I tug at my tie until it’s loose enough to pull off. “Your fucking planner is searching for you.” Shoving the silk noose into my pocket, I unbutton the top of my dress shirt, tilting my head to make room to do so. “I don’t want to be bothered by them, Caroline. And who the fuck plans a party two months in advance?”
She rolls her eyes at me, or maybe they flutter back from the situation she’s enjoying. Either way, my frustration grows. I clear my throat heavily—a clear indication for her to cut this shit out and give me an answer.
“Civilized people do,” she counters.
Kai stops pulling the strap of her camisole down, nodding his head in understanding. Even the pussy stowaway pops his head up outside the covers, revealing himself, causing Caroline’s eyes to shoot to his angrily, since the part he’s playing has stopped.
“You aren’t finished,” she crows, her voice shrill as her hand grips his head, shoving it back down where it came from.
Her hissy fit makes me chuckle. But I narrow my eyes when she moans again. “Handle your shit. Or you won’t like it when I cancel everything.”
I turn on my heel, leaving her ridiculous debauchery, reaching out for the door just as recognition strikes.
“Jesus Christ, Caroline,” I snap, spinning around. “Can you stop fucking the help? These people are becoming difficult to replace.”
The fucking nerve of her—she actually tries to seem sheepish, but it’s fake. Kai laughs out huskily, then gives her a tsk-tsk, before grabbing his shirt and pulling it on over his head. At least someone knows when to stop fucking around.
Breath leaves me profoundly as I narrow my eyes at her. She’s more of a burden than I would like to be stuck with.
“Seems someone enjoys trolling the gutters. Come on, out with you,” I call.
Caroline shrugs apologetically and slaps the head of one of our landscapers, causing him to jerk and peek out. He looks at her nervously and back to my indifferent face. She smiles at me sweetly, but I give nothing back. She knows I’m over her antics.
Caroline locks eyes with the guy and brings her foot to his shoulder, pushing back slowly until he’s sitting up, taking the blanket with him and exposing her bare center.
“Kai,” I level, motioning with my eyes to her nude body.
“Do cover up, darling,” he instructs teasingly, tugging the blanket between her legs to cover what’s showing.
Her voice is a purr as she ignores us and bites out, “Get out. Grey’s just fired you. And because you suck at head, you won’t be paid for today.”
I think she’s more turned on by being cruel than by the sexual act itself. Her words are punctuated with a hard shove of her foot that was still resting on his chest. His body lands on the floor with a thud, but he stands quickly, reaching for his shirt. Thankfully, he’s wearing pants. I’m done seeing shit that will haunt me. Caroline’s pussy is enough for one day.
“Chop, chop. Out you go!” Caroline calls out, laughing, resting her arms above her head.
The fucking idiot hops around, putting his shoes on, muttering apologies to me. But I jerk my head toward the door, a not so subtle hint at what he needs to do. He walks quickly, keeping his distance as he leaves, with his shirt and pride in his hands.
The moment the bedroom doors close, I turn my focus back to my twisted sister. Her little games are ridiculous.
“Seriously, Caroline? That piece of shit must have been in his thirties. Do you have to be such a whore?”
She isn’t going to listen. She always does as she pleases.
“Hashtag me too, Grey.”
“That’s not what the movement’s about, Caroline. But you’d know that if you weren’t busy sexually harassing our landscaping staff,” I respond dryly, turning and walking out the door. “It’s good to see you, Kai,” I call out over my shoulder as I exit.
“You too, Grey.”
His answer bounces off the doors I’ve closed behind me. My grip’s still on the knobs as I take a deep breath. I push off roughly and run my hands lazily through my tousled hair.
She’s only my problem for one more year. Then she can become Dartmouth’s issue.
Stalking down the hall, I turn the corner to my section of the second floor. Besides my bedroom suite, I have a library that’s adjacent. Caroline claims the first section of this wing, and I have the back portion. I prefer it that way.
I need silence. It’s the only time I can be still, no expectations to live up to. No emptiness to pretend I don’t feel.
My phone makes a thud on my desk as I toss it down and remove my cufflinks, dropping them next to the phone, before reaching for the book I left open last night. The screen on my cell lights up with another message, and I swipe to see it as I finger through the pages to find where I left off.
Liam: Dick. I wasn’t finished.
Shaking my head, I dial my best friend. Hitting Speaker before shrugging off my suit jacket, I fold it over the arm of the deep black velvet chair and relax down into it. My fingers instinctually skim across my slate desk to find the antique silver cigarette case that lives there.
“Oh man,” Liam answers. “Heard you lost another gardener.”
I huff out a half laugh, turning the case around and around.
“Word travels fast. Caroline’s pussy strikes again.”
“Dude. Kai texted. She’s a handful. You need my help?”
Outside of me, Liam is the only person who seems to be able to reason with Caroline.
“No. If she doesn’t start listening, I’ll cut her allowance when I take over.”
“Ouch.”
We both laugh, but the sound of wood clanging in the background grabs my attention.
“You rowing out this morning?”
“Yeah. I could use the peace.”
When Liam needs quiet, it’s because his father’s demands have fucked him up so severely that he can’t hear his thoughts anymore. I know the feeling, but he’s been needing reprieve more and more lately, so I throw out a bone I hope he’ll catch.
“Do what you gotta do. We need to be at our best this year. I want to hand Red Oak their asses. Again. Four-year sweep.”
“Hell yeah. Fucking dicks. Paul is such a tool. That guy just fucking bugs me.”
“Agreed.”
I open the small silver case and pluck out a cigarette, tapping the filter against the surface. “I’ll see you tomorrow.” The call ends as I place it between my lips and search for my lighter. My fingers fan out over the desk, as I survey the area, tilting my head to peer in one of the nooks.
Quiet knocking on my door filters through the room, but I don’t look up as I call out, “Come in.”
The cigarette dangles, the paper stuck to the drying flesh of my bottom lip, and a strand of my black hair hits my forehead when I glance up.
Caroline pushes the heavy door open and pads over the dark brown wood floors to me. Her face drawn, shoulders in a slight slump, she stops at the edge of the desk and fidgets with her fingers.
When she gets like this, it’s hard to hate her. I think enemies understand each other better than any other, sometimes.
I motion my head, calling her over, pushing my chair out to give her the room she needs as she crawls into my lap. She tucks her knees in, on top of my legs, as I wrap an arm around her. Pulling her tight against my body, I hold her like you would a child.
I might be an asshole, but I’m not a monster. She’s my stepsister, and even though Caroline is fucked up, that doesn’t mean she doesn’t feel. Sometimes, I think she feels more than most.
“Kai left?”
“You should quit, Grey,” she complains quietly into my shoulder, extending her slender arm and moving the cigarette holder, revealing my lighter.
There are few times when Caroline shows her vulnerability, and she usually makes it easy to forget she has a heart since it’s buried under layers of contempt for the world. She’s a long-legged viper with perfect brunette waves and ice-blue eyes. She’s intimidating, as if she�
��s judged you and found you wanting.
The reality is that she has, and you probably are. But she’s also an eighteen-year-old girl whose mother has left her alone to fend for herself in a world that tries to beat her up and reduce her. A world that wants to make her feel insufficient in every way, something I’m sure she believes as fact.
I understand why she has baggage. It’s the only reason why I give her this comfort when she needs it. That, and I need to use the muscle called my heart so it doesn’t atrophy. There’s a dark part of me that worries that one day I won’t remember how to keep it beating.
Scared I’ll be doomed to become my father, just like Liam will become his and Caroline, her mother. We’re all broken. Each of us perverted with different cracks in our Waterford crystal, but with cracks, nonetheless.
I light my smoke and inhale the sweet death, blowing it out slowly. “You know, your problems would be solved if you dated someone you fucked.”
Caroline sits up in my lap and stares at me, her face serious with an expression of disgust. She grabs hold of my cheek roughly, making me clutch my cigarette between my teeth.
“Grey, don’t be so bourgeois.”
I bring a hand up, inhaling again, and pull it from my mouth, tilting my head up to exhale around her face as she continues.
“People like us shouldn’t ever love. Love makes us weak, and weakness has no place in building an empire.”
“Someone’s been taking impeccable notes from Evan McCallister.”
She grabs the Nat Sherman cigarette from my hand, placing it between her plump lips and taking a long drag. As she exhales a winding cloud of smoke toward the ceiling, her walls slip back into place, and just like that, she’s no longer a sad, lonely girl. The bitch is back.
Caroline hands my cigarette back over and stands from my lap, shooting me orders, pretending her rawness never happened.
“Speaking of Evan. You need to make more of an effort this year to toe the line for our father. I don’t want to hear the dean of schools bitching about you again. Shit rolls downhill, Grey. For instance, your uniform is back from the cleaners. Wear it. You can’t blow off the rules this whole year, Grey.”
She wipes her legs as if sitting on my lap made her dirty.
“Is that so?” My voice is laced with humor. It’s amusing that she thinks I’d listen to anything she has to say.
Crossing her arms, she smirks. “Yes, it is. Stop going out of your way to rile Evan. It’s immature and very unbecoming. The McCallister name—”
“Don’t talk to me about my name. It’s only yours on loan.”
I’m sure my answer doesn’t sit well, but I don’t care to witness her embarrassment, so I level my eyes on the smoke coming off the elongating ash between my fingers. If she were smarter, she’d take less pride in having the McCallister name. It comes in handy when shoving authority down someone’s throat. Otherwise, it’s just a reminder of a cruel legacy.
“You’re such an asshole. I don’t know why I thought you’d ca—”
“Me either,” I agree quickly, slipping back into the natural roles we play with each other.
Her eyes narrow on me, and I can see her mean readying on her tongue, but I beat her to the punch.
“Don’t you have a dick to suck? I believe the garbage picks up in the alley around this time.”
“Cocksucker,” she fires at me harshly.
I wince when she says the word and put the half-smoked cigarette out in the ashtray, Caroline seems puzzled as I do it, but I smirk.
“What? You reminded me of where your mouth’s been.”
Sneering, she stomps out of the room, and I reach in for another smoke, grinning to myself.
I win.
Donovan
Sixteenth birthday
MY BODY FEELS EFFERVESCENT, AS if all the tiny Moët bubbles I’ve been sipping are vibrating inside of me. Heat rises, climbing my spine as I dance, making tiny droplets of sweat bead on my collarbone and my hair stick to my face with every throw of my head. I shake my hips in rhythm to the bass, tossing my arms to the ceiling.
It feels free and wild. I feel free and wild.
This moment is exactly what I wanted, to throw all my thoughts and fights with my mother out of the window and live. I’m so tired of hearing about the consequences. Because it’s all bullshit. I’ve been forced to live with everyone else’s consequences since I was twelve. Like medicine that’s siphoned down my throat against my will. It’s supposed to make me better but instead makes me fucking sick.
She doesn’t care how messed up my life gets, so long as it doesn’t affect her. The idea of negative consequences is just something she uses when things aren’t in her favor. Like how men have stopped looking at her and are now looking at me. Doesn’t matter that I hate it. She hates it more, because the eyes aren’t on her.
The silk from my emerald-green skirt swishes around the tops of my tan thighs, and with each movement of my hips, I run my hands up the sides of my body. Everything feels so good. I want to die in this moment. My hands drag over my hips as I begin to shake them harder from side to side, uncaring about anything or anyone.
Don’t think. Just feel.
Nothing else matters, including me. But the familiar voice echoes in my head as I dance harder, trying to drown it out with the music that fills the club.
She doesn’t care about me. I’m a pawn she uses against my father and everyone else.
I thrash my head back and forth, letting my hair fly with the kind of abandon I wish I felt as whistles and claps erupt around me. My head lowers to take in all eyes that are on me. Men surround the table that I’ve made my stage, all of them waiting for me to move—to keep on with my show.
This is what she hates. She hates that they all love me—only me.
The irony is I only want her love. But all I’m given is theirs. Men. Staring at me, adoring me, caring about what I’m doing. I can’t help that I’m younger. I can’t stop any of them from wanting me. No matter how much that fucking kills her. No matter how much that makes me her enemy. Her competition. Her legacy.
Strong hands slap the table over and over, keeping time to the music, as my bare feet stay planted on the table, rooting me while I sway to the pulse created by my audience. I tip my head back, feeling my buzz hit me harder, and pull me deeper into the moment.
Pills. Champagne. More pills and more champagne. That’s been the map of my night. My escape route from my mother, her disregard for my birthday and her hatred of me. But the joke’s on her—I hate her back. Or maybe I hate that I wish I could but can’t.
Tonight, though, I will. Tonight, I will hate her so much that it will make up for all of my cowardice.
I twirl around, knowing my skirt will rise and show things I shouldn’t, but I don’t want them to stop cheering, watching, loving me. Laughter escapes my lips, molding and intertwining with the whistles before the sounds of shattering glass echo faintly around me. My head bobs forward lazily, impacted by how drunk I am, to take in the scene, and I have to give it a little shake.
“What’s happening?”
Everything is unfocused and on delay as my eyes adjust too late. I take a step forward, but my feet stumble, and I stagger backward, unbalanced, and fall from the table. Strong arms wrap around me, softening my fall, and stop me from plummeting to the ground.
“Caught you.”
He’s holding me like a bride. He probably already has one of those.
“You did.” I smile, slightly breathless and all too comfortable in my position.
His arms tighten around me, pulling me in closer to his chest, and I let my hand rest on his chest as I lay my head on his shoulder.
“Now, what am I going to do with you?”
His question seems innocent. But that’s the thing about men: they’re never that—innocent. They’ll always accept what I’m willing to forfeit because sex is a war that destroys everyone. The only advantage I have is that I control the rules because I own the pr
ize.
“What do you want to do with me?”
“Things that I shouldn’t.”
He locks his blue eyes on me, licking his lips before they descend onto mine. The taste of deceit is heavy on them, and for a moment, I feel ashamed, but then he looks at me. He stares into my eyes deeply, silencing my thoughts. Because like a desperate soul, I believe the lie—the one that tells me that he sees me, that I’m special, that I’ll be loved.
Donovan
Present Day
My arms peek out from under my silver down comforter, stretching to opposite ends, as my body begins to wake from the deep slumber I’m so happily invested in. The heat that engulfs my body suddenly feels stifling instead of comforting, so I push it down, kicking my feet to help. My eyes flutter open as the air rushes in, making my skin prick with goose bumps.
The ceiling is all I stare at, letting my reality sink in. Damn. Today’s the day. The start of my new life. My ninth life if I was a cat.
Natural light fills my bedroom suite from the wall of windows directly across from my oversized California king. Although the window is tinted to keep the heat at bay, it doesn’t keep out the morning shine. My eyes squint as I look around, struggling to accept being awake. I despise early mornings, and I should’ve closed the shade before I went to sleep, but last night, I couldn’t bring myself to lower it.
I’ve seen a sky full of stars in every place I’ve lived, but there’s something about the lights of a city, crowded with skyscrapers. The vitality of life always seems to be busting at the seams, and that makes it too hard to pass up. I laid there watching time go by until sleep took me.
Funny enough, it was the most peace amongst chaos that I’ve felt since I don’t even remember when.
A rap on my door turns my attention, just as it opens to the butler entering with a forced smile on his aged face.
“Good morning, miss. I have your breakfast. I thought you’d like it in bed before starting the day.”
This treat is his polite way of telling me my father won’t be dining with me today. I want to say he seems apologetic, but I watched as his eyes darted away while he spoke, so I’d call this more of an irritation to his duty. It must suck to be the messenger.
Filthy Little Pretties Page 2
