by Tara Brown
For Love or Money
A Novel by Tara Brown
Copyright 2014 Tara Brown
http://TaraBrown22.blogspot.com
Amazon Edition
This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be resold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author. No alteration of content is permitted. This book is a work of fiction, any similarities are coincidental. All characters in this fictional story are based entirely on the crazed mind of the author and are not based on any human. Any similarities are by chance and not intentional.
This book is dedicated to my readers—thank you so much. The interest and support has been amazing. I also must thank my husband and children. You supported me, even when I was in my writer’s frenzy.
Cover Art by Mae I Design
Cover art copyright held by Mae I Design
Edited by Andrea Burns
Other Books by Tara Brown
The Devil’s Roses
Cursed
Bane
Witch
Hyde
Death
The Born Trilogy
Born
Born to Fight
Reborn
The Light Series
The Light of the World
The Four Horsemen
Imaginations
Imaginations
Coming soon – Duplicities
The Blood Trail Chronicles
Vengeance
Coming soon - Vanquished
Blackwater Witches
Blackwater
Coming soon – Midnight Coven
The Single Lady Spy Series
The End of Me
The End of Games
Coming soon – The End of Tomorrow
White Girl Series
White Girl Problems
Coming soon – A White Girl Wedding
Coming soon – A White Girl in Love
My Side
The Long Way Home
The Lonely
LOST BOY
First Kiss
Sunder
In the Fading Light
For Love or Money
Under Sophie Starr
Cinder Ella
Coming soon – Lost and Bound
Co-authored with Erin Leigh
Coming soon - Second Chances
Chapter One
Why do the hot guys always have poor shoes?
Lana
My reflection in the bathroom mirror is paler than normal. Cambridge is murder on a West Coast girl’s tan. I haven’t missed the beach more—ever. Considering I am on a coastline, it’s almost ironic. It’s just the wrong coastline.
Nance’s eyes dart to mine like she has something sinister to tell me. I almost want to know what it is as she smears the coral gloss across her perfect pout. She rubs it together before she smacks her lips once and says the thing that was obviously brewing in her mind. “I believe in God, for sure. I know he’s up there laughing his ass off every time I fall for a guy, and THEN it hits me. I remember where I saw his shoes—Costco.”
“YOU went to Costco?”
She looks like I asked her if she went to prison. “My cousins like to go. To them everything bigger is better.”
“Yikes.” I don’t even remember what it was we were talking about before we started applying makeup, but as usual she makes me laugh. In this overly intellectual haven for nerds and pompous assholes that is the most important thing. If you can’t laugh you will cry. The weather is shit compared to LA and the people are too smart for their own good, always trying to argue about everything and be top know-it-all. It’s exhausting.
She is refreshing and she reminds me of every one of my friends back home. She doesn’t try to be anything but what she is—a trust-fund kid whose dad bought her way into Harvard. The best thing about Ivy League dads like ours is them getting us rejects (people who couldn’t get in if we were normal peasants) into the schools they went to. Not only do we have to go to a school we don't want to attend, but we also end up with teachers who put us up to the same standards as our family members.
Nance and I are exactly those types of rejects.
I blink and realize she’s still nattering on. “Remember that kid you dated last spring? Every time I saw him he had on something I swore he had stolen off a homeless man. He was so beautiful but he smelled like patchouli. That just isn’t right—hot guy, hot body, great smile, no money . . . Why? Why can’t we ever have nice things? All the guys in our financial league are out of shape or gross. Yay, you have money now spend some of it on getting that hideous mole removed. Like really.”
“It’s all about balance. We have money, looks, awesome lives—apart from this hellhole, so every sexy guy we meet has to be the balance and be poor or ugly as sin. So either we need to be poorer then we can randomly end up meeting the next JFK or do some good deeds to earn something back from the universe. I read up on this. It’s called karma. If we worked in a homeless shelter or volunteered, we would meet a rich hottie with a killer body. It’s like God would owe us for our goodness.” I’m joking but I can see her adding the sum up in her head.
She points the lip gloss at me in the mirror and nods. “You are so right.”
I narrow my gaze, wondering if she actually believes it or if she’s playing along? At least she is a distraction from my need for something dark and seedy. My palms are burning for some action and the girls’ bathroom isn’t the place to get it. I need to party tonight—hard.
Nance smears her second coat on. She’s so addicted to plumping lip gloss it’s frightening, although I do enjoy that tingle too.
“That karma thing makes perfect sense.” She’s still going on like she’s stuck on repeat. God to be that clueless, just floating through life. No amount of drugs taken or tests failed has managed to make me that free intellectually. I actually have to work to keep up with her.
I chew my lip, contemplating the fact I have to dump Chad later, as she continues to over process my lame comment. “I need to do some volunteer work. I have the worst luck. Remember Brooklan—that guy I dated who was the quarterback? I was actually faithful to him, only to find out he’s a scholarship kid and his parents have a farm! Like, what? A farm? You’re kidding me right now? No. No. I don’t think so. Gross. I wasted my new European lip gloss on him. You know the Botox in a bottle stuff that makes your lips fatter? It tingles and feels good so we used it on each other for oral. My aunt had it flown in for me. Wasted!”
I smear lipstick across my bottom lip and dab the pout perfecter in the center and wink at her. “God was laughing that day. That guy had a perfect six pack and hockey-player ass.”
Nance points at the mirror. “Hockey-player ass IS a real thing. I was telling Darcy about it the other day and she was all like ‘no way’ and I was like ‘yeah.’ It’s a real thing. Have you seen Georgia Collins’ brother? He plays at Notre Dame and his ass is epic. He’s like Nikki Minaj but a dude. I want to squeeze it like I’m juicing a grapefruit.”
I freeze, mid-smudging of my pout to give her a disturbed look. She laughs but I know she means it. She wants to squeeze his ass cheeks.
Creepy.
“Anyway, that Botox in a bottle is super sweet. I need more. This crap I bought last week at the mall is making my lips peel and they don’t even really tingle. Why am I cursed with skinny lips? Why does God hate me?”
I roll my blue-gray eyes at her in the mirror. “You have a sweet ass so
you get skinny lips. God’s fair, remember?”
She moans like I told her I was cutting up her credit cards. “I guess. If it helps to stop kids being hungry everywhere, I can be the balance and have skinny lips.” She dabs the pout perfecter on and scowls. “Still seems unfair though.”
I run my hands through my dark-blonde hair. “Unfair is how fast this shit is getting greasy.”
“Dry shampoo. It changed my life.”
I cock an eyebrow at her reflection. “What?”
She yawns and walks to the bathroom door. “Yeah, stops the grease.”
“Hmm.” I pull my cell phone from my pocket and text the desperate need I have for dry shampoo. Henry will have his butt at the store getting me some of that. We walk out of the bathroom, and I swear the ugly kid in my history class gives me a look, like an ‘I want you’ look. I sneer at Lana. “Did you see that? That weird kid, who never wears deodorant, just gave me the ‘wanna do it’ look. Like, as if.”
She makes a face and looks back through the hall for him. “Creepy little stalker. Why doesn’t he wear deodorant? Like is it a protest? He’s probably one of those earth-science weirdos. He smells rotten. I have art history with him and he is always smelling up whatever corner he’s in.” She blows me a kiss and leaves the building to trek across the cold-ass grounds to her next class while I go back to my room for my nap.
When I get there, I close the blinds and take my new sleep aid that I got for myself from a friend last week. The old one Henry brought wasn’t working as well. The thought brings back the argument Henry and I got into over my ‘addiction’ to sleeping pills when he brought the new ones he said were less addictive. How can a person get addicted to sleep? It’s healthy to sleep. I roll my eyes and settle in with my mask and click my remote to start the soothing sounds of the beach in front of my dad’s place in Malibu. It’s the only thing that can lull me into a restful sleep.
The feel of the ocean starts to become part of my dream—I’m rocking with the waves. The room is transformed and peaceful, with its soft sounds and swaying bed.
A grunt finds its way into my dream, startling me. I look up and down the beach but there is nothing that would grunt.
The effects of the sleep aid try to hold me in my dream as my feet start sinking into the warm sand. At first they’re being lapped at by the tepid waves, but then a second grunt startles me to the point I can feel my lashes blinking against the mask covering my eyes. I know I’m dreaming which means I’m waking up and the grunting is real. I panic, trying to see where the grunt is coming from. My lashes scratch at the satin, desperate to open completely, but the thick fog of the sleep aid has me in its clutches. My toes on my right foot get caught in the sand and something grabs them as my dream drifts into a nightmare.
I tug to free my foot, but the sand has it and it’s not letting go. My body jerks with the waves and the grip as I hear a loud moan. Somehow my hand gets loose from the thick haze and rips my mask from my eyes as I lift my heavy head.
I’m in my room, not the beach.
A thin strip of light has found its way in between the two blackout curtains, and in the dark I see a hooded figured at the edge of my bed. He’s moving the bed and gripping my foot. He shudders and sprays something hot on my shin.
My foot is freed as I hear a zipper and a scream. The zipper is his and the scream is mine.
Light floods the room as the door is ripped open but the figure has gone out the window onto the ledge. “LANA!” My roommate screams but I am stuck staring at the warm spot on my lower leg.
What the hell?
When I realize what it was he sprayed on me, I jump from the bed, staggering into the bathroom. My shoulder hits a wall and I trip because technically my body thinks it’s still sleeping, thanks to the short-term sleeping pills I took.
“Lana, are you okay? What happened?”
“Someone was in here! Someone was in my room. He was touching—oh God.” I shudder and stumble into the shower. The hot water and soap can’t come fast enough. My heart is racing, my mouth is dry, and my brain is attempting to process the unsettling feelings I have about what exactly I comprehend about the last five minutes.
“Lana, girl, don’t wash it off. The rape thingies always say don’t wash it off.” Este taps on the textured glass.
My eyes are closed, my head is twitching, and hot tears are seeping from my eyes. I have no control over my body’s choices at this point as words spill from my lips, “I have to. I have to wash it off. I have to. He fucking came on me, oh my God. He was touching me.” I gag as my desperate fingers mix with the soap to scrape him off. I heave and fight the urge to purge as a thousand dirty thoughts wreak havoc on my brain. Mostly they consist of two words—Who? Why?
When I notice the heat of the water it’s too late, my skin is burning. The temperature’s so hot I’m red and aching everywhere like a sunburn, but all I can think about is the feel of—gross.
I don’t remember how I got out of the shower or how I got my robe on, or even how I got to the police station. Everything is a blur of fast moving lights and people talking over me. There were cops and ambulance attendants and kids from down the hall.
At the police station, Este, my roommate, is beside me holding my hand. Her dark, satin skin is so soft compared to my inflamed, welted hands. Every bit of me is flushed and tender.
“The sleeping pills muted the pain of the hot water on your skin. You should never shower under the influence. You’re lucky it’s only second degree on your arms and stomach and legs. It could have been worse.” I look up to see the face of a lady cop staring down on me. She looks like the chick from I Dream of Genie, like hard core. That summer spent watching TV with my grandma will never actually leave my mind. It was the year I stopped doing the one thing my father loved about me, so he left me with her while he worked.
I shake my head. I don’t know what the lady cop is talking about, but ‘no’ feels like the right answer.
She smiles and looks at Este. “What did she say when it happened? What were her first words?”
I glance at Este too. What did I say?
She rolls her dark-brown eyes and bats her lashes like she’s annoyed. “I already told y’all this. She said some nasty ass was in her room and came all over her when he was touching her. Y’all need to be looking for this creep. This is like the third rape on campus.” I get lost in the way she talks. It’s soothing and fun. Her Southern accent is awesome. Sometimes I try to copy it but it doesn’t work for me.
She smacks the chair, pulling me from the happy place her accent takes me. “If I wanted to be stalked by some creepy rapist, I woulda done college in Atlanta. I wouldn’t have worked my ass off to come to Cambridge if I knew this shit was gonna happen.”
I twitch my head. Rape. That sounds wrong. It wasn’t rape, I remember that much. I wince and push my hazy mind backward. The words sort of tumble from my lips, “He didn’t rape me.”
I Dream of Genie gives me a confused look. “He didn’t? We found semen on scene and lubricant. Everyone for a hundred yards heard you screaming, and when Este entered your room she saw a man go out the window.”
I gag, remembering the feel of the oil on my foot and his—don’t go there brain, don’t go there. I shake my head, burping back my bitter taste. “He was doing my foot. It was my foot—my toes.” Oh God.
I Dream of Genie is stunned still—frozen in horrendous shock as she processes the words I’ve said. I can see it on her face and I know exactly how she feels.
But Este looks unimpressed. She cocks her head to the side and closes her eyes for a second. “Your feet? You screamed ‘cause one of your man hoes was banging your toes? Girl, we thought you were being murdered up in that shit.”
My face is on fire, and not just from the water burns. “I—I don’t know who it was. I went for a nap. I didn’t have anyone over.”
Este rolls her eyes. “You are crazy. You screamed like he was cutting you up.”
I snap
my head around to face her. “HE WAS NOT WELCOME! I NEVER SAID HE COULD DO THAT! I DON’T EVEN KNOW HIM!”
Este lifts an eyebrow and talks in a high voice, like she’s going to spill something she shouldn’t. “You got some unusual habits.”
“You signed a nondisclosure form.”
She blinks. “I didn’t say what your unusual habits were, just that you have them. Girl, you are a freak and that is why men sneak in your room and rub their weenies on your feet, ‘cause you’re unnaturally horny.”
My lips part, wanting so badly to defend my honor, but who am I kidding? She has a point. Regardless of it being against my will, I do have guys who enjoy something like that as part of the game.
Fuck, I’m twisted.
The cop gives her an affronted look. “This is rape, it doesn’t matter where the penis is put, it’s the fact it’s nonconsensual. What did he look like?”
Este laughs. “Forget what he looks like—her toes are way overdo for a pedi. Just get the boys at school to show you their junk. The guy with the scratched up shit is your man. She is snatching salmon from the river with them talons.” She laughs at her own joke.
I fold my arms. “I like them a little longer. This is my pedicure, dick.”
She tilts her head and looks at her own perfect nails. “Mmmmhmmm.”
“We need to focus.” The cop scowls and shakes her head. “Any description at all?”
“Dark hoodie, tall, white guy, not too old maybe. I don’t remember, but I don’t think I got a great look at his face. I can’t think I—I don’t think I know him.” I turn and look at Este. “I didn’t invite him, I swear.”
The cop sighs. “Okay, well I have to offer you a contact number for a support group. You can go if you want to. The people there are very nice. They’re all victims as well.”
“Victims?”
Her blue eyes grow serious. “Of rape.”