how all of this works to prove he’s behind it. Or, better yet, take it down.”
“Neither do I, dammit.” She gnaws on the inside of her cheek. “I mean, I know more than you. I can track down the IP address, but I’m guessing even moron Logan Walters has figured out how to hide his tracks better than that. I can probably find someone to do it, but not quickly.”
“I’ve been trying to figure out what to do, but there’s no way I’m going back to school until I get it sorted. Everyone’s going to be looking at me and thinking of … you know.”
“You naked and writhing on a bed?” Blair finishes again, pursing her lips. “Maybe, but there’s a good chance ninety percent of the guys at Whitman were already doing that anyway. And I haven’t heard a single thing about it. Could be that he’s smart enough to realize drawing attention to it on campus will only get him in trouble, given your family and all. Besides, you can’t let him run you off. Win.”
“I know. I know.” I stand up, too, pacing into the kitchen and pulling a bottle of water out of the fridge. “But I have to do something. This can’t just hang out there over my head. And even though I’m embarrassed, mostly I’m really, really pissed. I want to make him pay, but my first priority has to be my family. We’re talking generations of Stuarts with good reputations running one of the most prominent charities in the world. Something like this would take the focus off of that and put it on me, the poor little rich girl behaving badly.” Hysteria pushes my voice higher and higher until my hands shake so hard water sloshes onto my wrist.
Blair rolls her eyes, turning her back on the New York City skyline. “That’s not you.”
“It doesn’t matter,” I say flatly, but can’t help a smile. “That’s how the media will spin it and we both know it. I’m not a normal girl. I don’t get to shrug and write it off as an oops.”
“Hmm.” She gives me a sideways look, one that suggests I’m not going to like what follows. “What we need is someone who not only has the expertise to help you wipe it for good, but would be willing to do it. No small feat in this day and age.”
“And where are we going to find this little miracle? Not to mention, how are we going to get him or her to help?”
“Well, I’ve got nothing as far as the second question, but the first? We both know there’s someone right on Whitman’s campus with that kind of power. How do you feel about making a deal with the devil?”
CHAPTER ONE
Sebastian
“You skipping happy hour, Seb?”
The bespectacled guy who runs Congressman Schneider’s campaign nods toward my hand, which is clasping the door handle in a furtive attempt to escape this very invitation. He offers a smile, one that says I’m not being a team player because everyone else is going out for drinks in less than an hour.
Working on the campaign makes me feel settled in a way I didn’t expect. Fills me with a purpose that’s better than the fleeting satisfaction that comes with fucking my fellow Whitman Owls whenever the chance presents itself. I love the idea of being able to turn my love of scheming into a career.
But it does not, in any way, inspire me to spend time drinking with a bunch of morons in a shitty bar.
“Yeah, I’ve got plans. Family stuff.” Not a lie, oddly.
The nod and smile he gives me, eyes already back on the graph of polling statistics, says he’s letting me off the hook. Which isn’t too hard to believe considering I’m an unpaid intern on the site, not an employee. My teeth grind together at the reminder that I’m someone’s bitch.
I pull my navy peacoat around me and watch my shiny five-hundred-dollar shoes click on the uneven sidewalks on th
e way to the hole-in-the-wall Italian joint that’s so disgusting there’s zero chance of running into my father, any of his cronies, or anyone who knows who I am. It’s as chilly as it ever gets in this part of Florida, which means about seventy degrees. The coat is unnecessary but it’s one of my favorite accessories.
Also it helps disguise my frame.
The temperature in D’Angelo’s is too warm, as though they’re dying for a chance to use the heater some idiot insisted on paying for and seventy degrees is going to be their best opportunity. It’s four thirty and the place lost their liquor license six months ago, which means no happy hour. Which means there’s only one other patron in the entire restaurant, and also that this is going to be one long meal.
Her peroxide-blonde hair is brittle, frizzing at the ends from malnourishment and probably the medications. When she can get them. Her skin resembles a nut, too brown even for Florida. My lips purse and disgust bleeds into my expression; I can feel it now, after hours of staring in the mirror trying to make myself appear nicer. More approachable.
I’m a work in progress, and it’s slow going.
“Sebastian, darling.” Her face lights up and she struggles to her feet, oxygen tubes tangling her up for a moment. Then her bone-thin arms squeeze my neck.
I hold my breath to ward off the antiseptic smell that follows her in a cloud, self-loathing crawling through me at how badly I want to pull away. “Hello, Mother.”
The word feels as thick and misshapen on my tongue as it did the first time she sought me out two months ago. It’s strange to realize that after years of hating a person, the fact that she carried you in her womb still holds power. Guilt shoved me into meeting her for lunch that first time, but now? It’s more like a responsibility that I can’t shake off no matter how hard I try.
“How are you feeling?” I ask, settling into the uncomfortable chair and spreading a white linen napkin across my lap. No point in ruining a fifteen-hundred-dollar suit.
She waves a hand, as though her debilitating vascular disease doesn’t concern her any more than a weekend cold. “Today is a good day.”
A bored waiter wanders up to the table, teeth chomping on a piece of gum. “Can I get you anything to drink?”
I do my best to avoid looking at him, disgusted by his lack of professionalism. This is what I’ve been reduced to—eating in places that hire pig idiots to wait on people. “I’ll have a glass with ice.”
The flask in my pocket will provide the rest of the beverage.
“Iced tea for me,” my mother orders, sighing in a way that lets us all know she’d rather be drinking.
Not that I blame her. There’s no way I’d get through one of our meetings sober.
The waiter strolls off toward the computer at the end of the bar, no hurry in his step. I take a deep breath and count to five, a coping mechanism in the face of incompetence, and then focus on my mother. Jocelyn Caldwell, age thirty-nine. High-priced hooker for most of her life with the issues that tag along—cocaine problems, alcohol problems. Selling her child in exchange for a couple million dollars.
All of which is gone now, of course. Good drugs are expensive.
“Did you talk to your father?” she asks, hope lighting the gold strands in her dark-brown eyes—my eyes. The one feature she passed along that somehow trumped the Rowland genes.
The waiter returns and sets down our drinks. I dump scotch into the glass, daring him to object, and when he doesn’t we order dinner. Then there’s nothing left to do but answer her question, but at least my stomach is warm and coated now.
“I felt him out.” I grimace, thinking of the conversation with Teddy. Going to him for more money never goes well since he assumes—correctly—that he gives me plenty. Asking him to help a woman who blackmailed him ten years ago … the Titanic had a better shot against that iceberg. “He’s not interested. And, as a bonus, if he finds out I’m using any of his money to help with your medical costs, he’ll cut me off.”
My mouth tastes sour at the reminder. Teddy makes it clear every time we speak that my position in his family and any potential employment with Rowland Communications is subject to change. He’s not likely to hire me for any kind of actual work after graduation, no matter how I excel at school or how big of an asset I could be, and now that he’s pretty much informed me that I won’t be spending his money the way I see fit, the dream of getting out from under his thumb is the only one I have left.
It’s free money, but even I have my limits. And a small amount of pride, it turns out.
“Oh.” Her face falls, expectation dripping off her chin into a puddle of acceptance. She must have known his answer would be no. Teddy Rowland is not a man known for his compassion. “Well, there are worse things than dying poor.”
“You’re not going to die, Mother.”
“Oh yes I am, honey. No one with my disease has lived longer than four years, and given that fewer than fifteen thousand people are diagnosed with it in the United States, no research is being done. There is no cure.” Her eyes fill with tears but she bites her lip, all of the blood rushing away from her teeth. “I was just hoping to die in a bed, with some morphine and a blanket is all.”
We sit in silence, the only sound the clinking of the ice in the bottom of my glass and the voice in the back of my head trying to convince the rest of me that this isn’t my goddamn problem.
Our food arrives and she tries a different tactic. Not a new one. “Don’t you think one of your friends at school might be able to help? You’re graduating in a few months, surely there will be a good job lined up for you somewhere.”
The scotch turns to sawdust in my mouth. There’s no way a single person at Whitman University would lift a finger to help me, not after almost four years of manipulating them like chess pieces, insulting them with smartass remarks, and basically making them kiss my ass for every reason under the sun. I can’t say any of that because for some reason that eludes me, I don’t want my mother to know I’m a huge sleazeball.
I’ve done what I had to do to survive. To make myself necessary even if that never translated into friendship. She made her living screwing people for money, and I ended up in essentially the same boat.
And we’re both paying for those choices now.
“I’ll keep my ear to the ground but right now I don’t have anything lined up.” My mother picks at her food, growing more pale and sweaty the longer she sits here. She should be home in bed—there are days the pain gets so bad that her volunteer nurse has to carry her back and forth to the bathroom. The image unwinds a little more of the hatred that built up over a decade until it turns wispy enough to blow away. “I’ll find a way to get you your bed and your morphine.”
“No promises on the blanket, huh?” She manages a smile, pushing her still full plate away. “I know you’re trying to decide if you believe me, that your father didn’t give me any options where your custody was concerned, and I don’t blame you for your skepticism. You wouldn’t be my son if you weren’t cautious. So I thank you for trying.”
“You’re asking me to rethink my entire life.” The story my father spun involved Jocelyn coming to him, me barely ten years old, and demanding money or she’d go public about his affinity for prostitutes. She’d signed over parental rights and walked away without a backward glance.
She’s telling me the opposite.
I don’t know what to believe, but for a guy who has spent his entire life making sure he doesn’t love anything or anyone so much that he can’t leave it behind, something human lingers inside me. And that something hates the idea of turning my back on my mother, no matter whose story is true.
“I’ll figure something out,” I tell her again, and turn my attention to my lasagna. Discomfort tightens my throat until it’s hard to swallow, and by the time the waiter clears our plates mine’s hardly emptier than hers. He leaves the check and I stuff some cash inside, tipping him too much for the shitty service. I don’t want to wait on change; I just w
ant out of here.
No one should depend on me. I am not dependable.
“How’s school? Are you ready to be finished, or will you miss it?” She smiles, a faraway look softening the lines on her fake-baked skin. “I always thought it would be fun, to go to college.”
A grimace hunches my shoulders. “It’s been okay. I’m ready to move on.”
“And your work on the congressman’s campaign? That’s still going well?”
Heat creeps up under my collar, which feels too tight. It’s not; this suit was tailored for me. Stray lumps of familial responsibility might be taking root, but talking about things like my life and my future with this woman who hasn’t been a part of either—and still hasn’t convinced me she regrets that—curls my fingers into fists so tight my nails bite into my palms.
“It’s fine. I like politics.” I stand up, tugging my jacket off the back of the chair, lamenting the lack of coat check and valet at this piece-of-shit restaurant, and offer her my hand. “Let me get you a cab.”
Jocelyn wastes almost five minutes getting up on shaking legs, running sticklike fingers through the bundle of straw she calls hair. By the time she’s got her coat on and we’re out on the curb the sun has started to set.
“Are you sure your father isn’t going to find out you paid for my taxi?” she questions once she’s in the backseat, smiling as though she’s making a joke. It’s not funny.
I frown at her. “Have a good night. The nurse should be by in the morning.”