The Initiation (Filthy Rich Americans 1)

“Okay.” I patronized her with a look. “Sure.”

Yet an unwelcomed sensation folded my stomach in two. It whispered to listen to my sister.

“My friend Jenny,” she said, “used to babysit for the Scoffields. She said one night when they’d come home after a party, Mrs. Scoffield was shitfaced and started screaming at her husband about how she let him fuck her while they all watched.”

I pressed my lips together. “She could have been talking about anything.”

Money made people crazy. It lowered inhibitions and sent them on power trips. Everyone knew there was a seedy underside to Cape Hill. Plenty of the higher-ups had been caught in compromising positions. Everything from underage drinking and affairs, to drugs and prostitutes.

I was sure there was kinky shit going on as well. Most of the executives at HBHC acted like the Gods on Mount Olympus. They did whatever fucked-up thing they wanted and didn’t worry about consequences.

My sister shook her head. “Mr. Scoffield gave Jenny three hundred dollars that night. He said it was a joke and not to repeat it to anyone.” Emily’s focus left mine. She pulled up her knees and stared at them as her voice sank further. “I asked Royce about it when we went out last year.”

I tensed. She made me wait a decade before elaborating.

“He’d been an asshole to me all night, but when I told him I’d heard a rumor about it, he changed. It was like he became a completely different person. He said it wasn’t true, of course, but he spent the rest of the night wanting to know exactly who I’d heard the rumor from.” Her gaze wandered back to mine. “He was angry, Marist. And I think he was scared.” Her blue eyes had been soft, but they turned hard. “He was terrified I knew the truth.”

I shifted uncomfortably on the floor, wanting to get away from what she was telling me. The whole thing was fucking insane.

Yet . . .

Why did I think there was even the tiniest chance it could be true?

My gaze swiveled to peer through the open kitchen door that led to the dining room. Macalister had sat there last month and announced his family had a tradition, and a woman played a significant role in it. How the board needed to approve me before I could become Royce’s wife. There’d also been the invasive questions during my interview.

And Macalister had lectured me about sex being necessary for a healthy marriage.

I scrambled to my feet, knocking over some of the piles I’d spent more than an hour organizing. “If it was true, Royce would have told me.”

Even as I said it, I knew it was a lie.

All the Hales had only given me the information they thought I needed to know. Surely, Royce wasn’t allowed to tell me. If he had, I could have bolted, and they wouldn’t want that. A lot of time and money had been invested in me, and besides—it was win at all costs. It was the Hale family motto, he’d said.

“Oh, my God,” I whispered. I pressed a fist into my stomach, desperate to feel anything other than the nausea sweeping through me. I settled on anger and whirled to face my sister. “Why are you telling me this now?”

She climbed to her feet, scattering more of the bills around us. “I tried, and . . .” She looked lost. “I thought you’d back out, or it wouldn’t get this far.”

My rage went from scalding hot to icy cold in an instant as the realization hit me. “You thought I’d fail.”

“No,” Emily said quickly, but it was pointless. I could read it all over her face. “No, but I . . .”

She might have said something else in her defense, but I didn’t hear it. Instead, Royce’s comment in the back seat of my car flitted through my mind, how he’d been worried our first time would be traumatic.

There was so much he wasn’t telling me, how could I believe anything he said? A lie by omission was still a lie. Yet the way Royce had looked at me as I tried on the red dress—even if everything else was manipulation, that moment was real, wasn’t it?

“What are you going to do?” Emily asked, jarring me from my thoughts.

I didn’t know.

If it was true, could I actually go through with it? Let Royce take my virginity as the rest of the board watched? Including his father? Oh, my God.

The whole idea was like something out of the myths I enjoyed. A dark ritual of sex and power, and I’d be at the center. It made me shudder. Mostly in fear, but the part of me that loved the twisted, fucked-up stories in Greek mythology, it found this appealing.

Jesus, what was wrong with me?

I had to focus. It was too late to turn back, and there were no good options. I stood in the nest of bills, put a hand to my forehead, and closed my eyes. Emily had asked me what I was going to do, and I gave her the best answer I had. “Whatever I have to.”