by S Doyle
He nodded. “Someone who has no familiarity with sex would be less likely to…make demands on my time.”
“You’re gay?”
He shook his head. “Don’t be ridiculous. Don’t you know openly gay men can now run for office? Although, of course, only happily married men. Family. That’s the key to politics. Voters don’t trust single men. As for my...sexual peccadillos, we don’t need to discuss that. I just need someone who will play a role and not ask too many questions. Rest assured, your virginity will remain intact. I’ll need to plant a child in your belly at some point, but we’ll wait until you’re later in your twenties.”
“You still haven’t given me the reason I’ll agree to all of this,” I said. “I could go public. Tell the media what you and my father intend for me.”
“Please don’t do that,” he said, frowning. “I would hate that outcome for you. Listen, your father owed me a debt some time ago. We settled that debt by him agreeing you would become my wife when the time came. His job was to keep you as isolated as possible. Sheltered. Pampered.”
A lamb being kept safe until it was time to slaughter, I thought. How long? How long ago had this agreement been struck?
“I’ve laid out your options; which are to run, with no access to any money, not an easy thing to do. Go public, as you suggested, which will result in many reputable doctors questioning your mental fitness. Or, marry me, go to college, enjoy your independence, and, when I need you to show up for a party, a dinner or a political rally, you put on a smile and do my bidding.”
“That sounds like an easy choice to make.”
He came toward me then, and I felt the hair on the back of my neck rise. I was still thinking about his sexual peccadillos. He sat next to me on the settee without touching me. He reached for my left hand and slipped the ring on my finger.
“You’re going to have a very easy life, Ashleigh. And later, after we’ve had children, I might even consider allowing you to take a lover.”
“That’s very generous of you,” I said.
He patted my hand. “See? This is exactly what I hoped for. Two cordial people who understand our roles in this world. We’ll get along wonderfully when we need to.”
He kissed my cheek and I didn’t pull away. Then he stood as if he was about to leave.
“You said my father is in trouble. Is he going to suffer any consequences for that trouble?”
Evan shook his head. “No. We’re working on making all of that go away. I can tell you, our engagement will make news. Which means both you and your father will be under a significant amount of scrutiny. I would like you to present a front as a happy family. An excited young woman newly engaged. A proud father thrilled with his daughter’s choice of future husband. Visit him at the office. Surprise him with lunch. You understand?”
I nodded. “Completely.”
He smiled, and I wondered if I was looking into the eyes of a true psychopath. “Excellent. Goodnight, Ashleigh.”
“Goodnight, Evan.”
I waited until I heard him head up to the guest wing, and, only then, did I shove my face in one of the settee’s decorative pillows and scream.
Scream and scream and scream.
11
Princeton
December
Marc
“You didn’t have to make the trip out for this. It’s not like there was a ceremony or anything,” I said.
We were at a restaurant near campus. Both of us sitting at the bar looking at the television. Some college football game was on. A normal Saturday afternoon.
And the day of my emancipation.
George huffed. “You graduated college, you asshole. That’s reason enough to, at least, take you out to dinner.”
We’d ordered burgers and some beer.
“Guess this means you won’t be coming back to the house anymore,” George said.
I looked at him and tried to gauge his reaction, but it was as if he was purposely playing it cool.
“No. I have a place in Brooklyn I’ll be moving into.”
“Still working for Landen?”
“Not for much longer. Now I’ve got my degree, I’ll start applying at other firms.”
George nodded, and I could see he approved. “You going to ask about her?”
“No. Nothing to ask about.”
I’d told her to move on, and she had. That was one way to look at it. Another was to consider what she’d told me this time last year in Florida. That her father was going to sell her to this guy in marriage.
That day at the airport, too. She’d insisted I shouldn’t believe anything. She’d always love me.
Except, there was also the day back in August. When she’d come into the office and had seemed fine. Not a care in the world. As if she and her father had repaired whatever rift had happened between them.
For me. A slight smile. A wave.
“Something’s not right,” George said, urgently. “There’s nothing normal about them. When I’m driving all three of them someplace, Ash and Evan sit in silence. Then the doors open, and the cameras start flashing, and suddenly they’re America’s sweetheart couple. While Arthur beams at them from behind. None of it is real.”
Yeah, the engagement had been well advertised. It was not fun to go grocery shopping and see the girl whose virginity I’d taken, smiling at me from the page of a magazine with her arms wrapped around some other guy.
“Don’t get me started on Sanderson. There’s something not right about him, either. I take him and Landen to these clubs in the city.”
“What kind of clubs?”
George shook his head. “I don’t know. It’s not like they ever let me inside. But it doesn’t feel right. They’re doing more than drinking and smoking cigars, I can promise you that. Like they’re taking part in some seedy side of wealthy New York other people can’t even imagine. I’m worried about her. Worried she’s going to get sucked up in all of this.”
“She’s a grown woman, George. She could leave if she wants to.”
Because that’s what I told myself. What I told myself every day. If this wasn’t her choice, she could say no. Give back the ring. Move out of her father’s home. Find a job. All those things were possible.
George shook his head. “You’re so naïve. You have no idea how controlling money can be.”
“Only if you’ve convinced yourself you need it,” I retorted.
“I thought you would do something,” he said, clearly disappointed.
“Do what?” I wanted to know.
“I don’t know. You cared enough to challenge Landen to bring her back from Switzerland. You went to Florida to see her. I thought you two had a chance to be together.”
“There was never any chance,” I snapped. “Never. Not for me. The son of a heroin addict. Landen was never going to allow me to so much as hold her hand in public, and you know it. This is what he wanted. Cameras and social media buzz and a big, splashy wedding to New Jersey’s most eligible bachelor.”
“So, you’re just going to let her go?”
I already had. No texts, no calls. A complete shutdown of communication. Those were her demands and I’d lived by them for months.
I’d also lived with the impact of those demands.
There was no lightness in my life. There was no joy. There was only work and more work. The burden of school would be lifted, but did it matter?
“They don’t talk?” I asked George.
He knew who I meant. “No. Never. It’s like she’s an accessory he puts on, then takes off when it’s not needed.”
Ash talked to me constantly. Even when I didn’t want her to.
“I’ll go see her,” I said.
George let out a sigh of relief. “Talk to her. Explain to her she doesn’t have to do this if she doesn’t want to.”
“I’ll see where her head is. That’s all I can do. But if she smiles and tells me she’s happy, then I’m walking away. You might not like the fact that Ash car
es more about the money than you want her to, but if the billionaire creep is what she wants, you have to accept that.”
“It’s not. I know it. She’s been sad for months, and it’s only when the cameras are directed at her, she smiles. It’s as if all the joy’s been sucked out of her.”
I didn’t react to his use of the word joy. However, I also thought it couldn’t be a coincidence.
Landen Estate
Marc
I stared up at the house and could not believe I was doing this. The minute I’d told George I was willing to go see her, he’d plucked out a small notebook from his coat pocket and started rattling off steps I needed to take.
Make sure Landen and Sanderson were occupied. George could confirm that.
Make sure all the cameras were off. George could handle the inside cameras, but the outside cameras were controlled by a monitoring company.
Which meant it was my chance to act out a script in front of the cameras. I would drive up. Head to the carriage house. A box with my personal items would be there, already packed.
So, I had the time it might take me to box up my stuff to sneak into the main house, talk to Ash, sneak back to the carriage house, then calmly take my box to my car and drive away. As if that had been my sole purpose for being on the property.
There had been a moment when I’d considered just pulling up to the front door and knocking. Fuck Landen. What was the worst he could do to me now? Fire me? I was leaving anyway.
The only thing that stopped me was the thought of what he might do to Ash.
He’d sent her to Switzerland. Might that truly have been some kind of punishment?
I parked the car and walked around the main house, past the pool and the tennis courts to the carriage house, like I had a million times before. Using my key, I unlocked the door and saw the box George had packed. Trophies from high school. Some clothes and books I’d left. Nothing I needed, but as far as excuses go, it was, at least, legitimate.
I made my way through the house to my old bedroom and opened a window. The carriage house was tucked into the trees of the estate and it would be easy enough to stick to the tree line to avoid the cameras. George made sure the back door was unlocked and the camera that monitored that door had been stuffed with leaves.
The monitoring company, so far, hadn’t reported any issues. Maybe stuff blocking the cameras happened all the time, or maybe the monitoring company employees were a bunch of assholes who didn’t do their job.
Either way, I slipped inside the main house easily. I knew she was home alone. George had confirmed that, too, before he left to take Landen up to Manhattan. So I didn’t hesitate, just made my way to her bedroom.
I stopped just outside her door and realized that when she was home, she was never in the living room. Or the game room. Or the library. This massive house, and, for the most part, she stuck to her room.
How had I never considered that before?
I saw the beam of light underneath the door and reached for the handle. It was locked. She locked the door to her bedroom. In her home. When no one else was around.
“Who’s there? I have a gun.”
She must have heard the door handle rattle.
“You do not fucking have a gun. As if you could shoot someone, Ash.”
I heard a thump, then a few seconds later the door was open and the look on her face…it was like nothing I’d ever seen. Not from my mother. Not from George. Only from Ash. Always from Ash.
As if I was her very own savior.
Immediately, she started struggling for her breath. I’d startled her, and when she was rattled, she stopped focusing on her breathing.
“Oh no, no, no. Don’t you do this. If I have to take you to the hospital, that fucks everything up.”
Together we worked to calm her down. Breath after breath. Slowly in, and slowly out, until she was calmer.
“What are you doing here?” she wheezed. Then she turned away from me and got her inhaler from her nightstand. She took a few hits and it gave me a chance to look at her.
See her for the first time since that day at the office back in August.
“What the fuck?” I asked, as I stepped forward and cupped her face in my hands. She was rail thin and ghostly pale with dark circles under her eyes.
But none of that compared to the bruise on her right cheek.
“Who hit you?” I barked at her.
She shook her head. “You have to leave. It’s not safe.”
“I’ve got a window of time. It’s going to look like I came to pack up my shit and leave. Now talk to me.”
“Not enough time. Why are you here?”
“Because I had to see you. I had to know if marrying this guy is what you want. George doesn’t think it is. I know what you told me last year, but I don’t believe it. Seriously, Ash. Tell me you know you don’t have to marry him if you don’t want to.”
She shook her head and pulled away from me. “You don’t understand. If I run, they’ll pursue me. They have means I can’t beat. Not yet.”
“Why run? Why not just tell the guy, no? Sorry.”
She sighed. “Why are you here?”
“To remind you you’re a grown-ass woman who can make her own choices in life. I’ve graduated. Your father can’t touch me. I’ve already set up interviews with other firms, so if he fires me, that’s no skin off my nose, either.”
She looked at me as if she was committing every detail of me to memory.
“When I saw you in August, I had to act like that,” she said. “I had to act like you meant nothing. Everything is a performance. I told you not to believe anything you saw.”
I closed my eyes against the pain of those words. Because it had hurt so damn much, and now, I knew it had all been an act.
“What do you want me to do, Ash? What help do you need to get you out of this?”
She slumped down on the bed. “There’s nothing you can do. I have to go through with it. It’s the only way…out. Ironically.”
“Who hit you?”
She shook her head. “It doesn’t matter. You need to go.”
I got down on my knees in front of her and took her hands. “Talk to me. Why do you lock your own bedroom door? Who the fuck hit you? Why can’t you get in one of those fucking cars downstairs and drive away? The money can’t be worth it.”
She reached down, cupped my cheek, and smiled gently. “I missed you,” she said softly.
I pressed my head against her knees. “Ashleigh, you need to tell me what to do. I can’t guess at this.”
She was quiet when she said it, it was barely a whisper.
“You could marry me.”
I lifted my head to look at her to see if she was serious.
“If you married me, then he couldn’t.”
Marry her. Save her. That seemed pretty fucking easy.
I didn’t hesitate a second. “Let’s do it.”
12
Two days later
Ashleigh
I squeezed Marc’s hand as the flight took off. Could this work? This hadn’t been my plan at all. I’d fully intended to go through with the wedding to Evan, then, once I had a little more freedom, come up with a plan to escape.
Then, and only then, when I was truly free, would I reach out to Marc and have him come find me. That was going to be our chance. Years down the road. When he understood the power of what we had.
Did he understand it now?
“Okay. We’re on the plane,” Marc said, turning to me. We were the only two people in the row, as the midweek, mid-afternoon flight was barely occupied. It had almost been too easy. Marc booked the tickets and had texted me the date and time of the flight on my burner phone. George had given me enough cash to cover the cab ride to the airport.
There wasn’t enough time for Arthur or Evan to know I’d left the house. Once they discovered me gone, they would eventually find out a cab had been called from the residence, and it had dropped me off at Newark Airport
.
But they couldn’t know where I was going unless they had access to passenger lists. Did billionaires have access to passenger lists? Did criminals?
“No one can stop us,” Marc continued. “In four hours, we land in Vegas. We get married, and it’s done. Now talk to me. What the fuck has been happening since we broke up?”
I looked at my hands, folded in my lap. I didn’t know where to start or how to explain.
“I don’t know what you want to know. I told you. My father planned for me to marry Evan. They’d both agreed to it years ago. They were just waiting for me to grow up. Evan explained my options, which were to run and be hunted down with all the resources his money can buy. Go public, and suffer the consequences he threatened would come out of that, not the least of which would be having reputable doctors question my mental state. Or marry him and enjoy some independence.”
“Okay, let’s start with the obvious,” Marc growled. “Why does a handsome billionaire need to threaten someone into marriage?”
“He thinks I’m a virgin. He knows I’ve been sheltered my whole life. He believed I would be docile and compliant. He doesn’t want a wife, but he needs one if he’s going to run for office. Evan wants someone he can fully control. I don’t know why, what secrets he’s hiding. I can only guess at something ugly.”
“Why didn’t you tell me this?”
I glared at him. “You left me.”
“I didn’t…” He stopped himself. “We agreed to cut off communication so we wouldn’t fall back into something that wasn’t leading anywhere. But when your future is threatened, I expect you to fucking tell me!”
“Sir, is everything all right here?”
We both looked up at the blonde, female flight attendant. I smiled. “Yes, he’s just a nervous flyer so he gets agitated easily.”
Her gaze landed on my cheek for a second, and I knew what she was thinking, but I turned to Marc and patted his knee. “You’re doing fine, and when the drink cart comes around, we’ll get you a glass of wine. That will help settle you.”