“Cut the crap, Caroline,” I growl into the phone. “I know it was you who tipped off the press.”
She lets out a little squeak, which I think is supposed to represent her shock at such an outrageous accusation. “Lexi, chérie, I’m not sure what you’re talking about.”
I don’t buy her act for a second. “That was low. Even for you. Do you realize my entire life is ruined? All for the benefit of some stupid merger.”
“Lexi,” she begins in a patronizing tone, “don’t you see? This news helps everyone.”
“How?” I snap back. “How does this help everyone? How does exposing my secret to the world help everyone?”
“When this merger goes through, Larrabee Media profits will skyrocket. Do you know what profits are?”
I roll my eyes. “Of course I know what profits are.”
“Well,” she continues airily, “then you must know that Larrabee Media profits are what fund your lifestyle. They pay for your cars and your clothes and your yachts and everything else.” She sighs, sounding mighty pleased with herself. “This merger is the most important thing to happen to Larrabee Media in a decade. I had to come up with something that would ensure the shareholders’ confidence in your father as a leader. And this was a perfect solution. You should feel honored that you’re able to contribute to the company’s success. Pay off some of that publicity debt you’ve been racking up over the years.”
“And my father agreed to this?” I ask, feeling unwanted tears start to well up in my eyes. I quickly blink them away. But the knot forming in my stomach refuses to budge.
She makes a condescending tsk tsk sound with her teeth. “Your father wants what’s best for the company. As should you.”
So that’s it. My father sold me out for his business. Just like that. Because his publicist convinced him it was a smart business move.
But then again, should I really be that surprised? He’s been doing the same thing for years. To everyone in this family. My father’s company has always come first. And it always will.
I can’t believe I actually felt sorry for him. Even for a second. I thought maybe, possibly, somewhere deep down, there was at least some minuscule splinter of a sensitive bone in his body. The hiding place for all the pain and grief he’s been carrying around since my mother’s death.
But I can see now that was only a pipe dream.
Why is it that every time I start to feel the slightest bit of something for my father—an inkling of possible sympathy—he always manages to disappoint me? Without even being in the same room.
It’s a special talent he seems to have.
And to think I actually considered trying to talk to him. Did I honestly think I could sit down with Richard Larrabee and engage in some kind of sentimental father/daughter heart-to-heart?
I should have recognized the epic flaw in that logic to begin with.
It would require my father to actually have a heart.
“Plus,” Caroline continues, oblivious to my growing desolation, “you’ve been living off that bad-girl image for way too long. It was time for a makeover. For you and your father. Now the world will sympathize with you. Instead of despising you. And your father comes off looking like a responsible, compassionate parent.”
“Right,” I say, dejected. “A family man. Just like you wanted.”
“Exactly,” she agrees enthusiastically, seemingly pleased that I appear to be coming around. “And so far, it’s working. The media loves his proactive approach to raising a teenage daughter. They’re calling it a ‘life-rehabilitation program.’”
“I know,” I mutter.
“Trust me,” she encourages. “This is all for the best. You’ll see. And if you want me to schedule a press conference for you to publicly express your gratitude to your father, that would really help.”
I feel defeated. Conquered. Done. I have no more fight left in me. I’m just this pitiful one-woman army trying to do battle against a commander who has the world at his fingertips. And a trained army ready to spring into action at a moment’s notice.
With odds like that what’s the point in fighting?
Eventually you have to surrender.
And for me, eventually is now.
I don’t respond to Caroline, I just hang up the phone without another word. It rings less than thirty seconds later, Caroline evidently believing that the call was simply dropped. I press ignore and drive the rest of the way home in silence. No radio. No cell phone. Nothing.
I stare at the little white dashes on the road in front of me and allow them to hypnotize me.
I steer the small Ford Focus through the sea of press, ignoring the bulb flashes that blind me through the windshield, and park in the garage. I sludge into the house, hand the keys back to Kingston, and offer him a muted, dreary thank-you. I can feel his eyes following me as I start for the stairs. I’m ready to crawl into bed, pull the covers over my head, and never surface again. Except, of course, to do my father’s bidding and act like the brainless puppet that I am.
I am a prisoner of war now. I have no choices. I have no rights. I have no freedom. I am to survive in this lavish jail cell until the day I die. There is no escape for me.
I guess it was foolish of me ever to think that there was.
I’m a Larrabee after all.
For better and especially for worse. And I guess I’m just going to have to get used to it.
FLY AWAY WITH ME
There’s a knock on my bedroom door an hour later and Horatio announces that I have a visitor downstairs. “I’ve placed him in the salon,” he says, as though my guest were simply a package that’s been delivered or some other inanimate object.
“I don’t want to see anyone,” I tell him.
“He’s insisting that he see you.”
With a sigh, I grudgingly climb out of bed and push brusquely past Horatio into the hallway.
“Also,” Horatio adds, suddenly sounding even more formal than usual, “I found that thing you were looking for.”
I turn to look at him. “What thing?”
Without a word, he reaches into the pocket of his jacket and removes a small brass key, holding it up for me to get a close look, and then places it gently on the table next to the chaise longue with a soft clink.
The master key. The one that opens every room in the house. Even rooms that have remained locked for as long as I can remember.
I bite my lip to hold back the emotion that threatens to escape. “Thank you,” I tell him softly.
He replies with his traditional bow and then motions ceremoniously toward the stairs. “Your visitor,” he states, as though the last five seconds never happened.
There are a few faces I expect to see when I step into the salon a few moments later. A reporter sent by Caroline to do some kind of exclusive interview. Possibly Bruce here to talk about some legal matter. Maybe even Luke, since I’m scheduled to be at a catering job downtown in two hours. Not that I’m in any condition to go.
But the one person I never expected to see—ever again, let alone sitting in the salon waiting for me—is Mendi.
As soon as I enter the room, he’s up out of his seat, rising to greet me in a way that only well-educated sons of money know how to do.
He floats toward me—all cool and confident—and takes my hand and kisses it. But it’s not cheesy when he does it. It’s never been cheesy. That’s the thing about Mendi. Everything he does and says, no matter how hokey it might look on someone else, is always smooth. Like melted milk chocolate running through a fountain.
He can strut into an ultra-hot Hollywood nightclub one day and act like a regular celebrity bad boy and then stride through the salon of a multimillion-dollar Bel Air mansion the next and effortlessly transition into a man of culture and poise. The perfect embodiment of European society.
“I came as soon as I read about it online,” he tells me, his sweet, melodic accent instantly lulling me into a familiar trance. A spellbound state in which I
’m fully alert and yet fully his at the same time. It’s a spell I’ve learned can only be broken if you can find the strength to physically leave the room. Because once you’re in his presence, it’s all over.
“Thanks,” I find myself saying weakly. Weak, not in that my voice has no energy left in it, but in that my body has no will to fight his magnetism. Nor the tears that are welling up in my eyes.
They start to fall. Hard and heavy. Like they’re made of more than just salty water. The weighty material of broken hope and shattered illusions.
Besides Horatio, Mendi is the only person I’ve ever allowed to see me cry. Well, at least since I was old enough to know that crying in front of someone is the equivalent of packing up your power in a box, tying it with a bow, and handing it over.
And let’s face it. I’ve never had power when it comes to Mendi.
As he watches me weep in front of him, shedding my emotional boundaries faster than clothes in a game of strip poker, his face fills up with concern. It’s genuine and compassionate. It always has been. Mendi can be a lot of things—irrational, unstable, insensitive—but inauthentic has never been one of them.
He pulls me into his chest and I go willingly, allowing my tears to be absorbed in the thick fabric of his shirt. He strokes my hair and the side of my face, practically singing as he whispers, “It’s okay, my darling. Shhh. It’s going to be fine.”
When I’m all cried out, he holds me at arm’s length, lowers his head so that he can look directly into my eyes, and asks, “Why didn’t you call me?”
I sniffle and rub my wet cheeks as I look back at him with a confused expression.
“When your father took away your trust fund and left you with nothing,” he clarifies. “Why didn’t you call me? You know I would have taken care of you.”
I turn my head to the side, averting my eyes. “I know,” I admit. “But we were broken up. We said terrible things to each other that night in the club. Before the crash. And then you never called again. That’s how I knew it was truly over.”
He bows his head, looking ashamed. “I wanted to call,” he says softly. “But your friends warned me not to.”
My eyes widen in surprise. “They did?”
He nods. “After you ran out of the club that night, they insisted that I let you go. That if I ever wanted to give you a chance at being happy, I’d forget about you. They said the three of you were going away for the summer and they didn’t need our drama following them to Europe.”
I’m so touched thinking about Jia and T sticking up for me like that. Looking out for me. Like friends are supposed to.
“They told me you’d be better off without me,” he continues. “And for a while I believed them. But now I’m not so sure.”
“What do you mean?”
He cups my face in his large, warm hands and holds my gaze captive. “I’m saying enough is enough. We belong together.”
I can feel my knees start to shake under the weight of his words.
“What about Serena Henson? I thought you two were an item now.”
He scrunches his face in revulsion and shakes his head. “Oh God, she was such a waste of space.”
I want to smile. But it’s as though my face has forgotten how.
“Come with me.” His command is direct. Simple. Full of promise.
“Where?”
He releases my face and gestures to the world around him. “Anywhere! You don’t belong here milking cows and frying grease and God knows what else. You’re too good for that. I can give you the life you deserve, Lexi. The life you’ve been raised for. We can go today. Anywhere you want.”
My thoughts immediately float to the south of France. To the photograph of the villa that my friends sent me. The thought that I could be there with them—in only a matter of hours—makes me feel weightless. Free.
“Can we go to the French Riviera?”
He laughs. It’s jovial and effortless. “Of course! I’ll call the hangar now.” He whips out his cell phone and starts dialing. I listen as he gives his name, is put directly through to the right people, and books a flight to Marseilles in a matter of seconds.
I almost forgot how easy it is. How easy it could be. How easy it used to be for me too.
And the pang of longing in my stomach tells me that I’ve missed it. That ease. That uncomplicatedness. That buoyant, carefree existence.
He presses a button on his phone and returns it to his pocket. “The jet is ready whenever we are.” He takes my hands in his and holds them close to his face. I can feel his warm breath on my fingertips. “You don’t need your father. Or your trust fund. Or any of it. Let me take you away from all this.”
Then he tugs my hands toward him, wraps them around the back of his neck, and kisses me. It’s exactly like I remembered. The same hunger. The same passion. The same spark that ignites my senses and makes me feel alive.
I didn’t even realize I was dead.
When he pulls away he leaves behind a large, beaming grin that lights up my entire face. He brings his lips to my forehead and presses against it gently.
I unlock my fingers from the back of his neck and press my slightly swollen lips together, savoring the lingering taste of him … and all the ways he promises to fix everything that’s wrong with my life. “Just give me a few minutes to pack.”
EXIT STRATEGY
Mendi sits on my bed, playing tug-of-war with Holly and an old sock while I hastily throw items into a suitcase. For some reason I feel frazzled. Frenetic.
Mendi notices and catches hold of my arm as I’m dumping a heap of dresses into my bag. “Relax, Lex,” he tells me—no, with Mendi it’s always more like an order. “The plane is not going to leave without us.”
“I know,” I say, taking a deep breath, but it does little to slow me down or quiet my quivering nerves.
I race back to my closet and pull out my bathing-suit drawer. I have no idea which ones to take so I just grab all of them and run them to the suitcase.
Mendi laughs as he watches the growing pile of mangled clothes. “I don’t think your entire closet is going to fit in there. You know we can always go shopping in France.”
I laugh nervously and then head over to my desk and shut my laptop down. When I lift it up, I find a mangled piece of paper underneath. I reach for the paper, knowing exactly what it is even before I’ve completely unfolded it.
The list.
52 Reasons to Hate My Father.
Although, based on the numerous lines of crossed-out text, I only got to number twenty. Not even halfway through. I skim the thirty-two remaining jobs, running my finger down the page, taking a brief moment to imagine the experiences I’ll never have. A toll-booth operator, a waitress, a newspaper delivery girl, a rent collector, a fruit picker, a movie theatre usher … all the way down to the very last one. Number 52. Working in the copy room of the Santa Monica Mirror—a local newspaper.
The copy room of a local newspaper? That was my father’s first job. His first step toward becoming the billionaire he is today.
That can’t be a coincidence.
A bark breaks me from my thoughts and I glance over at Holly who’s managed to rip the sock out of Mendi’s hand and is now completing her victory prance around the bed.
Mendi laughs and lunges forward for a rematch.
I give my head a shake, toss the list into the trash can, and get back to packing, hastily stuffing my laptop into its pink Prada carrying case and adding it to the collection of luggage on the bed. Then I dash into the bathroom to start filling my train case.
I’m not sure why I’m in such a hurry. Maybe it’s because this whole day feels like a dream and if we don’t leave right this very minute—or as close to it as possible—something or someone is going to wake me up.
Someone is going to try to stop me.
And just as Mendi is lugging the last of my suitcases down the stairs, that someone walks through the front door.
“Going somewhere?” he
asks, looking perplexedly from Mendi to my luggage to me.
“Luke,” I say simply. Because I’m not sure what else to say. Where else to begin. “I was going to call you.”
“From where?” he asks, once again glaring at Mendi and then looking back to me.
I trudge down the last few steps and meet him in the foyer. “I think we both know this is over.”
Apparently Luke doesn’t know. “What are you talking about? I’m here to take you to your next catering job. It starts in an hour.”
Mendi sets my suitcase down at the foot of the stairs and stalks up next to me, putting a hand on my lower back. “Lexington won’t be working any more low-wage jobs for her father. It’s demeaning and beneath her.”
Luke gives him a dubious look but doesn’t respond. Instead he addresses me. “You can’t quit. You know what happens if you quit.”
“I know,” I say softly, unable to meet his gaze.
“You won’t be able to come back here,” he warns. “Your father will cut you off.”
“She doesn’t need her father.” Mendi steps menacingly forward. “She has me now.”
“I wasn’t talking to you,” Luke growls, sidestepping Mendi so that he can focus back on me. “Lexi, don’t do this!”
“It’s done, Luke,” I say morosely. “I’m exposed. The entire world knows. They’re not going to leave me alone. They’re going to follow me to every single job, every single week, for the rest of the year. They’re going to turn it into some kind of media circus!”
“That doesn’t matter,” Luke insists. “What matters is that you were starting to get the hang of it. You were taking it seriously. You were earning people’s respect.” He drops his head and lowers his voice. “Like mine.”
“I’m sorry,” is all I can say.