by K. A. Linde
“Shall we?” she asked.
I nodded curtly. Then we stepped into my father’s home together.
The first thing I saw was a short incredibly tan woman with a thick head of dark brown hair. I stopped moving at the sight of my sister.
“Candice?” Katherine asked in shock.
Shock enough for the both of us.
I hadn’t seen Candice since the day I married Katherine. She was a bit of a holistic nutjob. The last I’d heard, she was in Bali, living a New Age Goop-esque lifestyle—vagina-steaming, bee-venom therapy, and fifteen-thousand-dollar sex toys. But before the wedding, she’d been in Dubai, living off of martinis, then Casablanca to soak up the essence of the ’40s, and some private island off the coast of Morocco for a sex-healing treatment, which I could only guess consisted of nightly orgies.
She hadn’t gone to Harvard, where our father had donated a small fortune to get her in. She had no degree. She’d never worked a day in her life. Not even as a socialite. Instead, she lived off her trust and flitted between one mindless brainwashing adventure to the next. I’d once had to endure an entire conversation with her where she described in detail how she’d gotten with a “journey” group and done hallucinogens to open up her mind’s eye.
Candice slowly turned, revealing her enormous stomach. “Heyyy,” she trilled. “You made it.”
She was pregnant. My cultist sister, who was high more than she was sober, was pregnant. Jesus Christ, who had been stupid enough to let that happen?
“What are you doing here?” I asked dryly.
“Nice to see you, too,” she said with a wink, stepping up to us. “And your beautiful wife. How’s the sex?” She pressed her hand to Katherine’s stomach. “Still fucking like rabbits?”
Katherine stepped back, glaring down at Candice. “That’s really none of your business.”
“Oh, come on. Didn’t you hear? I’m a certified sex therapist now.”
“Certified by whom?” I asked with a shake of my head.
Candice waved her hand. “It was in Taiwan at this sex temple. I’ll have to tell you the whole story.”
“Please don’t,” I said. “I need a drink.”
“Make it a double,” Katherine said under her breath.
“Oh, but you shouldn’t be drinking,” Candice said gleefully.
Katherine shot me a pained look.
“Martini?” I asked.
She nodded gratefully.
I headed to my father’s wet bar and poured her the dirtiest martini I could madke. I went for my father’s scotch. As much as it upset me to admit it, he had an even more extensive collection than I did. I brought the martini back to Katherine, who looked like a fawn ready to bolt in distress. Neither of us had prepared for dealing with Candice on top of my father and his new family.
“Camden,” a voice said behind me.
I turned to find my latest stepmother standing in the doorway to my father’s sitting room. “Hello, Elizabeth.”
I regrettably left Katherine to deal with Candice.
Elizabeth Cunningham was my father’s fourth wife. They’d secretly eloped a month before my own wedding. I didn’t mind her or her daughter, Harmony, who was Katherine’s age. She was better than the last two. Candice’s mother, Carrie, had despised that there was a child between Candice and the entirety of the Percy fortune. More recently, he’d married Jaclyn, a supermodel who was younger than me. She’d tried to fuck me once or twice. I’d almost done it out of spite, but I was certain my father might have actually killed me. Heir to his empire or not.
My mother was the only one he’d married for love. And shortly after having me, she’d abandoned us both. Run out on him and only returned long enough to sign the divorce papers, refuse custody, and give up her claim to any Percy money. My father never let me forget that I was the reason she’d left. He never believed in love again after that. Drilled it into my head at a young age that marriages were business deals. Plain and simple.
“Come into the sitting room. Your father wants to speak with you,” Elizabeth said with an easy smile.
My stomach hardened. Talking to my father alone was never a good idea. I was sure he was going to rail me for being ten minutes late to a dinner that had yet to be served. It wouldn’t be the first time.
“Thank you,” I said anyway and headed into the sitting room to find my father, Carlyle Percy, sipping on a glass of scotch. “Hello, Father.”
“Ah, Camden, you finally made it.”
I kept my face completely neutral. Nothing to set him off. “You asked to speak with me?”
“Yes, I wanted to show you the new construction on the old library,” he said as he rose to his feet. He buttoned the top button of his suit and straightened. “We don’t have time now since you were late but after dinner.”
New construction. My throat closed as I imagined the fucking dust. Not that I could deny my father anything.
“Of course, sir,” I said obediently.
I’d learned control from my lack of control as a child. And the tight fist of my father.
I knew what he’d meant when he said that he wanted to talk to me later. That I’d fucked up. That he wanted to wait until the ladies were otherwise occupied. It all spelled trouble to mend I knew there was no way to avoid it. The only way out was through.
5
Katherine
I couldn’t believe that Camden had left me alone with Candice. She was two years younger than me, and we’d all attended the same prep school. I’d been a terror in high school, but Candice was her own brand of horrendous. And one of the last people on the planet that I wanted to be left alone with.
Especially with her giant belly and her pseudo-science sex therapy. I needed no help with my sex life, thank you very much.
“So, tell me everything,” Candice said with a glint in her amber eyes. “Does he go down on you? Have you experimented with toys? What’s working?”
I downed half of my martini in one long gulp. I needed to be hammered to endure Candice the rest of the night.
She didn’t wait for a reply. “You know what the key to long-lasting pleasure is?” She leaned in as if she were imparting some secret wisdom. “Giving your partner full access to all holes.”
“And you learned this in Taiwan?” I choked out.
“Oh, well, I already knew that bit,” she said with a wink. “I just like to share it in the States because everyone here is such a prude. Like, you’d think they’d be a little more open after having a stick up their ass for… ever.”
“I’m not sure I’m comfortable discussing my sex life with… you,” I told her as delicately as possible.
“Why not?” she asked, clearly mystified.
“Well… I’m married to your brother.”
Candice waved the comment away. “I’m not afraid of sex. If he isn’t pleasuring you fully, it’s my duty to help.”
I opened my mouth, uncertain what was about to come out of it. I usually tried to rein in my outrage when I was around Camden’s father. Without fail, he always did something that made me want to stab him in the eye. I’d prepped myself for that. But god, I didn’t want to deal with Candice.
Then another woman walked into the room. It was the first time in my life that I was happy to see Harmony Cunningham. Elizabeth’s daughter had been my enemy since high school when she tried to sink her claws into Penn. But I would do anything to get out of this conversation with Candice Percy about my holes and sex life.
“Harmony,” I said in greeting, hoping my voice didn’t betray how much I wanted an escape.
Harmony’s nose crinkled. “Katherine, what a pleasant surprise.”
“Oh, Harmony,” Candice said in delight. “I was just helping Katherine with her sex problems.”
Harmony raised one eyebrow and tucked a lock of her platinum-blonde hair behind her ear. “Problems?”
“Candice-invented problems. She’s a sex therapist, didn’t you hear?”
“I did,
” Harmony said in a way that said, Unfortunately.
“I’ve been psychoanalyzing her relationship with Kurt,” Candice explained.
“Kurt?” I asked in surprise. “Kurt Mitchell?”
“The one and only,” Harmony said with a shrug.
“I didn’t know he was in New York again.”
Kurt was old Upper East Side money, but he’d been such a fuckup that his parents shipped him off to boarding school. He’d gotten kicked out of a half-dozen of them in Europe and continued his bad-boy ways when he returned for college. I knew that he’d had a fling with my bestie, Lark, but he’d been off my radar since then.
“He’s cleaned up and working for his daddy in investing,” she said.
“Too bad.”
She narrowed her eyes at me. “Why is that?”
“Bad boys have more fun.”
Harmony actually laughed. We’d spent so many years fighting each other over Penn that we weren’t going to suddenly be friends. But I’d rather talk to her than deal with Candice, which said a lot.
“And what are you up to?” I asked Harmony, cutting Candice out of the conversation.
“I started designing for my mom. Cunningham Couture’s latest visionary,” she said with a shrug. “Mom thinks it’s a good angle.”
“It is a good angle,” I admitted. “I didn’t know that you had interest in designing.”
Harmony and I had competed for more than just Penn’s heart. Up until this latest endeavor with design, she had also been living her life as a socialite. She modeled, especially for her mother’s line, which I’d also done for a time. I’d never thought that she’d willingly give it up.
“Designing is more… stable,” Harmony admitted.
Which really meant that women over thirty didn’t usually model. Not unless they were superstars. Not when fashion designers could get size double-zero twits fresh out of high school. Eternal youth.
The thought made my stomach twist. I had my name and notoriety, but I wouldn’t always have my looks. I couldn’t compete with fresh-faced eighteen-year-olds. I was down a dress size from my new workout routine, but I’d never be a double zero again.
As much as I hated to admit it, the vile things Camden had said on our anniversary weren’t entirely… wrong. I enjoyed the life that I lived, and I’d never much cared about anything else, but this job wasn’t forever. I’d wanted to prove him wrong enough that I’d reached out to a friend who ran a charity to see how else I could get involved. I didn’t want a job, but I might need a purpose beyond my status in society.
“Sex therapy is stable, too,” Candice cut in.
Harmony and I exchanged a look. It was strange to detest someone for so long and then have her understand me so completely.
“Maybe you could help my mom with that,” Harmony said, biting her cheek to keep a straight face. “Unless it’s weird to talk to her about your dad.”
Candice made a contemplative face. “In the interest of medicine, I could help her.”
Then Candice beelined for Elizabeth, leaning against the sitting room doors.
Harmony and I turned away at once. Both of us trying to conceal our laughter.
“She is the worst,” Harmony whispered.
“Completely oblivious to the world and a danger to herself and everyone around her,” I said.
“If I had to hear her talk about how vagina-scented essential oils had changed her life one more minute, I was going to blow my brains out.”
“I am so glad I missed that,” I muttered. “She was educating me on the proper use of all of my holes for pleasure.”
Harmony groaned. “I can’t.”
“Not even a little.”
Harmony laughed and then gestured between us. “This is weird.”
I nodded. “Yeah. A bit.”
“Go back to hating each other after she’s gone?” Harmony asked, holding her hand out.
I put my hand in hers and shook. “Deal.”
“God, has she started telling you about Lars yet?”
“No. Who is Lars?” I asked.
“Her husband.”
I sputtered in shock. “Candice got married?”
Harmony shrugged. “Apparently. And he’s some Swedish prince or something. I’m not clear on the details. I tried to get away as quickly as possible.”
“Jesus. I thought she had a sperm donation. Monogamy never seemed like her thing.”
“Oh, they’re not monogamous,” Harmony clarified. “They met in an orgy and decided their souls were bonded or something. After that, she said their genes needed to procreate.” Harmony wrinkled her nose again.
“Well then,” I muttered, “is he here?”
Harmony nodded. “He’s supposed to be here for dinner tonight.”
“The night keeps getting better.”
“Tell me about it. I just want to get this over with, so I can head over to Kurt’s.”
“How did that happen anyway?”
Harmony flushed, her cheeks reddening. “Uh, well… it might or might not have started as a one-night stand.”
I chuckled. “Of course it did.”
“Anyway,” Harmony said with an eye roll, “I don’t know where it’s going, but I’d like to see.”
I watched the eager light in her eyes. The first flush of love that came with a new relationship. The hope that this time, this person was the one.
I’d felt that way before. My heart panged as I remembered the scant few months this spring when I’d thought it was happening with Camden. We’d come back from our honeymoon aflush with new… well, if not feelings, at least respect. We agreed not to see other people. I’d made the mistake of thinking he was serious. That this could go somewhere. But there was no the one. There was just the person you ended up with, and you made it work. It wasn’t a romantic ideal. But I wasn’t a romantic at heart. While things weren’t great… or even good with Camden right now, I knew where we stood. It was safer.
Speak of the devil, my husband appeared out of his father’s sitting room with a cloud over his face. I knew how much he enjoyed seeing his father.
“Ah, look who found each other,” Camden said, sweeping past Candice and Elizabeth, who looked like she desperately wanted to escape, and coming over to where Harmony and I stood together.
“Camden,” Harmony said stiffly. “What a pleasure to see your face here.”
“I’m sure, sis,” he said with a quirked eyebrow. “Making friends with your enemy?”
“We came together under common ground,” I said, gesturing to Candice.
“So, Candice brings you together when Penn always split you apart.”
Harmony and I glanced at each other. There was nothing shared in that look. Neither of us had Penn. Would ever have him again. And still, that animosity lingered.
“Don’t be an ass,” Harmony told him.
“It’s in his nature,” I said.
“Just trying to lighten the mood,” Camden said.
“No, you’re not,” Harmony spat.
“Illuminate the truth then,” he suggested instead. “Perhaps you can inform me what’s so special about Penn Kensington. Katherine has never been able to explain it.”
Harmony glared at him. “Maybe he’s not a total fucking douchebag, like you.”
She whirled on her heel and stalked away from us. Truce broken.
I deflated slightly in her absence. It hadn’t been horrible to have an ally in this room. Where everyone else was at each other’s throats.
“Why do you have to do that?” I hissed at him.
“What?” he asked with mock innocence.
“Take your anger toward your father and abuse everyone else around you with it?”
He had no answer for that. Perhaps I had illuminated the truth in the same way that he had.
I didn’t wait to see what else would come out of his mouth when he was in this mood. I headed deeper into the living room and found Elizabeth Cunningham excusing herself from Cand
ice’s presence. She drew me into a hug.
“Katherine, it’s wonderful to see you,” Elizabeth lied.
Our mutual connection to Percy men had made us work together for a time. I’d been the socialite always in her couture, but Harmony’s grudge had ruined that as well. She’d designed my wedding dress. After that, we’d parted ways. It hadn’t been mutual. Though I’d never tell her how much it had wounded me. I’d been vulnerable about it all once, just once. My armor had hardened around it since. Otherwise, I wouldn’t be able to pretend in this moment, and most of my life was pretending.
“You look as fabulous as ever,” I told her.
Elizabeth’s smile didn’t reach her eyes. “Thank you, dear.”
Just then the elevator dinged again. We all turned to find a man striding into the penthouse. He was exceedingly tall, as pale as fresh snow, with wheat-blond hair to his shoulders. His blue eyes were piercing against his pale skin, even from a distance, and his smile was the most genuine thing in the room.
Candice squealed and launched herself across the apartment. “Lars!”
Ah, so this was her husband, Lars.
They started making out in the foyer, and the rest of us quickly turned away from the display. If Camden’s father, Carlyle, hadn’t entered the room at that moment, they might have started fucking right then and there.
Carlyle cleared his throat, and it sent a shiver through everyone present. Even Candice wasn’t immune to it. She wrenched back from her husband, and a hesitancy flickered through her features. One I hadn’t been sure she had in her.
“Dinner,” Carlyle suggested sternly.
Candice and Lars hastened to catch up with the rest of us. Elizabeth entered the dining room with Harmony.
Camden touched my arm to hold me back. “Another drink?”
“God, yes,” I told him.
He nodded and headed toward the wet bar. I moved toward the dining room, passing Carlyle with his eyes fixed uncomfortably on me.
“Evening,” I said, keeping the bite from my voice.
“Katherine,” he said.