Текст книги "Kiss the Sky"

Автор книги: Becca Ritchie

Соавторы: Krista Ritchie
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Kiss the Sky
by
Krista Ritchie, Becca Ritchie

[ Prologue ]
CONNOR COBALT

“You wanna know real life, kid?” a man once told me. “You gotta know yourself first.” He drank a bottle of booze from a paper bag, sitting on the backdoor steps of a five-star hotel. I wandered outside on my tenth birthday, needing air. Everyone in the convention hall was thirty-five and up. Not a single kid my age.

I wore a suit that squeezed my prepubescent frame too tight, and I tried to ignore the fact that just inside my mother with a swelling stomach pattered around her business partners. Even pregnant, she commanded every single person in that room with reticence and stoicism that I could easily mimic.

“I know who I am,” I told him. I was Connor Cobalt. The kid who always did right. The kid who always knew when to shut up and when to speak. I bit my tongue until it bled.

He eyed my suit and snorted. “You’re nothin’ but a monkey, kid. You wanna be those men in there.” He nodded to the door behind him. And then he leaned in close to me, as though to confess a secret, his vodka stench almost knocking me backwards. And yet, I still anticipated his words. “Then you gotta be better than them.”

The advice of an old drunkard stayed with me longer than anything my father ever said. Two years later, my mother sat me in our family parlor to deliver news that I would parallel with that memory. That shaped me in some catalytic way.

You see, a life can be broken down to years, months, memories and undulating moments. Three moments defined mine.

One.

I was twelve. I spent holidays at Faust Boarding School for Young Boys, but on one fluke of a weekend, I decided to visit my mother’s house outside of Philadelphia.

She chose then to tell me. She didn’t set a date, plan the event, make it into something larger than she thought it was. She broke the news like she was firing an employee. Swift and construct.

“Your father and I are divorced.”

Divorced. As in past tense. Somewhere along the line, I had missed something dramatic in my own life. It had passed right under my fucking nose because my mother believed it meant very little. She made me believe it too.

Their separation was deemed amicable. They had grown apart. Katarina Cobalt had never let me into her life one-hundred percent. She let no one see beyond what she gave them. And it was in this moment that I learned that trick. I learned how to be strong and inhuman all at once.

I lost contact with Jim Elson, my father. I had no desire to rekindle a relationship with him. The truths that I kept close were only painful if I let them be, and I convinced myself fairly well that they were just facts. And I moved on.

Two.

I was sixteen. In the dim Faust study room, smoke clouding the air, two upperclassmen appraised a line of ten guys, stopping in front of each pledge.

Joining a secret society was the equivalent of being accepted to a lacrosse team.  Dressed in preparatory slacks, blazers, and ties, the lot of us were supposed to grace the halls of Harvard and Yale and repeat the same mistakes all over again.

They asked each guy an identical question and each responded with a simple submissive yes and was told to drop to their knees. Then they set their sights on the next boy.

When they stopped in front of me, I stayed relatively composed. I tried mostly to hide a burgeoning, conceited smile. They looked like two apes pounding their chest and asking for a banana. The thing about me—I was not so willing to give just anyone my fucking banana. Every benefit should outweigh the cost.

“Connor Cobalt,” the blond said, leering. “Will you suck my cock?”

The question was supposed to show how willing we were to follow orders. And I honestly wasn’t sure how far they would go, all to prove this point.

What do I get out of it?

The prize would be a membership into a social clique. I believed I could obtain this a different way. I saw a path that no one else did.

“I think you have it backwards,” I told him, my smile peeking through. “You should suck my cock. You would enjoy it more.”

The pledges broke into laughter, and the blond stepped forward, his nose nearly touching mine. “What did you just say to me?”

“I thought I was perfectly clear the first time.” He was giving me the opportunity to bend down again. But if I wanted to be led by a group of testosterone poisoned monkeys, I would have joined the football team.

“You weren’t.”

“Then let me reiterate.” I leaned forward, confidence seeping through every pore. My lips brushed his ear. He liked that more than he thought he would. “Suck. My. Cock.”

He pushed me back, bright red, and my eyebrow arched.

“Problem?” I asked him.

“Are you gay, Cobalt?”

“I only love myself. In that respect, maybe. And yet, I still won’t blow you.” With this, I left the secret society behind.

Eight of the ten pledges joined me.

Three.

I was nineteen. At the University of Pennsylvania, an Ivy League.

And I sprinted down the student center, slowing to a brisk walk as I reached the girls’ bathroom. I pushed open the door, and a brunette girl with four-inch heels and a conservative blue dress stood by the sink, scrubbing a stain with wet paper towels, her eyes bloodshot with anger and anxiety.

When she saw me enter, she directed all of her pent-up frustration at my incoming body. “This is the girls’ bathroom, Richard.” She used my first real name and tried to fling a paper towel at me. But it fluttered to the ground in defeat.

I wasn’t the one who spilt a can of Cherry Fizz on her dress. But in Rose Calloway’s mind, I might as well have been the offender. We crossed paths every year, my boarding school and her prep school competing at Model UN and honor societies.

I was supposed to be her Student Ambassador today—taking her on tour of campus before her interview with the Dean, which would decide whether or not she’d be in the Honor’s Program

“I’m aware,” I told her easily, more concerned by her state. She gripped the sink at one point, like she was about to scream.

“I’m going to kill Caroline. I’m going to rip out her hair one strand at a time and then steal all of her clothes.”

Her excessive exaggerations always reminded me of a rumor I’d heard around Faust. That during a health class at Dalton Academy, her prep school, she took her baby doll and stabbed the stuffing with a pair of scissors. Another person said she scribbled over the baby’s forehead and handed it to the teacher. The note: I won’t care for an inanimate object unless the boys do it too.

People thought she was nuts—in a genius “I will devour your soul” kind of way.

I thought she was fucking fascinating.

“Rose—”

She slammed her palms on the counter. “She spilt soda on me. I’d rather she punched me in the face. At least I have makeup.”

“I have a solution.”

She raised a hand to me. “This is an ego-free bathroom.”

“Then what the fuck are you doing here?” I asked her with the tilt of my head.

She glared, and I neared her anyway, about to help. She shoved my chest in anger.

I hardly even moved. “That was a little infantile, even for you.”

“It’s sabotage,” she said with blazing eyes, pointing a finger at me. “Academic gluttony. I hate cheaters, and she’s cheated me out of Penn.”

“You’ve already been accepted,” I reminded her.

“Would you go to a college without being admitted to the Honor’s Program?”

I said nothing. She knew my answer.

“Exactly.”

I tossed the sodden towels in the nearby trash, and my actions started loosening her shoulders as she watched me closely. Then I began to shrug off my red blazer.

“What are you doing?” she asked.

“This is what help looks like.”

She shook her head. “I don’t want to be indebted to you.” She pointed another finger at me and stepped back. “I know how you work. I get it. You do things for students and they have to pay you back in some sick way.” Opportunity cost. Benefits. Deals. They were the foundation of my life.

“I’m not prostituting people.” I held out my blazer. “There’s not a string attached to this. I’m not expecting anything in return. Take it.”

She just kept shaking her head at me.

My hand fell. “What?”

“Why do you act like that around Caroline?” she suddenly asked.

I read into her question. I heard: Why do you like her? Caroline was a typical WASP girl. She always looked at me with predatory gaze, silently asking: What use will you be to me? Will I marry you some day and take all your fucking money?

But Rose Calloway was different. She was fashionable. But not a sorority girl. She was a genius on paper. But not a team player. She was quick to loathe others. But not against loving.

She was a complicated equation that didn’t need to be solved.

I didn’t even have time to respond. That’s how fast Rose moved in her state of irritation. She set her hands on her hips and mimicked me from earlier that day. “You ride well, Caroline. I saw you at the equestrian event last week. How’s your mother?”

“I was being kind.”

“You’re different around certain people,” she told me. “I’ve known you long enough from academic conferences to see it. You act one way with them and another with me. How do I know who the real Connor Cobalt is?”

You never will. “I’m as real with you as I can be.”

“That’s complete bullshit,” she cursed.

“I can’t be you,” I told her. “You leave a trail of bodies with your glares. People are afraid to approach you, Rose. That’s a problem.”

“At least I know who I am.”

We had somehow drawn towards each other. I towered over her, taller than most men and built like an athlete. I never hunched. Never recoiled. I wore my height with pride.

She raised her chin to combat me. I pushed her to be the best that she could be.

“I know exactly who I am,” I said with every ounce of confidence I possessed. “What unsettles you, Rose, is that you have no idea what kind of guy that is.” I stepped closer and she stiffened. “If people stare at me and see my problems, then I’m useless to them. So I give them exactly what they want. I am whomever or whatever they need.” I held out my blazer again. “And you need a fucking jacket.”

She reluctantly took the blazer but hesitated. “I can’t be you,” she said. “I can’t internalize all of my feelings. I don’t understand how you can do that.”

“Practice.”

Our eyes met for an extended moment. There was so much between us that I wasn’t ready to uncover right then. I wasn’t prepared for the deep conversations that she would force me to have.

Rose Calloway couldn’t stand me because of what I was—a guy who wanted to reach the top. The irony was that she wanted the same thing. She just wasn’t willing to do what I was to get there.

She slipped on my blazer that dwarfed her frame. “What part of you do you show me?” she asked.

“The best part.”

She rolled her eyes. “If you have nothing real to say, Richard, then why speak at all?”

I couldn’t form the words to reply with what she wanted. I spent years building barriers and defenses. I could take care of a woman better than any other guy could. But my mother never taught me how to love. She taught me about stocks and history and different languages. She made me intelligent.

She made me logical and factual.

I knew sex. I knew affection. But love? That was an illogical concept, something as fictional as the Bible, Katarina Cobalt would say. When I was a child, I thought love belonged in fantasy with witches and monsters. It couldn’t exist in real life, and if it did, it was just like religion—only there to make people feel good.

Love.

That was fake to me.

And I nearly rolled my eyes. There you go, Connor. That’s something fucking real. That’s something from the heart.

“Rose,” I began. And she turned to look at me. And her gaze was like the depths of hell. Ice cold. Bitter. Tumultuous and pained. I wanted to bear it all. But I couldn’t show her all the cards I held to do so. I couldn’t let her in. I’d lose the game first. And it had only just begun. “You’re going to do great.”

And that was it.

She was gone.

Through a friend of a friend, I learned that Rose Calloway was accepted to the Honor’s Program. I learned that she denied the request to attend Penn. For whatever reason, she chose Princeton, our rival college.

Six months later, I started to date Caroline Haverford. Not long after that, she became my girlfriend.

It was a life that I saw coming.

It was one that I was prepared for.

There was nothing spontaneous or alluring about it.

At nineteen, everything was just practical.

[ 1 ]
ROSE CALLOWAY

Five Years Later

You know the stories where the strong, brawny man struts into a room with his head high, his chest puffed, and his stocky shoulders pulled back—he’s the king of the jungle, the big man on campus, the one who quivers girls’ knees. He carries an air of unwarranted superiority for the pure fact that he has a dick, and he knows it. He expects the girl to go tongue-tied and agree to his every demand.

Well, I am living that story right now.

The man settles into a seat at the head of the conference table (instead of the chair nearest me) and just stares in my direction.

Maybe he thinks I’m going to be that stupefied girl. That I will cower beneath his deep gray eyes and his combed dishwater blond hair. He’s twenty-eight, stained with Hollywood elitism and self-righteousness. When I first talked to him, he name-dropped actors and producers and directors, waiting for me to go slack-jawed and dopey. “I know so-and-so. I did a project with what’s-his-face.”

My boyfriend had to grab the phone out of my hand before I cursed at the Hollywood exec for irritating the shit out of me.

He finally speaks. “Do you have the contracts?” His chair screeches as he leans back.

I pull out the stack of papers from my handbag.

“Bring them here.” He motions to me with two fingers.

“You could have sat beside me,” I retort, standing on two chunky heels with brass buttons, military-inspired and part of the new Calloway Couture collection.

“But I didn’t,” he says easily. “Come here.”

My heels clink across the hardwood, and I make the perilous catwalk up to Scott Van Wright.

He props one ankle on his thigh, his finger to his cheek as he unabashedly peruses my body. From my slender legs, to the hem of my black pleated dress with sheer quarter-sleeves, and to the high collar that frames my stiff neck. He traces my dark-glossed lips, my rose-blushed cheeks, and bypasses right over my pissed-off eyes, spending an extra moment fixated on my chest.

I stop by his legs and throw the contracts on the table in front of him. They slide off the polished surface and land on his lap. One stapled stack even slips to the floor. I smile wide since he has to bend down awkwardly to reach them.

“Pick that up,” he tells me.

My smile fades. “It’s underneath the desk.”

He cocks his head, giving me another long once-over. “And you dropped it.”

He cannot be serious. I cross my arms, not responding to his request. He just sits there, waiting for me to comply.

This is a test.

I’m used to them. Sometimes I even dole them out myself, but this one is going to lead me nowhere good.

If I bend down, he’ll establish this strange power over me. He’ll be able to command me in the same way that Connor Cobalt can force people to do his bidding with simple words.

It’s a manipulator’s gift.

I’m not even close to possessing it. I think I wear my emotions too much to have that type of influence over other people.

“Grab it,” he says, his gaze halting on my breasts again.

I remind myself why I need Scott and why I want the swarm of cameras to document my every move. I inhale. Okay. You have to do it, Rose. Whatever it takes. I cringe and drop to my knees. In a dress. This is a job for a personal assistant, not a client.

I hear him click his pen as I scoop up the papers. I’m not wearing a low-cut top where I’ll flash him. I don’t have huge breasts to really ogle either. The most he can do is slap my ass and try to peek up my dress, the hem perilously rising on my thighs.

When I stand back up and smack the papers to the table, his lips curve upward.

Scott Van Wright (asshole) 1 – Rose Calloway (pathetic) 0.

I sit in the nearest chair while Scott stuffs the contracts in his briefcase.

My boyfriend urged me to bring his lawyer to the meeting, but I didn’t want Scott to think that I couldn’t handle the situation myself. I won’t have a lawyer while the cameras follow me, and I’d rather take command now.

Not that I’m doing a terrific job.

If I ordered Scott to do anything, he’d laugh at me. But I attended a few law courses before I graduated from Princeton. I know my rights.

“Just so we have this clear, you work for me,” I remind him. “I hired you to produce the show.”

“That’s cute. But after you signed that contract, you’ve officially become my employee. You’re the equivalent of an actress, Rose.”

No. “I can fire you. You can’t fire me. That doesn’t make me your employee, Scott. That makes me your boss.”

I expect him to withdraw from this losing battle, but he shakes his head like I’m wrong. I know I’m right… Right? “My production company has sole ownership over anything the Calloway sisters film on network television. If you fire me, you need just cause and you can’t jump to another producer. I’m your only shot at having a reality show, Rose.”

I remember that clause, but I never thought it would be an issue. I figured I’d be around Scott maybe twice during the whole filming process. But these were his first words when he walked into the conference room: “We’re going to be seeing a lot of each other.” Lovely.

My eyes grow hot. I have to concede on this one. He won. Somehow. I hate it.

“So, now that we have that clear,” he says, sitting up and edging closer to me. His knees almost knock into mine. I go utterly rigid. “There are a few details we need to go over in case you misread them in the contract.”

“I don’t misread things.”

“Well evidently you weren’t using a portion of your brain or else you would have realized that you work for me now. And we wouldn’t have wasted…” He checks his watch. “…five minutes of my time.” He flashes me a sardonic smile like I’m a little girl.

“I’m not an idiot,” I retort. “I graduated at the top of my class with highest honors—”

“I don’t care about your fucking degree,” he says sharply. “You’re in the real world now, Rose Calloway. No university is going to teach you how to navigate this industry.”

Doubt surfaces. I don’t know much about reality television, but I’ve been immersed in the media long enough to know it can help someone as much as it can destroy them.

And I need that help.

I understand exactly why the network would take an interest in the daughters of Fizzle. My father’s brand has beat Pepsi for the past two years in sales, and he’s working to make Fizzle the soda of choice among southern states. We should be as anonymous as the face behind Coca-Cola, but ever since my family was thrust into the public eye, we’ve been under intense scrutiny, and it’s all because of my younger sister’s scandal.

My brand should have exploded from all the media and press, but the name Calloway Couture has been linked with Lily’s dirty secrets. And what once was a thriving fashion line in H&M has been destitute in boxes and boxes, piled in my New York office.

I need good exposure, the kind that will have women desiring a one-of-a-kind coat, a unique pair of a boots, an affordable but chic handbag. And Scott Van Wright is offering me a primetime reality show that will tempt viewers to purchase my pieces.

So that’s why I’m agreeing to this.

I want to save my dream.

Scott says, “There will be cameras in your living room and kitchen at all times, even after the three-person crew leaves. You’ll only have privacy in your bedrooms and bathrooms.”

“I remember this.”

“Good.” Scott clicks his pen. “Then maybe you’ll remember that each week, I expect to have interviews with the cast, which includes you, your three sisters—”

“Not three,” I say. “Only Lily and Daisy agreed to the show.” My eldest sister, Poppy, wouldn’t sign the contract because she didn’t want her daughter to be filmed. My little niece has already endured enough paparazzi since Lily’s scandal.

“Fine, she would have been a boring addition anyway.”

I glower.

“I’m just being honest.”

“I’m used to blunt honesty,” I tell him. “I just find yours crass.”

He eyes me in a new way, as though my words carried a plume of toxic pheromones. I don’t understand. I am so mean. I am glaring like I want to rip off his penis, and yet, he’s attracted. There is something seriously wrong with him.

And maybe my boyfriend.

And really, any guy who’d like to be with me. I’m not even sure I want to be with me.

“As I was saying…” His knee brushes mine.

I roll backwards, and he only grins more. This is not a cat-and-mouse game like he believes. I am not a mouse. And he’s not a cat. Or vice versa. I am the fucking shark, and he’s a lame human in my ocean.

And my boyfriend, he’s the same species as me.

“Continue,” I snap.

“I’ll be interviewing you, your two sisters, Lily’s boyfriend and his brother.” 6 people + 6 months + 3 cameramen + 1 reality show = infinite drama. I’ve done the math.

Scott will be conducting the interviews though… I internally gag. “You’re forgetting my boyfriend,” I say. “He’s a part of the show too.”

“Oh right.”

“Don’t act like you forgot, Scott. You just said you were practicing honesty, and now, well, you’re a bit of a liar.”

He ignores my slight. “Every episode will be aired one week after we’ve filmed. The premiere will be in February, but we’re filming ASAP. Like I mentioned over the phone, we’re trying to make this show as real-time as possible. It’s been six months since it was publicized that your sister is a sex addict. We need to capitalize off that buzz as quickly as we can.”

“You and every other person with a camera,” I say. There’s always at least two chubby males stationed outside my gated house with lenses pointed at us. Lily jokes that they’re probably hanging around waiting for her to give them blow jobs. I would be more amused if I didn’t see the mail that perverts send her, most accompanied with pictures of their hairy genitals—it’s a sick fan club. I sift through her letters before I hand them to her now.

“And lastly,” Scott says, “you have no control over how you’re edited. That’s my call.”

I have about as much power over the reality show as I do paparazzi’s snap-quick photos.

I can try to act like a non-bitchy, non-argumentative angel on film, and Lily can try to be a virginal saint. But at the end of the day, the cameras will catch us. Flaws and all. And there’s no forcing something different. That was the stipulation that all my friends and sisters agreed to.

To do the show, we’re not pretending to be someone else.

And I would never ask that of them.

We’re rolling the dice on this one. People may hate us. They already call Lily a whore on gossip blogs. But in the small chance that people grow to love us—my company may be saved. I just need good publicity so that a retailer has a reason to stock my clothing line again.

And maybe Fizzle won’t be so bruised by Lily’s impropriety too. Maybe my father’s soda company will rise in stocks rather than fall.

That’s the hope.

“Are you okay with this?” Scott questions.

“I don’t know why you ask. I signed the contract. I have to be okay with it or else you’ll take me to court.”

He lets out a short laugh and scans my body for the third time. “I can’t imagine your boyfriend knows what to do with you.”

“Because you’ve never met him.”

“I’ve spoken to him. He sounds malleable.” He taps his pen. “If I told him to drop on his knees and suck my cock, I think he would.”

My nostrils flare. I am fuming. “You think that.” I stand. “And when he stabs you in the fucking front, I’ll be the one smiling by his side.”

Scott grins at this. “Challenge accepted.”

Stupid intellectual pricks.

Funny thing is, I’m dating one.

So while I’m stuck in this moronic cock fight, I know I’m partially to blame.

I knew I should have lowered my standards—dated a guy who rides around on his skateboard with his shirt inside-out. I grimace. Just kidding. I’ll take my suit-and-tie boyfriend. I’ll take the high IQ and the rapid-fire banter. I just hope Scott’s eagerness to unsettle him won’t disrupt the reality show.

But if I know anything, it’s this:

My boyfriend loves winning.

And he hates to lose even more.