Текст книги "Kiss the Sky"
Автор книги: Becca Ritchie
Соавторы: Krista Ritchie
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Текущая страница: 4 (всего у книги 26 страниц)
Ryke shoots him the middle finger with an added glare.
I can feel Connor’s chest rising in irritation. “I don’t know why I care,” Connor says. “It’s not like anyone will understand you anyway. You curse every other word. They’re going to literally bleep you out of the show.”
“And that’d make you so fucking happy.”
“I’d be happier if I could tie you up to the front porch and leave you there. I’d even be kind enough to toss you a steak bone to gnaw on.”
Lo can’t stop laughing.
Ryke’s eyes darken at his brother. “Where’s the fucking loyalty?”
His laughter dies down and his lips fall. “Did you hear what you said to Daisy? Honestly, how about never bringing up her sex life. And then maybe I’ll consider siding with you.”
“You guys.” Daisy waves her hand to regain focus. “I’m not screwing my boyfriend. I just don’t want any of you to meet him. He’s kind of dumb.”
Ryke’s jaw hardens. “He’s dumb? Then why the fuck are you with him?”
Daisy shrugs and avoids his dark eyes. “He’s nice.”
Scott suddenly scoots closer to me, his hip pressing against mine. I want to edge towards Connor, but I don’t want to look frightened of Scott. So I stand my ground and feel his warm breath on my ear.
“You should go next. See what your future holds.”
I bristle at the thought of being told something like “someone you love will die soon” or “you’ll marry a stupid man.” Connor may not take stock in psychics, but a part of me will always be a little superstitious.
“Madame,” Scott calls before I can stop him. “Rose would like to go next.”
“And then you?” Connor asks. “We’d all love to know when you’ll die.”
The muscles in Scott’s jaw twitch.
Madame Charmaine sidles over to our couch and kneels in front of me. She snatches my hand and scans the lines on my palm wildly. “Mmm.”
I don’t like mms. They sound like unintelligible baby muttering, which is the equivalent of sticking a sharp needle in my ear.
“I think…that I will have a better reading with cards.” She pulls the shuffled deck from her pocket. “Split this in half. Do not flip them over.”
I do as she says, randomly picking from the pile, purple crescent moons printed on the back of each card.
She returns to her ottoman beside the coffee table and starts flipping the cards right side up. I can’t see any of the designs, but I think I spot a white unicorn on one, which has Connor rolling his eyes.
Even so, he intertwines his fingers in mine and kisses my knuckles, as though I need extra reassurance before she exposes my future.
She overturns the last card. “I see,” she says and nods. “You’re very fertile. I sense two strong male spirits in your life, possibly twin boys in the future.” She has to be joking.
A crying baby—that’s a personal circle of hell for me. When my eldest sister, Poppy, had her child, I didn’t acknowledge my niece until she could form intelligible sentences. I have nothing in common with kids. And no one needs to tell me I would make a horrible mother. I know it’s true. Which is why I plan to never have children.
“Take it back,” I snap.
“I can’t return a reading.”
“It’s not a purse, Rose,” Connor chimes in, his lips rising. “It’s your future.” His amusement is palpable.
I point a finger at him. “Shut. Up.”
Connor grabs my hand and says, “I won’t believe in it if you won’t.”
He doesn’t seem that upset by my declaration (technically I’ve voiced my baby-disdain before so it shouldn’t come as a surprise) but I strangely ache for a true answer. For his honesty. I know he’s not going to share it now, not when the cameras are rolling and with Scott sitting right beside me.
“Deal,” I say.
The psychic clicks her tongue. “I think I’m picking up someone else’s energy. It’s very black, very dark, not good at all.”
“Definitely Connor,” Loren says with a wink.
Connor actually cracks a smile, and as far as I can tell, it’s genuine.
“No,” Madame Charmaine says. “It’s from her.” She stares right at Lily. No, no, no.
“You’re going to be married soon, are you not?”
Lily slides lower on the loveseat, uncomfortable with the attention, especially as Brett and Ben direct both of their lenses at her. “Yes,” she says in a small, feeble voice. Lo sets their paper plates on the coffee table.
“All right,” Connor says, standing and nearing the psychic. “I think that’s enough magic for one night.” He puts a hand on Madame Charmaine’s elbow, and she rises with the pressure. “It was really nice to meet someone who’s dabbled in the dramatic arts, but I think it’s time for you to go.”
Loren mouths, thank you, to Connor, and then he rubs Lily’s back.
But Scott has to ruin it as he stands. “I’m in charge of production, Connor. I say when these events end.” He looks to the clock. “And we have ten more minutes.”
On cue, Madame Charmaine directs her next question to Lily. “This wedding, you don’t want to go through with it, do you?”
“What?” Lily’s eyes grow wide. “No…” She looks to Loren. “I mean, yes. Yes, I do want it. Why wouldn’t I?” She glances at the camera in alarm. “I…I love Lo so much. He’s my best friend…”
“Hey,” Lo says, tugging her to his chest, now settled on his lap. “You don’t have to tell that old hag anything.”
Ryke shakes his head and mutters under his breath, “Did he just fucking call her an old hag?”
“Yep,” Daisy says.
“Fucking fantastic.”
Lily doesn’t look well. Her shoulders curve forward like she’s a shivering puppy caught in the rain. I stand next to Connor. “Okay, Madame…” I can’t even say her name without rolling my eyes too. “…either you leave early…” I give Scott a glower before he can refute. “Or stop badgering my sister.”
But her lips fly open again. “Why would you get married if you’re full of apprehension?” she asks Lily.
I am going to kill Scott! If he planted these questions at all…I actually let out a little growl, and Connor puts a hand on my shoulder. I want to pluck out Scott’s eyeballs with my nails. And then stomp on them with the sharp point of my heel.
I spin towards him, my eyes growing hot. “Did you tell her to ask these questions?”
Scott feigns confusion. “Now why would I do that?”
Lily stammers. “I-I’m not apprehensive.” But she is.
After her sex addiction became public, Fizzle’s publicists suggested the best options for damage control. At the top of the list—a marriage. It would show that Lily’s in a committed relationship. That she’s not as deviant as the world believes.
So our mother and father have cut Lily off financially until she legally marries Loren. And our parents wanted them to wait a full year, so it wouldn’t seem like a shotgun wedding. Not very many people know that this is a scheme. But even so, the marriage will be real. In six more months, she’ll no longer be a Calloway.
This is not a wedding out of love (even though they’d most likely marry in five, six years regardless). Our parents decided this for them, and so the wedding is just one based on money and appearance. Nothing more.
Lily and Loren both have reservations and doubts. I’ve talked to Lily about it, and she’s told me point-blank that she hates the idea of looking back at her wedding pictures and just seeing something fake and cold. I want their marriage to start out on good terms too, but I can’t see a way out of this.
And I do agree with my mother on some level. I do think this will help Fizzle because it will repair Lily’s image in the media. Do I believe it’s worth it? That’s only Lily’s call. I know she’s complying with the wedding more out of guilt for hurting Fizzle, our father’s company, than regaining her inheritance.
Madame Charmaine holds up her hands. “There are so many emotions.” She presses her fingers to her forehead.
Connor’s composed, unreadable face is slowly breaking in annoyance.
“It’s not me!” Lily shouts all of a sudden. She springs from the couch. “I love Loren. Look.” She kisses Lo on the cheek and then the lips.
He recoils, the exact wrong thing to do to her right now. But he’s trying to understand her mental state, which is gradually going sideways. My sister is like a ball of twine that can unravel slowly or quickly, depending on the person tugging at the other end.
Lily flinches back, not expecting Lo to stop kissing her. She bumps into the table and knocks over a lit candle. Oh my God.
“Oh, I didn’t mean…” Tears flood her eyes, thinking she’s ruined everything. She tries to lift the candle back up, but Loren catches her around the waist, pulling her to his chest before she burns herself.
The flame ignites a paper napkin and a paper plate. Daisy picks up the napkin like it’s a dirty diaper, not a ball of fire. “Whoa, guys, this is pretty warm.”
“Really?” Ryke says, grabbing her wrist and trying to relinquish the burning napkin from her.
“Yeah, really, really. Want to feel?” She smiles playfully, waving the thing towards him. He doesn’t even jerk back.
“You’re hilarious.”
“I thought I was just smoking hot.”
I’d like to say that I am the normal one out of my sisters, but I am frantically trying to grab the pitcher of water that sits on the edge of the coffee table. So much so, that I knock over another candle.
Just lovely.
The cameras are swinging behind us, as wild as the flames.
Daisy has to toss the napkin back down on the table before it burns her hand. And the psychic yells something about her cards, gathering them in a messy stack.
And then a pair of hands peels me away from the growing flames that has eaten our napkins and started for the purple tablecloth. “The water,” I start, but Connor places me by the wall and then brings out a fire extinguisher.
In seconds, my boyfriend has snuffed out the fire. And the psychic has bolted from my house with her purple bag in tow.
The quiet lingers, and all we hear is muffled, “ImsorryImsorryImsorry.”
My heart constricts, and I find Lily mumbling the string of apologies into Loren’s shirt. He has his hand on the back of her head, his features sharpened. When he looks up at me, he says, “Thank God for Connor, right?” He tries to play off the pain that contorts his face.
“God always has a way of stealing my credit,” Connor says.
Loren’s lips curve in a small smile.
I think, in this moment, I love Connor more for lightening the mood than for saving my cedar coffee table. But I am glad this table isn’t burned.
It’s an antique.
Loren lifts Lily in a front piggy-back so she doesn’t have to meet the camera’s concentrated gaze.
Scott turns to me. “Looks like we’ll be seeing that lap dance after all.”
“Excuse me?” I sneer.
The room blankets in tense silence. Scott grins. “You made a bet a few days ago. I saw the footage. If someone cried during the psychic segment, you’d have to give your boyfriend a lap dance.”
Shit. Fuck. Shit…
“Lily didn’t really cry,” I say instantly.
Loren shifts her a little, and I see his T-shirt, wet with her tears. She wipes her cheeks quickly, trying to hide her sadness, but it’s there. I forget that Loren’s not on my side for the bet. Hell, he’s the one who proposed the wager.
I snap at Lo, “You should feel awful for profiting off of her emotions.”
“She was there when you made the bet,” he reminds me. “Lap dance rain check? Lily and I want a front row seat.”
Lily mutters something that sounds like only if she wants to.
“Fine,” I say as Connor’s hand skims my waist. I step out of his touch, anxiety heating my neck more than the small fire ever did. I am going to have to gyrate on him. In public. With millions of people watching later on television. Oh. Shit…
The only upside: the first episode is airing in February, a month from now. So I have some time before people witness my inability to grind.
“I think we missed something,” Daisy says to Ryke.
He stares down at her. “Apparently I’ve been missing a lot of fucking things lately.”
She looks away from him, and when she notices I’m watching her, she just smiles at me. I think Ryke is worried about her. We all are. There’s a small fear she’s going to end up like Lily—sex crazed and compulsive. All this media attention is affecting her at school in ways that no one knows. Daisy won’t talk to us about it. And she could very well blow off steam in a bad manner.
Loren carries Lily out of the living room and up the stairs, her legs wrapped around him. Wiry Ben follows close behind.
I turn slightly, and my arm hits a camera. Pudgy Brett has a big smug grin on his face, as if he won the bet too. Well I guess everyone fucking won but me. “Put that smile away, Brett, before I make it a permanent frown.” My threat does sound serious (it’s really not), but I’m edgy enough that I feel like I could truly cause astronomical damage.
I glance around at the coffee table. White foam. Charred napkins. Burnt food. Dirtied plates. An overturned ottoman. Is that a stain on the rug? Oh…
“I’ll clean it up,” Connor tells me.
“I’ll help,” Scott adds.
Connor gives him a look.
“What?” Scott smiles. “I live here now. Might as well lend a helping hand.”
I have a feeling that a “helping hand” is more than I’ll get from Scott.
Six months. Six months.
If I repeat it, maybe it won’t feel so long.
[ 6 ]
CONNOR COBALT
This is a shit waste of an afternoon.
The thought runs on repeat as I listen to another Cobalt Inc. board member drone on about advertising and angel investors. I have the urge to stand up and let everyone know that they have successfully battered the conversation.
But I don’t.
These are the highest ranked employees in the company. If there’s any hope of taking the reins to Cobalt Inc. without looking like I undeservingly inherited it, I have to bite my tongue. The company owns brands like MagNetic, Smith & Keller paints, and other profitable subsidiaries—things that have lined my pockets since birth.
I feign interest as best I can, but I’m sitting at the head of a long conference table filled with twenty middle-aged men. During these meetings, I’m my mother’s interim—a position she granted me two years ago. It means nothing really.
On paper, I’m still just her son. This is merely a test.
My mother has never been quick to let go of the empire she built from the ground up. In order to be a board member, become the CEO, and acquire her shares, I have to prove myself. Like these meetings or certain tasks she gives me at the least opportune moments. My cellphone is always in my pocket, threatening to go off.
I keep waiting for the sudden demand to entertain her business partners or a family friend. And I’m always grateful when she’s decided to leave me alone for the night.
I type “notes” onto the small tablet in my lap. Really, I’m outlining an assignment I have to complete tonight for one of my business courses at Wharton. I may have graduated from Penn last year, but now I’m in the big leagues. Grad school. I want an MBA. I don’t need it. Not really.
I’ll be CEO of Cobalt Inc. with or without the degree. But the respect I crave won’t be handed to me so easily.
My phone buzzes in my pants, loud enough for Steve Balm, the COO and my mother’s most respected board member, to pause his discussion on finger paints. Steve has been ranting about primary colors and the hearts of children everywhere. He wants to fuck over Crayola. Not his words, but I read between the lines.
“Are we interrupting you, Connor?” Steve asks, his gray brows furrowing critically. Steve and I have a long history. I suppose it began at birth—when he was dubbed my godfather.
I don’t make a move for my phone. “Did I say anything?” I refute. I hit the mute button before it can vibrate again.
“Aren’t you going to answer that?” Gary Holmes, a stocky-built board member asks a few chairs down. “Could be Hollywood. You’re a movie star now, aren’t you?”
Light chuckling filters across the room. They jest because they knew me when I was seven years old, when my mother carted me through the hallways.
I am a boy in their eyes.
I won’t win them over by arguing, by pounding my fists against my chest and demanding to be taken seriously. So I turn to Steve. “If you’d like to drive this company into the ground, by all means choose to spend millions of our research fund into finding an unpatented health-friendly finger paint.”
Steve doesn’t reveal whether he agrees or not, his face as blank as mine.
“Katarina wants to expand.” Steve directs the statement to the boardroom. “She’s giving us a week to propose viable options to take Colbalt Inc. to the next level.”
“We could just get in bed with Fizzle,” Gary says, “Connor’s already a quarter of the way there.”
Before the room can erupt in another wave of laughter, I ask, “And what would we do with Fizzle? We’re a paint and magnet company. Should we poison consumers with our magnetic soda cans?” Everyone remains quiet, eyes flitting between one another. I keep my gaze pinned on Gary as he reddens and sinks lower into his chair.
I straighten, silently reminding everyone who’s not a child in the room.
“It was a joke,” Gary says in defense. He looks to Steve for support, but my godfather never offers him a life vest. If you’re drowning, you fucking drown.
“Unless they involve productive opinions, keep your jokes to yourself,” I say sharply. Now I slip my phone out of my pocket. It was a text…
Virginia Woolf, Jane Austen, Anne Brontë – Rose
My lips threaten to rise, and it takes all my strength not to smile. I begin typing and speaking at the same time. “Katarina just notified me that she’s on her way,” I lie. Though after reading a quick email this morning, I do know she’s coming later.
Fuck. Kill. Marry. I type back and hit send before pocketing my phone.
“Any other fabulous ideas, Gary?” Steve asks. And there it is. His opinion. I meet his eyes and he gives me a small nod, letting me know he agrees with me. I don’t let out a breath of relief. This is just one meeting of many.
Katarina arrives only five minutes later, and after Steve offers her a brief update, the board members clear out of the conference room. Leaving me alone with my mother.
Her deep, dyed red hair cascades in waves over her shoulders. She takes a seat in Steve’s open chair at my right-hand side. This won’t be a quick conversation then, but I’ve already spoken to her about the reality show.
I laid out the pros and cons in a spreadsheet, outlining all the reasons why I should be in the show. Mostly for Cobalt Inc.’s benefit. Exposure. Putting a face to our brand. It’s something that my mother wants but has never been able to do.
The only risk is bad press. Fizzle and Hale Co. stocks dropped considerably after Lily’s sex addiction was publicized. I was distanced enough from Rose’s sister that Cobalt Inc. didn’t suffer, but I’m edging myself closer to the Calloways. My mother has voiced her mild disapproval. She doesn’t like taking risks or getting her hands dirty. But that’s why she has me.
“Where are the cameras?” she asks, diving right in.
“There are only three cameramen,” I explain again. “They won’t follow me if I’m not with someone else. So if you’re worried about them coming into this building—”
“I’m not.” She pulls out her smart phone and simultaneously types an email while she speaks to me. “I’m worried that this girl is going to ruin you.”
“Her name is Rose, and she’s not going to ruin me.” She’s never met her, but they’ve both been pressuring me about letting them have coffee together or brunch. I just don’t see what good will come of it. And so I make excuses about my mother never having time to see Rose. And Rose never having time to see my mother. It’s a shit thing to do, but I’m certain they’ll hate each other. I also believe Katarina will try to run Rose out of my life, and I want her firmly by my side.
My mother pockets her phone and her eyes darken with displeasure. “She’s a powerful girl who started her own business as a teenager. She’s driven, independent, and passionate.”
All the things I admire, and yet, I know she’s about to turn every quality into something sinister and wrong.
“Working women don’t have men. We can’t keep relationships. We are married to our careers.” She announces each sentence like a nail in a coffin, pounding down the reality around me. “The children we do have are sent to boarding schools or are raised by nannies. It’s the life I wanted, even at the sacrifice of my husband and my child. You don’t want to walk into that, Connor. You’re smarter than that.”
I refuse to stare at the table, to look away from her dark blue eyes. I meet her powerful gaze with one of my own. Her words may affect me to some degree, but I won’t ever show it.
I don’t talk to my mother about my relationships very often, and any mention of Rose usually accompanies some sort of disparaging snort and blasé brush off. When I told her that I was moving in with Rose, she wouldn’t speak to me for weeks. She’d prefer that my girlfriend moved in with me. Not the other way around. I was willing to uproot my life for Rose, and according to Katarina Cobalt, other girls would have gladly walked into my home. In her eyes, I chose a path that doesn’t benefit me.
I had to use Steve Balm as an intermediary just to talk to her during that time.
Our communication reopened only after I explained the reality show and how it can help Cobalt Inc. if I take the right steps.
“You need to set your sights on a girl like Caroline Haverford,” she tells me. I internally grimace, but I don’t let on that her name sends knives into my spine. I dated Caroline. I fucked Caroline. But it was business. Like my relationship with my mother. Like my life.
Is it so bad to want something real?
“I’m with Rose,” I say sternly. “That’s not going to change.”
Her nails rap on the table, frustrated. Katarina Cobalt always gets what she wants, and this is the first time I’ve put on the brakes, unwilling to give in to her requests.
“Caroline will be there for you. She’ll have time for you. Rose won’t. You’ll grow resentful and bitter of each other. And as years pass, you’ll realize you’re sleeping next to a stranger.”
“Are we still talking about my relationship?” I ask her with an arched brow.
Her lips press in a tight line. “Do you love her?”
“Love is an irrational feeling,” I say. I hate that I actually believe these words. “It makes smart people do stupid things. My relationship with Rose is…stimulating.” I think I’m a sociopath. Fuck. I need to see Frederick.
“Good,” my mother says with a nod. “No need to make this into some tragic Shakespearean tale. At least she hasn’t corrupted your mind yet.”
My mother rises from her chair and straightens her pencil skirt.
“I’d like to meet her,” she tells me for the thousandth time. “Schedule an appointment with Marci, and if you don’t, I’ll call Rose myself. We don’t need you to lie for us anymore.”
Her heels click away, leaving me to picture the impending meeting of Katarina Cobalt and Rose Calloway.
There will be screaming. Yelling. Possible bloodshed.
Though she’s resilient, I’m not so sure Rose will come out victorious this time.
My cellphone chimes and I see the name flash across the screen. Scott Van Wright. Wonderful.
When I answer the phone, I make sure I have the first words. “Scott, how sweet of you to call, I was beginning to suspect you didn’t like me very much.”
“Why would you get that idea?” You want to fuck my girlfriend.
“You like Rose better.” I throw out the bait, testing his response.
“I do like her better,” he tells me. “She’s prettier.” I wait for him to add something crude like “and she has a pussy” but he doesn’t. Either I’ve been hanging around vulgar people for too long or he’s censoring himself.
“Many men would disagree,” I say casually. “So why the sudden call?”
“I’m picking up food from the grocery store. I thought I’d get some of Rose’s favorite things. What does she like?”
“Me.”
He lets out a laugh. “This phone call is being filmed, you know. I have you on speaker.” He says it like he caught me in a spider’s web.
“She also loves my cock, my hair, my brain, my body—”
“Yeah, she loves you so much that she’s still a virgin.” He must have discovered that from an interview. Or maybe footage of someone mentioning it. Rose isn’t ashamed of being a virgin at all, so I could see her admitting it to the cameras.
“And you’re her ex-boyfriend,” I say blankly. “She has intimacy issues, and it’s not a far reach to conclude it’s from your impotence.” None of it is true, but I hope he airs this.
Doubtful.
He snorts.
“Oh, and she loves dark chocolate,” I say.
“I’ll just grab the condoms. How’s that?”
I clutch the phone tighter. “You’re asking for my permission to have sex? That’s kind. And the answer is no. I’m already taken.”
He laughs dryly. “You’re a fucking prick.”
“I’ve been called worse,” I say, my voice casual still. “But I’m the prick with the girl. And she’s not inflatable.”
“I’ll see you at the townhouse,” he says, ignoring my comment. “You’ll be back really late, right? You’ve got work, college. All that shit. Don’t worry, buddy. I’ll keep the girls company.”
He hangs up, and I replay the conversation in my head. He unnerves me more than any other human being, and the fact that I don’t have to impress him makes my lips unnaturally loose.
He called me. To fuck with me.
It’s working.
