Mom sighs.
Maybe I’d care if she ever acted like a decent parent.
This lovey-dovey scene can fuck all the way off. I have no intention of lingering around them, hell-bent on escaping to my room.
“Connor.” Mom’s clipped tone stops me in my tracks. Huffing, I half-turn back to her. She gestures to a manila folder sitting on the edge of the island, waiting in the spotlight cast by the pendant lights dangling above it. “Have a look through this. I’ve been wanting to talk with you about this matter for a while. It’s important we go over it before the campaign benefit for the children’s hospital.”
My stomach churns with an uneasy ripple. She has her politician voice on, the false-sweetness belying the snake waiting in the grass to bite your ankle. Keeping an eye on Mom and Damien, I swipe the folder and flip it open, thinking I’m about to have some accusation thrown in my face. I’ve been expecting it with the bruise on my face and my knuckles still healing.
What’s inside is so much worse than Mom being pissy over undeniable proof of me at an illegal fight ring.
The bafflement grows as I flip through pages of girls’ photos followed
by resumes, their entire lives profiled to the tits like they’re security threats and it’s necessary to know every minute detail about them. I suppose anything can be turned into a threat to a politician. My mom is the one I learned the lesson of knowledge is power from, after all.
“What is this?”
“Remember when I said we need to put on a united family front? Well, I also need you to have a girlfriend,” Mom explains, distracted by Damien offering her a taste of the meal they’re cooking. “A nice girl who will fit into the image we’re cultivating. Polls are showing a positive rise in my numbers for voters wanting to see a legacy continuing on the horizon. Commitment is something they value and respect. I’ve taken the trouble of having these options prepared for you to choose from. They’re already pre-approved and vetted.”
The horizon. The problem with Mom is she doesn’t just want to be re-elected to her office. She has a long-term plan. The endgame for her is the big one—the White House.
Controlling my expression to keep it blank is hard as disgust rolls through me, fighting back the urge to curl my lip. The entire folder is full of jersey chasing Coyote Girls. Not a single nice girl in the bunch at all, but all of them come from the crème de la crème families in Ridgeview. One elite name after another glares at me from the folder—daughters of old money like granddad’s, real estate moguls, and Fortune 500 CEOs. Daughters of the people in Ridgeview that hold positions of power and influence.
Half of them have hooked up with me. Hell, all of them want me to make them my queen. They recognize the power I hold at SLHS without adding in Mom’s political clout.
But I don’t date. Never have. Every one of the girls who come onto me are only interested in my name or my family’s money.
“You can have your pick from any of the selections.” Mom gives me a shark’s smile. “Isn’t that nice of me? It’ll be the perfect boost for our family image.”
How can she say that when she’s standing in front of me with him, making a goddamn meal together from scratch?
I lose the internal battle not to show my cards, snarling as I slam the folder down. The contents spill out in a cascade, spreading over the island, some dipping into the prep station Damien has going.
“What family image?!” My voice rises as I jab a finger at Damien. “Your fucking boyfriend is right there, and you think I need someone? Maybe you should stop spreading your legs for that piece of shit and worry about having an actual family! Instead of fabricating whatever the approval polls dictate, wouldn’t it be better to earn your votes the honest way?”
Mom crosses her arms and Damien casts a troubled look between us. Go ahead and try it, fuckface. If you step in front of me, I’m knocking you out again.
He takes a step closer and I raise my fists to a ready stance. “I won’t hesitate.”
Damien’s eyes go wide. With a menacing smile that makes him shuffle back to put more distance between us, I stare Mom down for a beat before leaving the room.
“You will do this!” Mom calls after me, her voice changing from the saccharine tone to something more forceful, more true to her actual character.
It sends anger racing down my spine, but I stomp up the stairs to my room instead of fighting her. I might get what I want at school, but with her it takes work. She believes she has full control over me because of the money. Everything with her is an endless sequence of moves until I can back her into a corner, proving that the outcome I want is the right one. If I don’t have smoke and mirrors, then my strategy blows up in my face.
My ragged breathing doesn’t calm down until I’ve paced my room, going over possibilities I can present to get out of this stupid ultimatum.
Movement from Thea’s curtains across from my window catches my eye and I creep over, keeping to the shadows of my bedroom so she doesn’t see me watching. She’s sitting sideways in an armchair angled toward the window, her bare legs crossed at the ankle and propped against the wall. Her head is bent, maybe reading something? Her foot bobs—she must be listening to music. There’s something about the way she’s sitting that amuses me. Is it even comfortable?
Watching her gives me an idea for getting around Mom’s girlfriend project, because she won’t sleep on this. I know how she gets. If I’m forced to do something, I’ll do it on my terms. I might as well have fun with it.
I have the leverage I need to make sure Thea has no other choice but to agree to become my fake girlfriend.
It’ll get me closer to her sugar-scented hair. Close enough to really pin her under my thumb and discover what other secrets she has for me to steal.
Her nosy Mom will hate it. If she was freaking out about me standing close to her, talking to her, she’ll blow a gasket at how I’m going to make sure Thea is corrupted and debauched in every way possible. I saw it in her eyes. She thinks I’m the worst kind of wild.
The perfect payback to Celine Kennedy has finally presented itself in the sweetest sweater-wrapped bow: her daughter.