by Eva Ashwood
Mad Love
Slateview High #3
Eva Ashwood
Copyright © 2019 by Eva Ashwood
All rights reserved.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.
This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to actual people, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Thank You For Reading
Books by Eva Ashwood
One
Not all prisons are made of steel and concrete.
Some are made of the finest marble and expensive mahogany.
I sat in front of the mirror at my vanity, in a bedroom that felt cold and empty. The space seemed far too large and far too small at the same time, and my skin itched from the feeling of confinement.
The door wasn’t locked.
There were no chains around my ankles.
Yet I was a prisoner as surely as if there had been.
I bit my lip, and the girl with delicate features and pale blonde hair in the mirror bit her lip too. She looked wan and exhausted, with circles under her eyes from too little sleep and too much stress.
She looked… hopeless.
It was easier for me to inspect the face of the pitiful girl in the mirror if I pretended she wasn’t me. If I pretended this wasn’t my life. And in a way, it wasn’t. This wasn’t a life I had agreed to or asked for. It was the life being thrust upon me by my parents—by my father.
I had spent weeks, months, trying to find a way to prove his innocence and get him out of prison. I had made bargains with people I wasn’t quite sure I should trust in my pursuit of that single objective. And I’d been certain that if my father was given a second chance, a new lease on life, he would make different decisions. Better ones. That he would run his business empire with more care and honor, and that he would consider how his actions affected others. That he would strive to use his vast fortune and resources for good.
But I was wrong.
That may have been the worst error I’ve ever made in my seventeen years, and I honestly don’t know what hurts worse—the fact that I’ve finally learned the true depths of human greed, or the fact that my father was the one to teach me that lesson.
My stomach churned, and I pressed a hand over it, dropping my gaze from the mirror. I couldn’t look at myself anymore. Every time I did, I remembered another version of myself. One with eyes that sparkled and a smile that came readily to her lips. One who was wild and full of life.
One who loved three beautiful, dangerous boys.
She was still inside me, that version of myself. But I felt like every day, she became suffocated a little bit more. As if my parents were doing everything they could to snuff her out.
The trappings of this wealthy, luxurious life had once felt comfortable and right. It was all I’d ever known.
But now I knew something else. I knew what it was like to dance in a cold, empty warehouse to music played on an old boom box, with only the blood rushing through my veins and the press of three hot, solid bodies around me to keep warm.
I knew what it was like to fight. To laugh.
To love.
Only one of those things happened in this house, and even the fighting felt stifled and suffocated. My parents could barely be in the same room with each other anymore, and I was almost positive Dad knew about Mom’s affair with Mark Jemison. But they wouldn’t even fight about it properly. They just picked at each other, throwing little poison darts with their words, and pretended that life could go on as normal, even though nothing was how it had been before Dad’s arrest.
He was trying to get it back though. To put everything back together and rebuild the shattered pieces of his life.
And the way he hoped to accomplish that was by selling me off.
Of course, no actual bill of sale would be written up. No money would change hands as I said my wedding vows.
But that didn’t change the basic fact that I was being sold.
I would marry Barrett King in the summer after my graduation, and Dad would gain access to Sebastian King’s vast network of money, power, and connections. My father insisted it was for the good of our entire family and told me over and over again that it was my duty. My part to play in our family’s recovery.
Duty.
It was a word I had come to hate.
It was a word I’d been raised on, one I’d heard over and over again as a little girl. I’d been given everything I could ever want, but in some ways, none of it was mine. Because it all came at a price.
And it was one I was no longer sure I was willing to pay.
Before my dark thoughts could spiral any lower, there was a soft knock on the door.
Turning to look over my shoulder, I called out, “Come in.”
I wished like hell it would be Ava, the sweet woman who’d been part of our house staff before Dad’s arrest. But my parents hadn’t hired her back, even though they’d replaced most of the staff they’d lost when the Feds had come for Dad. I wasn’t sure why, and Dad would never tell me.
Had Ava refused to come back? Had she gotten another position that she liked better?
It broke my heart to think that, but I could hardly blame her for wanting to stay far away from this house. I wished I could join her in fleeing, honestly.
The door opened slowly, and as it did, I realized it wasn’t one of the house staff at all.
It was Mom.
My body tensed instantly, my back straightening as my jaw clenched. I didn’t want to see her. Especially not right now.
It’d been less than a week since my father had informed me I was to marry Barrett King, and my engagement party was already set for this evening.
Of course, I was no longer naive enough to believe the party had anything to do with me. It was a chance for my mother and father to show off their new connections to all their wealthy friends, to prove that they were worthy of being in the circle of elites once more.
It was a show, just like everything else about this life.
“Cordelia, dear.” Mom smiled, but it looked forced. “You should be getting ready. We’ll need you downstairs in an hour. I know you said you don’t feel comfortable having one of the servants help you anymore, but please let me send Poppy up. I have your outfit chosen and ready, and she can help you with your hair and makeup. You need to look your best.”
I didn’t make a move to start dressing. I just stared at her. The other thing that hurt almost as much as my father’s decision to marry me off was the fact that my Mom had made absolutely no effort to stop it from happening. I had hoped that maybe she would understand. After all, she’d been there with me in the tiny house we had rented on the other side of Baltimore. She had lived t
hat life with me—although unlike me, she had never found a way to make the best of it. She’d never made any kind of peace with it or found the beauty and joy in the ugliness.
All she’d done was sleep with Mark Jemison, a man she once would’ve considered too far beneath her to even speak to, in order to get back small scraps of what she’d lost.
“Cordelia, are you listening?”
Annoyance sounded in Mom’s tone now, and she crossed to my closet, pulling out the dress she’d had made specifically for this event. It was beautiful, there was no denying that. But I had no desire to wear it.
“Why are you doing this?” I asked finally, my voice a soft rasp.
My mother looked up from her examination of the ornately detailed bodice of the dress. “I told you. You need to be ready in an hour. Less than that now.”
“No.” I slid the chair back and rose to my feet, my voice gaining strength. “Why are you doing this? Why are you letting Dad force me into a marriage you know I don’t want? Why aren’t you fighting for me? Helping me?”
The words came out in a rush. They’d been locked in my chest ever since Dad had told her of the arrangement, just a short while after he’d told me about it.
Mom’s lips pursed. She drew in a deep breath and let it out on a sigh, then turned back to the closet and hung the dress up before facing me again.
“I am helping you, dear. You might not realize it yet, but this is for the best. This marriage to Barrett won’t just secure our future, but yours as well. You’ll never want for anything in your life.”
“You don’t know what I want.”
There was a roughness to my voice now, as emotions I’d tried to keep contained for the past several days bubbled up to the surface like hot oil. My heart was a cracked and crumbling lump of clay in my chest, and I hadn’t been able to bring myself to tell the Lost Boys any of this yet. I didn’t know how to tell them, what to say, so I’d barely spoken to them at all since Dad had laid down his order.
And it was fucking killing me.
Mom shook her head, smiling at me indulgently like I was a child who couldn’t understand a math problem. She crossed toward me, reaching out to squeeze my shoulder gently. The gesture was probably meant to be soothing, but it took all of my willpower not to pull away from her touch.
“I do know what you want,” she told me. “And believe me, I know how you’re feeling better than almost anyone else could. That’s how I know this is the right thing for you. When I wasn’t much older than you are now, I married your father. Of course, I had my doubts. That’s only natural. But I made the right choice.”
The lump of clay that was my heart seemed to swell in my chest, pressing painfully on my lungs and making it hard to breathe.
“You understand?” I finally shrugged off her touch, shaking my head vehemently. “How could you possibly understand? Don’t you see what a hypocrite you’re being? Your marriage to Dad is a total sham, a fucking lie! You don’t love him. You cheated on him. You abandoned him the second he stopped being your meal ticket. And now you’re encouraging me to lock myself into the same kind of loveless marriage you have? Just to ‘secure my future’? That’s bullshit, Mom! Can’t you see that?”
Her hand moved so fast I didn’t even see it coming.
A resounding slap made my head whip to one side as a startled gasp fell from my lips. Pain exploded through my cheek and stars danced before my eyes.
I swallowed hard, adrenaline surging through my system as I slowly blinked and straightened, my hand coming up to press against my hot, tender cheek.
Mom’s eyes flashed with anger, and she leveled a finger at me. “Do not ever speak to me like that again, Cordelia. I don’t know what happened to you while we were getting by in the ghetto, but it turned you into someone I don’t even recognize.”
I blinked, staring at her as blood rushed in my ears.
All my life, I’d been taught to obey. To go along with what I was told, to never argue or talk back. My mother had never slapped me before—because she’d had no reason to. I had never stepped a foot out of line, never raised my voice to my parents or challenged their authority.
But she was right about one thing.
My time at Slateview had changed me.
The anger simmering beneath my skin burst out of me in a rush, and instead of shrinking back in the face of Mom’s imperious glare, I threw myself at her, hands flying.
She shrieked and stumbled back, raising her arms to protect her face as she called for help, her voice high and shrill with panic. I didn’t stop, lashing out in a frenzy as we both went down, landing in a heap on the floor with me on top.
“Cordelia!” she screamed, latching onto my wrists. “What is the matter with you?”
I could’ve given her a long fucking list if I’d been in my right mind. But through the haze of helpless fury that turned the whole world red, I couldn’t put together a single thought. I couldn’t speak, couldn’t stop. I could only struggle wildly against my captor.
Because in that moment, that’s all this woman was to me.
Just as I wrenched my wrist free of her hold, strong arms closed around my waist, pulling me back.
“Cordelia!”
My father’s tone was angry and commanding, and he was too strong for me to break free of his hold, no matter how hard I struggled.
I grunted and flailed in his arms, cursing him and my mother, speaking in half-formed sentences. I had slipped over the line at some point from poised, rational girl to feral animal, and I didn’t know how to flip the switch back.
But my father did.
“Poppy. Quickly.” I felt him jerk his head, and a second later, Poppy rushed over. The newest member of our house staff was a quiet woman with straight brown hair and a long neck, and her eyes grew wide as she approached.
She had a bottle of pills in her hand, and my struggles slowed as I watched her pop it open and spill one into her hand. I watched as if I were mesmerized as she handed it to my father, who released one arm from around me and took it, then held it up in front of my face.
“Take this, Cordelia. It will help you calm down.”
My dead heart beat out a heavy rhythm in my chest, and my hand trembled, but I took the pill. I had never been hit by my mother before, and my father had never physically restrained me before. He wasn’t a violent man, but he was a man used to getting what he wanted. I didn’t want to find out what would happen if I didn’t obey him in this.
I popped the pill into my mouth and swallowed it dry.
It tasted as bitter as it felt.
Two
An hour later, Mom came back upstairs to fetch me.
Poppy had stayed with me the entire time, arranging my hair in an elaborate style and doing my makeup before helping me slip into the dress mother had chosen.
It was a routine I was so accustomed to I knew it in my bones, and my body went through the motions even as my mind slowly sank into a thick, sludgy morass.
Every blink of my eyelids seemed to happen in slow motion, and I was strangely conscious of the edges of my periphery, as if I were peering through a window at the world around me.
Anger still sat heavy in my heart, but with the sedative clouding my mind, I couldn’t quite feel it anymore.
It was there. I knew it was there. And I knew why it was there.
But it was as if it was no longer my own.
“Are you ready?”
Mom’s voice was curt, anger simmering in her tone. She had a small pink line down the side of her cheek where one of my fingernails had scratched her, and I could tell she’d tried to cover it up with makeup. Poppy had put extra concealer on my cheekbone too, where a small bruise had formed from the stinging force of my mother’s palm.
We would both be going downstairs with battle scars, wounds we had traded with each other—but as long as they were covered up, I supposed nobody would care.
“Yes.” I nodded dully, then glanced over at Poppy.
&nb
sp; She looked like she was trying to keep her expression carefully neutral, but she didn’t quite succeed. I could see worry and horror in the tight lines of her face, and I wondered what she was thinking. Was she horrified for me? Or because of me?
My dulled mind wasn’t in any kind of shape to even guess at the answer to that, so I let it drift out of my mind as I followed Mom down the hall. The hubbub of voices floated up to us before we even reached the stairs, and I was certain that the ballroom would be full of guests. Just like always, my arrival had been carefully timed and coordinated for the maximum effect, and the buzz of conversation faded as I descended the steps, looking for all the world like a queen.
Still on autopilot, I made my way through the gathered crowd, smiling and kissing cheeks and accepting congratulations. My mother’s hand stayed on my elbow, a constant, silent warning not to step out of line. Maybe she was also trying to make sure I didn’t stumble or weave as I walked—that I didn’t do anything to give away the fact that at least half of me was missing right now, snuffed out by the drugs.
The half that remained was a dutiful daughter, a practiced hostess, and a perfect lady.
Minutes ticked by as the party wore on, but I could hardly tell. I wasn’t sure if the whole thing was going by in a rush or dragging out endlessly, but when I caught sight of Barrett coming toward me, something inside my numb heart and mind tried to rouse itself. Tried to tear through the thick veil that’d been wrapped around me.
No.
No, this isn’t right at all.
“Ah, there she is!”
Barrett beamed at me as he reached me. He had the same smarmy smile I remembered, and his father stood just behind him, an identical smile on his face. They both gave me appraising looks like I was a particularly valuable piece of art, but not like I was a person.
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