Flawed (Ethan Frost 4)

“You’re not going to talk me out of this, Tori, and every second you waste is one less thing you get to take with you.” And then he turns his back on me—just one more sign that he’s done with this conversation.

I don’t know what else to say, what else to do, so I move down the hall to my bedroom. I pull a weekend bag out of my closet and then, for several seconds, just stand there staring blankly at the clothes in front of me as my father’s words run through my head again and again and again.

But then he calls, “Three minutes,” from the kitchen and it galvanizes me into action. I grab a handful of clothes and shove them in the bag without looking too closely at what they are. I stop by my underwear drawer, grab a couple of bras and panties—plus the two hundred dollars I always keep there for emergencies—then head into the bathroom for my toiletries. I grab the bare necessities, figuring I can buy more when I get to a hotel, and then rummage in my medicine cabinet for some Tylenol because—seriously—my head is going to explode if I don’t do something soon.

I’m just cupping water in my hands to swallow the two capsules down when my father appears in the doorway. “Time’s up,” he says, reaching for me again,

“Fine.” I rip my arm out of his grasp. “Just let me change and I’ll be ready.”

“Sorry. I said five minutes. It’s been five minutes.”

“Seriously, Dad? I’m still in my cocktail dress! I’ve got last n

ight’s makeup on my face.”

“Well, then, I guess you shouldn’t have gotten so drunk you didn’t bother to change last night.”

“Right, because then I’d be in my pajamas and that’d be so much better?”

He just shrugs and gestures for me to precede him out of the room.

After a moment of gaping at him in shock, I sling my bag over my shoulder and do just that. But when I stop at my nightstand and try to grab my laptop and put it in the front pocket, my father takes it from me. “I believe I paid for that laptop, which means it belongs to me.”

“I bought it, with money from my trust fund.”

“Which came from me.”

“It came from Grandma and Grandpa.”

“To be used at my discretion until you’re thirty. So basically, it came from me.” He puts the laptop under his arm and continues down the hall to the family room.

I have no choice but to follow him. Once I get there, I see my credit cards and checkbook sitting in a neat pile on the counter. As he hands me my purse, empty of everything that might possibly help me survive, there’s a part of me that isn’t even surprised.

He’s already taken everything else from me through the years—his love, his attention, his emotional support. Is it really so shocking that he takes this, too? A little more warning would have been nice, but beggars really can’t be choosers, can they?

I know he’s waiting for me to say something about the credit cards, but I don’t. Arguing won’t change his mind—nothing does once my father makes a decision. Besides, it’s very obvious that he’s done with me. Even if his actions didn’t say it—which they do—the look on his face certainly gets the message across.

I cross to the coffee table to get my phone, but it’s gone, too. Of course it is. I pay the bill out of my trust fund every month.

I turn back to him, start to ask if I can go back to the bedroom and get shoes since I forgot to pick up a pair when I was in there. But he’s smiling that smug grin of his at me, the one that says he’s won and there’s nothing I can do about it and in the end I decide to hell with it. I’m not asking him for another thing. Not now, not ever again.

I came into this rich, rarefied life barefoot and I’ll go out the exact same way.

Chapter 6

Miles

I’m still working at nine A.M., trying to eradicate that stupid video from the ’Net. I’ve got several bots crawling the interwebs, marking each and every time they find it, so I can go in and take it down. But the thing is spreading exponentially fast—getting posted on social media faster than my bots can find it. Plus, at this point I’m pretty sure that fuckwit Alexander Parsons is not only behind the leak, but behind the rapid spread of the video. Someone is giving major outlets all over the world the right to post it without retribution, and that could only come from him. If he didn’t want it out there, his publicists would have threatened the hell out of each of them until they took it down. The fact that it’s being picked up by more and more sites every hour says everything it needs to.

Including that he’s an even bigger fuckhead than I gave him credit for last night.

I finish with the site I’m working on, then move to the next one on the list. But the screen blurs in front of me—it’s been well over twenty-four hours since I’ve slept and I’m exhausted. I know I should put the computer down and let the bots do their thing, but between the amount of caffeine I’ve imbibed in the last few hours and how pissed off I am, trying to sleep would be useless. So I might as well keep working.

I know this isn’t Tori’s fault, know that that fuckwit is completely responsible for the spreading of this fucking video. Still, there’s a part of me that wants to shake her, that wants to tell her she’s worth more than these jackasses she keeps getting involved with. Yeah, everybody gets a few jerks in their life, but the odds alone state that she should have a couple of decent guys in the mix. Instead, if Chloe is to be believed, it’s just one asshole after another. It makes me wonder if Tori’s trying to sabotage herself. And if she is, why?

The question is still running through the back of my mind a few minutes later when I finally put my laptop down and wander into the kitchen for yet another cup of coffee. But I’ve barely gotten the beans in the filter when I hear the alarm system issue a series of beeps warning that the front door has just been opened.

More curious than concerned—sometimes Ethan and Chloe’s housekeeper shows up on off days just to check in on me—I flip the coffeepot to on before winding my way to the front door to investigate. I get there just in time to see Tori tinkering with the alarm keypad hidden behind the painting Ethan has hanging on the wall next to the door.