Total pages in book: 119
Estimated words: 112638 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 563(@200wpm)___ 451(@250wpm)___ 375(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 112638 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 563(@200wpm)___ 451(@250wpm)___ 375(@300wpm)
“That’s not enough. You think I can sleep at night knowing your son is across the hall from my daughter after what he did to her?”
“We don’t know exactly what happened, sweetheart.”
It surprised me that Dad stood up for me, but I knew he wasn’t going to stand his ground for long. She’d wear him down. She always did. And he, blinded by his own sins, by her beauty, would submit.
“Well, I hate to do this, but it’s either him or us.”
“And where should I put him?” Dad spit out impatiently. “He’s a kid, Miranda. Not a goddamn vase!”
“There’s a boarding school not too far from here. Andrew Dexter Academy. Elaine’s son goes there. The one who was in that gifted program? I have the brochure . . .” I heard the rustling of paper.
Of course she had the brochure handy.
“You want me to tuck him in a private school on the other side of the state?” he growled. “Jesus, Miranda, listen to yourself.”
“Oh, come on, Doug,” she said soothingly. “It’s a good place. We both know he’s being stalled here academically. You’d be doing him a favor. He could be fulfilling his potential, instead of being bored here and getting into all kinds of trouble. We’d love to have him for holidays and summer vacations. He would be so much more manageable.”
And so I became manageable.
Banished from my own house over a lie my stepsister had told to get rid of me.
Over her jealousy. Her greed.
Gracelynn got her Russian tutu. They put it behind glass, like the Armoury Chamber in the Kremlin. Precious and unattainable. Just like her ballet aspirations.
She also got our parents’ full attention.
This was where my obsession with Gracelynn Langston began. The feral hunger to conquer her at all costs.
In the moment of history when she won the one thing that matters—public opinion.
But this was a marathon, not a sprint.
Gracelynn was about to learn her lesson the hard way.
We Corbins always won in the end.
Even if it meant we needed to play dirty.
CHAPTER FOUR
ARSÈNE
“Pull over,” Grace instructs after we land in Newark hours later.
The chauffeur flicks his blinker, slows down, and pulls the Cadillac to the shoulder of the road. She pushes the door open, staggers out, and vomits all over the bushes.
She’s been crying the entire flight here, talking with her mother on the phone. Not once did Grace ask me how I was coping. Maybe she assumes, like her mother, that I’m a sociopath, incapable of feelings.
Or maybe she simply doesn’t care.
What’s peculiar is she isn’t the emotional type. Falling apart isn’t her style.
Stumbling back into her seat, she plasters a hand over her sweaty forehead. “It hurts so much, Arsène. You wouldn’t understand.”
Wouldn’t I?
Her utter selfishness robs me of my breath. She’d had them both growing up. Miranda. Douglas. She never once apologized for what she did to me.
And this is why you want her so bad. Because she’s an obsession. An unattainable fantasy. A class of her own.
“He was my father too,” I point out flatly.
“But he was closer to me,” she whines childishly.
Turning my gaze to the window, I bite my tongue until the metallic taste of blood coats my mouth.
“Look, I’m just exhausted.” She shakes her head, more tears spilling from her eyes. I think it’s the first time I’ve seen her cry. Even when she fell from the roof, she was tough about it. “I just want to get there already.”
In response, I snap my fingers at the driver. “Floor it.”
Ten days later, the Corbin mansion is teeming with people. Not in the same way it had been crowded when my father threw his Great Gatsby–style epic parties when Grace and I were children.
The memorial service has been elegantly planned and flawlessly executed. Caterers float among guests, carrying platters of finger food and alcohol. A pianist takes requests behind a golden grand piano. Old classics my father used to listen to—“Bohemian Rhapsody,” “Imagine,” “Your Song.”
I stand in the corner of the room with my friends since adolescence—my only friends, really—Christian and Riggs. Christian is a lawyer who owns a white-shoe firm, while Riggs is a professional photographer and possibly the prolific creator of a few new STDs. Christian brought his wife, Arya, along.
“We’re so sorry for your loss.” Arya gathers me into a hug, refusing to let go. It is more than Grace has done in the past ten days. Then again, Arya is an actual well-rounded human capable of sympathy. Grace is a female version of me. Which makes the ordeal even more peculiar, because she’s been all torn up about Doug’s death out of nowhere.
“It’s fine. We weren’t close. Where’s the baby?” I pull away from her, looking around. Arya gave birth some months ago to a pink, screaming thing who looks like a bald bookkeeper. Quietly, and only to myself, I can admit I want what Christian has with Arya, perhaps because I know it could never happen.