Chapter One
Tessa
My palms are sweating. My heart is pounding. There’s a rushing in my ears.
I’m scared. Meeting your parents shouldn’t scare you, right? Especially since they aren’t violent or anything. Hell, they don’t even cuss. We sit like civilized people twice a month—they’ve been spending more time in Madison lately, ever since dad and his partner opened a satellite office of their law firm here—and have breakfast together.
“Like” civilized people. Because on the surface we’re polite. Cordial. A perfect family. My parents want what’s best for me.
Of course they do. Like they wanted for my sister, Mary, before she bolted, choosing freedom.
I wipe my hands down my pencil skirt and lick my dry lips. Freedom. The sting of anger at her desertion is sharp in my chest. I mean, I understand why she left. I get it. Nowadays I am angrier at myself for not doing the same.
Especially since the reason I’ve stayed in town—Dylan—doesn’t even acknowledge my existence. Which makes me so pathetic I can scarcely recognize myself anymore.
Dylan…
What would happen if I packed a few things and left, like Mary did? If I left everything and everyone behind to start anew?
Approval is what I crave from my parents. Appreciation. A kind word. So I tell myself leaving is the cowardly thing to do, and here I am, trying to fill Mary’s shoes, make up for her desertion. Sometimes I wonder if it’ll ever be enough. If I’ll ever be enough. I try, though. I do my best. It’ll be enough.
That’s what I tell myself every time.
Swallowing the knot of fear in my throat, I force myself to enter the restaurant. My high heels click on the shiny floor, and I catch sight of myself in the full-length mirrors lining the entrance. My blond hair is twisted in a bun, my ears decorated with small diamond rings. My shirt is white and silken, my skirt charcoal gray, my shoes black. Dad can’t find fault with me today. He simply can’t.
And yet…
The usual host comes to take my coat.
“Hi, Nelson.” I smile at the tall, painfully thin and perfectly groomed man, but he only takes my coat and leads me to the usual table where my parents sit. We’re on the sixth floor, and the view over the lake is breathtaking.
Not that I take much notice of it. My parents are seated, staring at me disapprovingly.
Oh God, what did I do now? I glance down at myself. Do I have stains on my clothes? Did I forget to button up my shirt?
“Oh, honey,” Mom says with a long-suffering sigh. “How can you go out without make-up? You look… sallow. Sick. You know your dad doesn’t like it.” Her mouth presses into a flat line.
Crap. I clap a hand on my cheek reflexively, as if I can hide my whole face behind it. How could I forget? It’s the stress of what I want to say to them, I realize, and the reaction I know I’ll get.
“Sit down,” Dad snaps, and it’s a good thing Nelson has drawn back a chair because my knees fold automatically, his command going straight to my muscles, bypassing my brain.
Mom sends me a sympathetic glance, which I ignore. When she’s with my dad—which is almost always—she’s his little lapdog, and she’s even more aggressive than he is.
This meeting isn’t going well, and I’ve yet to open my mouth.
A waiter in a crisp dark suit materializes by my side, startling me, and asks what I would like.
“She’ll have the same as us,” my dad says before I have a chance to speak and gives me a hard look, daring me to contradict him.
Stirring the waters before I say my piece isn’t a good idea. So I clench my jaw and swallow the words that want to surface. “That’s fine.”
Silence spreads as the waiter leaves us to our own devices.
Torture devices, I think morosely, staring out the huge window at the gray sky. My stomach is in such a knot I doubt I’ll be able to swallow anything, not that that’s unusual, especially with what my father had ordered for me.
“So.” Dad takes a bite of his smoked-salmon-on-a-fluffy-bun and washes it down with a sip of French champagne. “I expect college is going well.”
Of course he expects that. He has a lot of expectations.
“It’s fine.” I place my hands on the table, notice I also forgot to renew my manicure and hastily withdraw them and hide them under the table. “The topics are interesting.”
“Have you decided on a direction yet?” Mom inquires, and realizes her mistake too late.
“A direction?” Dad puts his wine glass down so hard it’s a miracle the slim stem doesn’t break. “Her direction in life is set.”
The firm. Leon & Perez. Law experts. My ticket to a rich husband who’ll control my life.