For Love or Money Read online

  Her eyes dart to my father’s. He shakes his head and continues his discussion on the phone. I sigh loudly. “We going dry, Daddy Dearest?”

  His gray-blue eyes narrow. If looks could kill I’d be a pile of ash to his laser beams. I roll my eyes back at him and take Geoff’s glass of white wine and wrinkle my nose as I take a sip. “I question your sexuality every time I see you order a drink. Chardonnay? Really? What are you a SoCal soccer mom?”

  He chuckles and takes it back. “I get heartburn from red wine and your dad is too demanding on my senses for me to drink anything heavier.” He takes a drink and stares at me. The man has a skill no other human being does. He reads me. He reads me so well that when his eyes narrow the way they are now, I get nervous. He leans in. “The incident last week was real, wasn’t it?”

  “It was nothing.”

  He takes my hand, running his thumb down my palm. “Doesn’t feel like nothing.” He’s the first person to take it seriously. Besides the lady cop, but I think by the time I left her office, she was back to believing it was nothing. He leans in closer again. “Tell me what happened.”

  I watch my father get up from the table. Whatever the phone call is about, it’s bad. His face is red. Great. Whoever he’s on the phone with is warming him up for me. I owe them a kick in the junk. I give Geoff a sideways look and ask softly, “Didn’t Daddy get a copy of the police report?”

  His eyes dart to my father as his head twitches that in fact my father hadn’t requested a copy. I can’t even lie a little and say it doesn’t sting. It really does.

  My gaze lowers to the table as my hand reaches across it, taking the chardonnay. I gulp back the whole glass and place it back in front of him. “I woke up to someone in my room. He was using my foot for something unholy and depraved. He finished and left through the window.”

  Geoff’s hand grips tighter on the chair. “You don’t know him?”

  I shake my head. “I don’t think so. I don’t know. Honestly, it was dark in my room and I was about two sleeping pills into my dream when it started.” I scoff at myself. “I was so out of it I didn’t even notice the water was burning my skin in the shower.” I lift my eyes to his, finally able to meet his stare. If I had a mother her eyes would look like these. They would be filled with concern and love the way his are. His heart is broken for me. It makes the assault on me so much worse. And because he loves me like a little sister, I feel like I didn’t deserve the thing that happened to me. I blink away a tear, wiping and shaking my head. “I got second-degree burns, and the worst of it is, I burned myself like an idiot.”

  He wipes my cheek, letting his hand linger, cupping my face. “I asked Henry to find us someone to track down the illicit criminal. Henry felt it was all very real, but he couldn’t be sure, because of the habits you’ve developed here.”

  I sniffle and laugh, squinting and trying to imagine how I am going to explain the soccer player in the coma and the orgy.

  Dad finishes and sits. “Lana, my dear. How are you?” The question is not one I am meant to answer. He knows how I am. He knows what he cares about. He looks at his phone and mutters, “I understand you have been in some trouble with Charles Hensley’s daughter, Nance, again.”

  I don’t say anything. I have no defense. I went to play sex games with a friend isn’t a defense at all, and it won’t make this better.

  He drums his long, slim fingers along the wooden armrests. His gray hair is darker than the last time I saw him. Jesus, is he getting another divorce and starting his whole manscaping and dying his hair again? Gross.

  Geoff rests a hand on my arm. “We understand that there are some serious implications lingering in the air about who brought the drugs to the party.”

  My jaw drops. “It wasn’t me. I didn’t bring anything.”

  My dad’s cold blue eyes lift. “Did you mix the drinks for the minors?”

  I don’t say anything.

  He nods. “I have done everything I could think of to make your life easy. I think it was too much, I see that now. No amount of giving will ever make you a good person. I can’t make you want to be a good person. That’s your call.”

  My insides wrench.

  He gets up, pacing and drinking his scotch. “I have done everything I can for you and now it’s time to make you tow the line. I’m cutting you off. Your schooling is almost over and I don’t think you’re ready for the obligation of the job I wanted so badly for you to have.” His face turns, and replacing his angry dad look, comes something of disgust and abandonment. “I’m done with you, Lana. I’m done pretending that one day you’re going to grow up and be an adult. You’re twenty-two years old for Christ’s sake. Twenty-two, not eighteen and making a couple of bad decisions.” He drinks, making a long silence. My heart is racing, pounding in my throat. The wine I stole from Geoff is threatening to come back up.

  My dad leans against the chair and points at me. “The first year when you slept with your professor and I had to stop his wife from going public, I assumed it was because you were eighteen, not a slut. I didn’t actually know you were a slut. I didn’t know the papers and rag magazines were right about you, because you were my baby, and I wanted to believe that your failures in the past and your mother’s death led you to rebel. I always believed you would find your way back to me. But now I see no amount of money spent on a perfect childhood and a perfect education will make you be perfect. You’re never going to be that. So I can do one of two things. I can wash my hands of you like my father did my youngest brother, or I can force you to work for your next cocaine fix and Michael Kors purse.”

  My hands are shaking. It’s too much. It’s all too much. I need a pill. I need all the pills. I need to get the hell out of here. My eyes dart around, trying to come up with a strategy beyond sprinting from the table.

  He sits, looking smug. “So I have devised a plan to help you find your way, the hard way.”

  Geoff squeezes my arm. He’s trying to tell me to stop panicking but I can’t. I wish I could just tell my dad that I never slept with that professor first year and that it was Nance. But I think that ship has sailed, and even that won’t save me from this fate.

  My dad lifts his glass to his lips and grins. His eyes twinkle in a sinister way. “You aren’t just getting the internship at Webber Records. If it were up to me I wouldn’t let you take the trash out, but your mother would never forgive me for abandoning you. So I am giving you one chance to turn this all around. No more drugs and alcohol and random one-night stands. The buck stops in September, Lana. And if by then you haven’t proven yourself a worthy human being, who can contribute to society, I am disinheriting you and you will be homeless and carless. As far as I understand it, you’re already friendless.”

  I think I’m going to throw up.

  He finishes his drink and nods. “I am hosting a live show called The Next Mogul. It’s a competition amongst business undergraduates who plan on getting an MBA and are trying to come up in the business between LA, New York, and Nashville. The applicant for the intern spot who comes up with the best band, singer, boy group, whatever—wins. America will vote and whoever wins first place wins the internship. If you don’t win, you don’t get it. Second place is an internship in Nashville and third place is a cash prize. If you win one of those three, you might be okay. If not, you’re on your own, and I won’t lose a single night’s sleep over it. Because I have done my part. I have been a loving father and I have supported you in everything. Even when you abandoned your dreams. Our dreams. Your mother’s dreams for you.” His voice cracks and so does my heart. “I have been the king of yes and it’s gotten you nowhere. You are the very thing I despise about rich, spoilt young ladies.” The twinkle in his eyes has grown to something emotional.

  Is it smugness?

  I don’t know, but I have the worst fear he wants me to fail so he doesn’t have to pay me for anything, and he can be rid of me forever. Does he really want me gone? I push back on the chair, ready to gag
any second. I can’t even speak. I don’t know what to say beyond telling him to fuck himself and fuck his deal.

  He nods at Geoff. “Get Henry to take her home.” As I stand, my father’s eyes dart to mine. The twinkle has turned to tears. He shakes his head and speaks in a way I have never seen. “I just can’t keep letting you break my heart, Lana. If you want the path to dead in a gutter or infected with diseases they can’t cure, you’re on the right road. And I won’t watch you do this to yourself. But if you want to show me you are the girl I have always believed you were, then take me up on this offer and work harder than I think you can.” He stands and wraps himself around me.

  I’m going to break. I have never seen my father cry before—ever. My legs feel like they might buckle and there is a sob, but I can’t seem to reach it. It’s lodged in my throat, stopping everything including my breath. He lets me go and I literally watch the emotion wash from his face. “I love you, kid.”

  Geoff pulls me from the room, hugging me to him. He’s whispering things, sweet words of encouragement. But I don’t want to hear it. I want to get high and let it go.

  We leave the dining room and enter into the back lobby of the hotel. I almost fall when I see her, the one wife I have liked so far—Rachel—or as Geoff calls her, number five.

  She comes running, and I can tell immediately she knows what’s going on. She shakes her bottle-blonde head and sobs. “I told him it’s too much. It’s too mean. He gave you no warning.” She pulls back, revealing actual tears dripping down her perfectly blushed cheeks. She’s five years older than me and has been his wife for three. But regardless of that, I actually like her. I think of her as more of a friend and a confidant. She’s the first one to accept the relationship, or lack there of, that I offered her. She has never tried to be my parent.

  I look down, shaking my head. “It’s fine. I don’t even care. I have an invite for the summer on a yacht to meet rich men and secure my future that way.”

  Her eyes well. “Everyone knows what you’ve been at, Lana. You have to be more discreet. The papers are filled with you right now, and that party and the cops getting called for your violent sex.”

  I shrug past the sting of that last comment. I hate that that’s what the world thinks happened. I hate that I was violated and no one, not even me, believes I didn't deserve it. “Maybe I’ll stumble upon the next big thing and win the competition.”

  She sobs harder, obviously filled with the same amount of confidence in my capabilities as I am. I can’t take another second of joking and shrugging things off. I have to be alone. I kiss her cheek. “Try to convince him to give me a second chance.”

  She nods, wiping her nose and tears. “I will but you know how much he listens. He’s so stubborn.”

  I can’t be surrounded by people anymore. I push away from her, letting Geoff lead me out the back door of the restaurant. I didn’t even notice we were going through back doors both ways.

  “Is the press out front?”

  He glances at me and nods once.

  “Wow. So this whole scandal has become mine?”

  Geoff walks to the car and gets in when Henry gets the door. He’s riding with me? I am in shit.

  Geoff clasps his hands together and rests them, staring at them. “You brought the drugs, you supplied the liquor, you own the fake company that bought the apartments, and the boy in the coma has angry parents. They were going to sue, but your father is actually an old friend of the family of the other boy. They convinced the Weavers to agree not to sue so long as you are punished accordingly.” He shakes his head. “Lana, what were you thinking? The kid is a minor.”

  I am stunned. Stunned silent and stunned by the knives in my back. I lick my lips and contemplate it all. “Nance has told everyone it was me?”

  He nods.

  “And even if it wasn’t and I had nothing to do with it, including the young man, my record is bad enough that no one will believe that?”

  He nods again, biting his lip.

  “Then I guess I’m as guilty as they say I am.”

  Fuck!

  He winces. “You didn’t have anything to do with it?”

  “I mixed some shots before the guys got there. I never gave one to a single minor, I never gave drugs, and I never even knew they were minors. I didn’t know them. I didn’t stay at the party. I left around nine and have a perfect alibi.”

  He reaches into his pocket. “This isn’t the card you invited them with?”

  My stomach burns.

  “Did you or did you not buy the apartments?”

  I shake my head. “The card is mine, I invited them, but I never gave them anything, and the apartments below are mine. The one with the party was in the penthouse. Mr. Hensley owns that one.”

  “Then they moved the kid to the apartments below for when the ambulance and police came.” He chuckles bitterly.

  “Smart.”

  His eyes are wild but he is still calm, staying that way for me. I know he can sense the breaking point inside of me is being reached. Truth be told, I am far passed it but my sleeping pills are lingering a little too hard.

  He looks exhausted when he says, “Your dad has his back against the wall. Your actions are making scandal after scandal. Harvard just wants you gone. They’ll give you any grade you want just to end this.” Tears leak from my eyes but I don’t say anything. He sighs. “You think you’re the victim, don’t you? You think this is all someone else’s fault? You really don’t see the actions were all yours. You aren’t a kid anymore. Inviting a minor to a party and getting him so high he almost dies is a crime.”

  I can’t see what he’s saying. I can’t hear it. “I am the victim, Geoff. I am the one who is taking all the blame, when the party wasn’t my idea, wasn’t my plan, wasn’t in my house. Yes, I wanted to party, and I invited the kid but I didn’t do it all alone. Nance and Leo were both there. They went and found people, probably minors, to bring to the party too.”

  “YOU INVITED THE BOY IN THE COMA, LANA! HE’S THE ONLY ONE PEOPLE CARE ABOUT!”

  I flinch.

  He groans and covers his face. “Win this fucking contest. Show the world you are not the screwed-up little crackhead they all think you are. Win and make a comeback before you end up selling your little black book about your sexual conquests for money to get high.” He grabs my face and kisses me hard. “I love you, Lana. All the way to the moon and back.” He climbs from the car, leaving me crying and shaking.

  That was from a book he read me when I was a kid.

  Henry drives the moment the car door closes. He parks somewhere I don’t recognize and comes to the back. He doesn’t open the door for me but instead climbs in. It’s weird.

  He looks stressed. “I never told anyone anything. I’ve kept your secrets for you but Nance and Leo have betrayed you. They have done it to the press, your father, and your friends back home. This is about to blow up, and I don’t want you hurting yourself. The others don’t know you as well as I do.” He lifts his face, and for the first time I see tears in his dark eyes. “I have always thought of you as a family member. I always will. When you win this contest I will be waiting to come back and work for you, and one day when you have kids I will resist the urge to tell them just how naughty you were.”

  My eyes flood with more tears than I knew I had. “What? What does that mean?” I know what it means and my heart is breaking, actually breaking. Everyone is shitting on me and abandoning me. Did they conspire to do this all at once? Am I being punked or is this one of those mean intervention shows?

  Jesus!

  He shakes his head slightly. “Your father is bringing me home tonight. He wants you to do this all on your own. He doesn’t want you to have any help. He wants the world to see that you did it on your own, one hundred percent.”

  I swallow hard. “You too?”

  Henry nods. “I am sorry, sweet girl. I have to leave you here alone to be a normal college student.”

  “But I’m no
t normal. The media wants to destroy me, Nance, and Leo—you can’t leave.”

  “I don’t have a choice. It has been made perfectly clear that my employment is only guaranteed if I obey.”

  “HE CAN’T HAVE YOU TOO! HE HAS GEOFF AND THE WHOLE WORLD, YOU ARE MINE!”

  He grips my hands. Both of us are shaking. “I am so sorry. I will be waiting for you in LA. I will watch from the sidelines as you win this thing and show everyone what you are made of.” He leans forward, hugging me awkwardly and then climbs back out. He drives to the school, opens my door, and hands me a Visa. “This is all that he is going to give you for the next five months. Once the show is finished, it will be cut off.”

  To a normal girl this would be the greatest gift ever, a Visa for five months of spending. To me this is the worst feeling in the world. It’s my last Visa.

  Henry hugs me and nods. “Go and get some real-life perspective and win the show. I’ve asked around and apparently the bars in Boston are loaded with talent. Thin Ice was found here in a bar. Lochlan Barlow, the lead singer, was on a reality show like The Next Mogul and he signed a music deal here in Boston. You can do this.”

  I shake my head, realizing for the first time I cannot do it. “I have no one.”

  He lifts my chin. “I’ve been with you since you were one year old. In my twenty-one years I have not seen you with a single person I would say is a worthwhile friend. Trust me, you are better off. Apart from that young man who fled the scene with you—James something or other. Nice boy. You should see if he can help.” He places a baseball cap on my head before he turns, leaving me there and walks to the driver door. He gets in and leaves me standing in the parking lot completely lost and confused.

  I feel like the world has crashed down upon me. I don't think anyone has ever had a week this epically bad—ever. If I was just a little more unstable I might laugh, but I have a clear sense of exactly what has happened and how. I just don't see the why. Why would Nance and Leo screw me over so badly? Because I fled?