“How generous of you,” I say. “Make sure it’s far, far away from wherever you’ll be fucking your mistress.”
He tips his head back and laughs, tugging me into him suddenly and whispering in my ear. “Avery, there’s only one woman I’ll be fucking. My wife.”
I shove him forcefully, finally breaking free of his grip. “Don’t touch me again,” I warn him, backing away. “I’m not yours yet, Joshua.”
“Happy birthday,” he calls down the hallway, as I retreat. “Next year I’ll arrange a proper celebration. Maybe we’ll have our wedding ceremony on your twenty-sixth birthday. Hell, maybe you’ll already be knocked up with my baby by then. Wait, sorry. Our baby.”
He’s lucky he’s not within striking distance when he says that.
Chapter Two
AVERY
I have my driver take me home, through city traffic and up to Verona, where we have to pass through two security checkpoints to make it onto the gated part inside the gated community where all the billionaires park their helicopters and store their supermodel wives.
I run through the foyer, across marble floors, taking the sweeping mahogany staircase two steps at a time. In my bedroom, I strip as fast as I can, my outfit suffocating me. I throw my clothes in the corner, vowing to burn them after Joshua touched me while I was wearing them. I stand in the middle of my walk-in closet, hands on my hips, wearing only my bra and panties as I scan racks upon racks of clothes for an appropriate outfit to wear to confession.
“Where have you been?” A voice comes from the bathroom attached to the other end of the walk-in-wardrobe. I don’t bother covering up. You’d see more of me in a bikini.
“Out,” I reply, not looking at my cousin as he saunters into the closet that separates our bedrooms.
“In that?” Nathan asks, smoking a joint as he leans against the doorframe, dressed in a black shirt and jeans. “I know you don’t get access to your trust fund until tonight, but are you really so hard up that you’re hooking on a Tuesday afternoon?”
I give him daggers. “Are you really so disinterested in working for our family’s company that you’re getting stoned on a Tuesday afternoon?” I take three steps toward him, plucking the joint out of his fingers and placing it between my lips, sucking deeply. The smoke snakes into my lungs, and I hold it there as long as I can before puffing it out. I place the joint back in his hand, staring into eyes that match mine. We both have these eyes that aren’t brown, or gold, or hazel, but a mixture of all three. We could be siblings, we look so similar — or cousins — which we are, but also, we aren’t. Nathan is adopted. He’s the oldest Capulet in our generation, two years older than me, but when you don’t have Capulet blood like the rest of us, you don’t get to sit on the throne and bark orders.
“You smell like a liquor store,” Nathan says. “Bad day?”
I select a bright red Tom Ford dress and hold it against my body, before tossing it aside. I need black. Today is a day of mourning and loss, not vibrancy and celebration. I look at my bright red nails, suddenly annoyed that I hadn’t thought to paint them gloss black for today.
“Bad day,” I agree, snatching a black A-line dress from a hanger and dragging it over my head. I stand in front of the floor-to-ceiling mirror in the middle of the closet, pulling the dress into place over my hips.
Nathan is at my back before I need to ask, holding the joint between his teeth, scooping my long, dark waves off my back and draping them over my shoulder so he can get to the zipper. He looks at me in the mirror, raising his eyebrows in question. I nod, and he zips the dress up at the back.
“You look like you’re going to a funeral,” Nathan remarks. “Are you going to a funeral?”
I smooth down my hair, heading to the bathroom in search of black eyeliner. “Kind of,” I say, locating my eyeliner pencil and bringing it up to my face. “Did you know our fathers had my eggs harvested when I was sixteen years old and used them to make and freeze embryos?”
Nathan’s mouth opens in surprise, and the joint falls to the ground. “What?”
“With Joshua Grayson’s sperm.” I bend over, picking up the joint and handing it back to him.
Nathan's hands clench at his sides. "I'm going to fucking kill them," he rages.
"Let's kill them later," I say quickly, not wanting Nathan to get too caught up in his revenge fantasy. "I have to go and break up with Will.”
Nathan scrubs his palm across his chin, clearly agitated by my news.
“I think I smoked too much,” he says, looking between the joint and me. “You’re saying some really fucked up shit.”
I sigh loudly, taking the joint from him and placing it between my lips again with an air of finality. He might be too stoned, but I’m not stoned enough. Time to balance things out.
“Nobody wears that much eye makeup to a funeral,” Nathan says, watching me layer black crayon under my eyes like I’m about to play Cleopatra in a high school play. “Not even a hooker.”
I open my mouth to correct him, but then I stop. He’s right. I might be incredibly high-class, but at the end of the day, my pimp Daddy did just sell me to Joshua Grayson.
“This hooker does,” I mutter, throwing the eyeliner pencil down onto the bathroom counter and handing him back the joint. “Don’t come to my birthday party high,” I warn Nathan, pointing a finger at his face to really drive it home.
“I gotta go.” I go to kiss him on the cheek, and he stops me.
“Were you serious? Did they really do that to you?”
I nod. “Apparently. On the bright side, I still have a fully functional appendix.”
Why am I not upset? Why aren’t I throwing myself on my bed, kicking and screaming and hugging the sheets to me and weeping until my eyes feel like they’re going to bleed?
“Avery,” Nathan says slowly. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know.”
“Don’t be sorry,” I reply, squeezing his hand for a moment. “You didn’t do anything.”
“I would have done something if I’d known,” he says.
I nod, smiling sadly. “I know you would.”
Nathan frowns. "Are you going to live with him, then?"
I shrug. "No. Yes. I don't know. What am I going to do without you?"
My eyes linger on the door at the other end of the closet. I don't sleep well, have never slept well, so whenever Nathan is around he's usually rudely awoken by me hopping into whichever bed he's crashed out in. He stays on his side and I on mine, but hearing his steady, even breaths as he sleeps stops the worst of my nightmares from seeping in.
And now I'll be sleeping with a strange man I've never even been alone with.
Nathan breaks the silence. "I'll be around, Aves, just like always. It's us against the world, remember?"
I nod, suddenly feeling very small, my shoulders curving forward and down, heavy with my defeat. I knew I'd have to give up Will. I didn't realize I'd be giving up the only person who's kept me sane these past years since Adeline died. "You're my best friend in the world," I say in a small voice. "You're all I have." I sound like a little girl when I say it. Nathan smiles, but there's emotion behind the gesture, a heaviness that feels like grief. He doesn't reply. He just keeps looking sad. If sadness were fire, I think forlornly, our grief would burn this house down, just like the one next door, the one that used to belong to a family just like ours.