Kiss and Tell (Scions of Sin Book 2)
Page 16
If her social media and public persona are any indication, that would be as an idol to be adored, lusted after, worshipped, and perhaps feared.
She can be fearsome. When one of her Yorkshire terriers passed away after a long battle with cancer, Angelica wanted to have the dog buried next to her late grandmother in the family plot in Waterloo, Pennsylvania. The cemetery, for obvious reasons, denied her request to bury a pet in a human cemetery. Unable to purchase the cemetery from the stubborn owners, she found a loophole in their rules and erected a fifteen-foot tall, bright pink statue of the dog which now towers over the other memorials and will ostensibly serve as her own mausoleum one day.
She once felt wronged by a producer working for a company that had been planning on producing a reality television show about her. She purchased the company and liquidated almost all of it, putting two hundred people out of a job, and sparing only the producer who is still locked in a year-long legal battle to be released from his exclusive contract.
Disturbingly, after a fight with a certain young model while out at a club, she retaliated by posting an embarrassing photo of the girl doing drugs on social media with the caption “how can I help someone with a problem?” The model was promptly fired from her modeling agency and had to leave the country since she had no work visa. She returned to Egypt where she was then arrested during a crackdown on ‘immoral activity’ and ‘crimes against decency’. The model remains in prison.
But despite her malicious pettiness, Angelica Hunt is a consummate American. She could only exist in a place and time that worships youth, beauty, and wealth the way we do. She could only thrive in a culture that rewards backbiting, petty vendettas, and explosive rage as long as it has entertainment value.
She may not be royalty, but there is a chance that her father will one day be president, and that would make her—in a way—sort of like a princess. However, she’s already a princess in most of the ways that matter. She’s the pinnacle of everything we revere. She’s the princess America deserves.
36
Zoey
“I got the job,” I announced when Nathan’s assistant showed me into his office at noon, “I’m officially out of the tabloid business forever!”
Nathan’s smiling face went blank for a moment before he smiled, and the expression tugged at my heartstrings. “Congratulations Zoey,” he said, “I know you wanted this really badly.”
I nodded, feeling conflicted but proud to have finally moved beyond my shameful association with JuicyNews. The assistant who let me in softly closed the door behind himself, and I turned the lock as soon as he was gone. Nathan raised an eyebrow.
“Thanks, and congratulations to you,” I said as sweetly and positively as I could, coming over to him with an extra sway in my step, “I know you’ve worked really hard to make it to this day.”
“Thanks.” He replied with another short, wary smile, “you came here to talk me out of it though, didn’t you?”
I ignored the chairs facing the desk on the opposite side and sat down on his desk right in front of him in my tight, black dress. He ripped his eyes from my legs to my face and gazed at me with obvious nervousness behind his bright blue-green eyes. I shook my head reassuringly, but his skeptical expression persisted. I sighed.
“I considered it,” I admitted, “but it wouldn’t work, and it’s really not right for me to try and boss you around. You’re a grown up. This is your dream and I’m not going to stand in the way of it.”
Nathan looked completely stunned. The ensuing silence forced me to continue to babble. “What?” I blurted incredulously, “did you want me to come here and beg you not to do it? You’re too stubborn for that, and plus, I respect your judgement. I know a losing battle when I see one.”
Nathan finally chuckled and reached out to grab my hand tightly.
“You’re absolutely phenomenal,” he said, clutching my hand in both of his and staring at me in obvious wonder, “have I told you that today?”
“You haven’t, but please, feel free to continue complementing me as long as you like,” I invited, and we both laughed, diffusing the tension.
“Seriously,” Nathan said gratefully, “I was really afraid you would come here and seduce me and then you’d cry, and I would cave and cancel the launch. Thank you for not doing that. I’m not sure I could have resisted you.”
“Dammit!” I replied in irritation, “You know I wore some really sexy lingerie here to do just that. If I had thought it would have worked, I would have done it. Look, I have no right to tell you what to do. I know that. Especially since I’ll be going to Florida in less than two weeks. Even if…” I trailed off, not sure how to say what I wanted to say, or even if it was a good idea.
“Even if?” He repeated softly, rising to his feet in front of me. His wide eyes were full of hope, and it was killing me. I took a deep, cleansing breath and worked up my courage.
“Even if I’m falling in love with you too,” I finished, almost whispering it. Nathan grinned, and his smile was so beautiful it hurt.
When he kissed me, the corners of my eyes started to burn with unshed tears. I pulled away, shaking my head. I shouldn’t get too comfortable in his arms.
“I don’t know what to do,” I confessed, feeling weak and stupid, “I have to take this job. You have to do this launch. It feels like the universe is tearing us away from each other.”
Nathan looked conflicted as well. He looked at his fancy watch, at me, and then back at his watch. Internally, I cursed our terrible timing.
“I know this isn’t the right time for this conversation,” I said, not pulling out of his arms, “you’ve got a lot on your mind. Again, I didn’t come here to make you stressed out. I came here to kiss you for luck.”
I put on my fake, confident smile and pulled him back to me. Maybe we’d have a chance to discuss this later. If we didn’t, I’d admitted how I felt to Nathan and I knew he felt the same. Wasn’t that all that mattered?
He returned my kiss with eagerness, perhaps not wanting to dwell on my babbling, nervous confessions, either. We were almost out of time.
Our tongues sought each other desperately, and before long I was gasping and wanting more. My hands grasped at his hair, and then at the buttons on his shirt. He stilled my attempts to unbutton them. Confused, I went for his belt buckle instead, but he stopped that, too.
“Why not?” I complained, pulling out of our kiss to pout at him, “Are you worried your assistant will know what we’re up to in here?”
He smirked, “I hate to break it to you, but the entire staff of this building knows what we’re up to in here. It got out during the hacking investigation. News travels fast around here.”
I felt my cheeks burn. Of course, they knew. No wonder I’d received so many inquisitive looks when I arrived today. How humiliating.
“If it makes you feel any better,” Nathan added with a grin, “they think you’re some kind of superhero for figuring out who hacked us. I’ve had more than one inappropriate complement from subordinates on my excellent taste in women today.”
As consolation prizes go, that actually wasn’t half bad. Still, it was more than a bit embarrassing that the entire building knew I was banging the CEO. I swallowed hard.
“I wish you hadn’t told me that,” I said, pouting, “now I have to walk back out of here with everyone thinking we were knocking boots on your desk.”
“Knocking boots?” Nathan said with a smile, “That’s a new one. You really are from the South, aren’t you?”
“I’m serious!” I grumped, “and anyway you’re trying to distract me from my objective here.”
“Your objective being knocking boots on my desk?”
“Well, obviously,” I replied, going for his belt buckle again only to have my hands caught in his.
“Zoey,” Nathan said seriously, “I think we should go for delayed gratification today.”
“Delayed gratification?” I said skeptically, “Gross. Why?”
“We can always just have more sex after the launch,” I suggested, “there’s no limit on how much sex we have per day.”
Nathan shook his head.
“It won’t be the same,” he said, “because I have a really good surprise for you after I get back down to Earth.”
A surprise? I was intrigued, but still somewhat sexually frustrated.
“I don’t know how I feel about delayed gratification,” I said petulantly, “but it’s your big day. I guess you can have your way.”
“Do you love me?” Nathan asked, holding my hands in his.
“You know I do,” I replied, looking up into his handsome face. I was as anxious as I’d ever been, “do you love me?”
“Yes. And it’ll be worth it to wait.” Nathan promised, “I love you, Zoey. Everything is going to work out. Besides, we don’t have time for sex. I have to get down to the launch platform. The countdown will be starting soon.”
37
Nathan
One of the best things about owning your own rocket ship is that you get to design and decorate the inside of it. NASA obviously doesn’t let you do that, and everything has that intentionally brutal, government look. There’s no cohesive style to it whatsoever, even if it does have a weird charm. Since the procurement process is so rigid, labyrinthine, and bizarre, the contractors who actually produce the components that build our country’s space-faring vehicles are both excessively numerous and ungodly expensive. NASA ends up building a cockpit that looks like something a blind person would design for an octopus to pilot. It’s functional and more-or-less logical, but objectively hideous.
My rocket ship, on the other hand, was fucking stylish, with smooth lines, calm colors, and a vaguely retro-futuristic vibe. The geniuses in charge of creating the functionality, and the geniuses in charge of creating the design had been introduced to one another at the start of the process. Working together, they created something that was not only ergonomic and logical, but actively attractive. Starflier 1 was definitely the sexiest rocket ship in the world.
And it was about to be the sexiest rocket ship in space.
I’d dropped Zoey off at the viewing platform, this time populated by a much smaller crowd. She’d been so patient and good to me over the last few days. Assuming I didn’t die in the next hour, I was going to make it up to her. I was determined to keep her. But first, space.
The countdown clock above my head was at twenty minutes and counting. I was all strapped in and secured for the takeoff, during which there would not be much for me to do. This was a simple fly up and splash down flight. I wouldn’t even be piloting in the traditional sense; it was more like controlled falling.
The jitters were starting to set in. I was regretting not making Matthews and Gonçalves go through all the launch data with me again this morning. Maybe we’d missed something important. Something from the last test launch that had been overlooked. My brain was starting to come up with some really unpleasant possible scenarios, and I jumped like a little girl when my phone rang.
It was David. I let it go to voicemail, this was no time for lectures. He called again. And again. Then he texted.
“Answer please. I promise I won’t be annoying.”
“David?” I answered when he called next, “Did you really just promise you won’t ever be annoying again?”
“That statement is limited to the next half hour,” he replied, “but seriously, I wanted to talk to you before you went up. I’m sorry I had to be in LA today. I wish I could have been there.”
We’d always talked right before my other missions, even though they only numbered two: one aborted launch and my ill-fated trip to the ISS. He hadn’t wanted me to go on those, either.
“I’m touched,” I said sarcastically, although of course I genuinely was, “I heard from our cousin Alexander today, too.”
Alexander and his pregnant wife Madison ran both an enormous real estate investment group and a charitable foundation that kept them extremely busy. They were in Haiti right now and in the middle of a hurricane. The fact that Alexander had found time to call me given his hectic life was pretty cool. But that I hadn’t heard from David had been weighing on me.
“Did you hear from Nick?” David asked halfway hopefully, but I shook my head despite the fact he couldn’t see it.
“Don’t be ridiculous,” I said. None of us had heard from our cousin Nick in years. “If I blow up in twenty minutes, make sure you give him grief for that if he comes to the funeral.”
“Can you not say shit like that?” David snapped, “Ugh, why couldn’t you have picked a less stressful profession. You could have been, like, a professional golfer. You’re good at golf. Or an accountant, you were good at math, too.”
“I’m not that good at golf,” I replied, “and I’m not that interested in math. You know I’ve always wanted to be an astronaut.”
“I know,” he said, “because I was the one who had to listen to you prattle on endlessly about it for years. That doesn’t mean I like it, or that I approve. But I understand. Did Zoey try to talk you out of the launch today?”
“No,” I replied, still somewhat shocked by how lucky I was, “she didn’t. She said she knew it was useless to try and respected my decision.”
David didn’t reply at first. I wondered what he was thinking.
“I think I need to meet this girl,” was all David said after a moment.
“Yeah, I think you do.” I replied, unashamed, “I’m pretty in love with her.”
“Holy crap.”
“Holy crap is right,” I said, smiling into the phone and staring at the numbers slowly counting down. Seventeen minutes and counting.
David’s next reply was contemplative. “I guess you have an extra incentive not to die up there today.”
“Not that I needed an extra incentive not to die,” I said, “but yeah, I guess that I do. Don’t worry man, I’ll be up and back before you know it. This is way less dangerous than the last time I went up and stayed up for two months. The longer your mission is, the more can go wrong.”
“Except that shuttle had already been to space. It’s not new technology.”
“Technically neither is this,” I replied, “we’ve been putting people into orbit since our parents were kids.”
“Yeah, I know,” David said, “but somehow none of that is making me feel better. That’s my problem though. I’ve always been pessimistic and cynical, and this talk show thing is fucking awful. Why would anyone give someone like me a talk show? It’s a terrible idea and I’ve been stressed. But I know you’ve got this. Good luck.”
“Thanks man. See you on the other side,” I replied, and hung up utterly baffled. The amount of emotional openness that David had just exhibited was unprecedented. Sharing had never been his style, or mine. Usually we just left little bread crumbs of emotion, tiny hints to be decoded by someone that had the motivation and endurance to decipher them. I was better at reading him than probably anyone—we had shared a womb after all—but sometimes even I still didn’t know what I was dealing with.
The descending numbers above me continued their slow, inevitable progression toward the launch. I watched the countdown clock slowly counting down to zero, thinking of the future: my future, the future of my company, and Zoey.
38
Zoey
I was standing on the viewing platform, feeling my heart pounding a hard and furious rhythm against my ribs when I saw her sneak off. Angelica Hunt does nothing subtly. So, when she and Tara whispered amongst themselves and then slipped off in the opposite direction of the bathroom—heading toward the launch platform, I followed.
Angelica had not confronted me over my highly unflattering piece when we saw each other today. She’d eith
er not yet seen it, or simply didn’t care, because her eyes raked over my face with only mild surprise and promptly moved on. I’d actually been halfway hoping for some kind of reaction from her, and I was a bit disappointed. Perhaps because my usefulness had elapsed, and she felt she had no need. In all honestly, she looked like she had other things on her mind. I wondered if she’d had genuine feelings for Oleg/Marcus. I couldn’t actually ever recall seeing them speak, let alone be affectionate, but his betrayal can’t have felt good, even if he was merely a friend with benefits.
At a discrete distance, I followed Angelica and Tara down a narrow staircase and several long, twisting hallways. If they were aware of my pursuit, they gave no sign. They were talking together softly during their walk, but I couldn’t hear what they were saying. All I could tell was that Tara’s body language was becoming increasingly tense.
Wherever Angelica was heading, it wasn’t anywhere people like us were supposed to be. The pair began passing through doors that should probably have been locked, and the only way I was able to continue my pursuit was by catching them before they latched. Soon, we were well beyond the part of the complex I was familiar with.
The hallways we were passing down changed from being empty to being completely full of official-looking personnel. Before I knew it, I’d lost sight of Angelica and Tara completely. The people swirling around me made me feel vaguely claustrophobic.
“Cecelia,” I cried, when I spotted a familiar face among the strangers in the crowd, “I need to talk to you right now.”
The woman turned and gaped at me, and the force of her furious surprise caused the young man she had been speaking with to back up a step. He melted backward a few more steps and disappeared into the crowd.
“How the hell did you get all the way in here?” She snapped, “This is a secure area.”