39. Izabella
IZABELLA
Penelope vomits up everything she’s drunk and eaten into the toilet while I hold her hair back. Her usually flawless makeup is melting down her face as tears leak from her eyes. She looks awful.
“I think I’m done,” she groans, rolling back onto her butt, shuffling until her back hits the side of the bath and she sighs, slumping against it.
“How much did you have to drink?”
“Enough to make me sick,” she snaps, still bitchy despite the state she’s in.
“Wow, most people would be at least slightly grateful for someone holding their hair out of their puke, but I suppose I shouldn’t be shocked you’re not,” I grumble, lowering myself to the floor and sitting next to her.
“You look good,” she slurs, eyeing me with unfocused eyes.
“Thanks. It’s nice to wear clothes I actually like.” I laugh. “But it helps that Fitzy is delivering clothes to the house every night for me too.”
“How did you do it?” she asks, her expression serious even through the drunken haze.
“Do what?”
“How did you get him to like you?”
“Gulliver?” I ask, suddenly wondering where she’s going with this.
She nods, and her whole body moves with the motion, like she’s not in control of her movements.
Wrinkling my brow, I consider her question for a moment. “I’m not sure I did anything. Maybe it’s just that I don’t want anything from him, at least not in a permanent sense. I don’t want to control him or make him commit to a future at eighteen. We’re friends, and he’s nice. I mean, he’s an asshole, but he’s nice to me.” I shrug and watch as she drunkenly tries to process what I’ve said.
“But you’re having sex.”
She says this like a statement and not a question, so I don’t bother to deny it. “Yes, we’re having sex.”
“What’s it like?” she asks, her voice wistful and a little sad.
“Awesome.” The word slips from my lips before I can think better of it, and once it’s out, I can’t take it back, so I just smile.
Penelope’s laugh shocks me. This is such a surreal moment—us together talking about sex like normal sisters, normal teenagers.
“They want me to marry Geoffrey Bancroft,” she says on a half-sob.
“What?”
“Mom and Dad. Now that you and Gulliver have been plastered all over the society pages, they’ve decided that Geoffrey is the next best option.”
“I don’t know who Geoffrey is,” I say.
“Google him,” she sobs, letting her head drop back to rest against the lip of the bath and covering her face with her hands as she half laughs, half cries.
I feel my brow furrow as I pull my cell from where it’s wedged into my back pocket and quickly enter Geoffrey Bancroft into a Google search. The first picture that pops up is of a balding, overweight guy in what I’d guess is his thirties. He’s wearing a navy double-breasted jacket with gold buttons and a white shirt open at the neck to reveal a pink cravat pluming dramatically in an elaborate knot.
I move to the next image, then the next, but the only person I can find is this guy who’s far too old for my beautiful eighteen-year-old sister.
“This guy?” I ask, turning the phone to her.
She nods as another bout of sobs racks her body. “They told me tonight that he’s all for it, his family is ridiculously rich, and he’s a business genius.”
“Does he know how young you are?” I ask, horrified.
She nods. “We went to dinner with him and his parents last night, and he cornered me and tried to grope me. He said he’s always liked his girls young and that he can’t wait to break me in. I never thought Mom and Dad would agree, but it’s all done. They want us to announce the engagement by the end of the month.”
“How old is he?”
“Thirty-five.”
Sick to my stomach, I grab Penelope’s arm and squeeze. “You can’t let them do this. Do you want to marry that pervert and be forced to have children with him? You have to get out; you have to stop this toxic power trip Mom and Dad are on.” My voice is frantic and shrill and apparently loud enough for the guys to hear, because a moment later, both Gulliver and Kip are in the bathroom, filling the space that really wasn’t intended for four people.
“What’s going on? Izzy, are you okay?” Gulliver asks, glaring at my sister.
Ignoring him, I focus on Penelope, needing to know that she isn’t just going to go along with this madness. “Penelope.”
“What can I do?” she says, her voice little more than a broken whisper.
“You break one of the clauses. Fail a class, fuck a guy, get arrested, withdraw all of your college applications. There are so many things you can do, but you can’t let them force you into a marriage with a guy twice your age that you don’t even know. This is the twenty-first century. Great-grandfather might not have realized it when he wrote that horrid will, but we don’t have to play the game. You can just say no,” I tell her, my voice clear and full of determination. I can’t let her do this for the sake of money.
“They’ll never forgive me if I lose the money,” she whispers.
“It’s just money. We’re rich without it. We’ll never want for anything ever for the rest of our lives. Why do they need more? It’s not like they even get to control the company, that all falls to your future husband. So, fuck them. Fuck the stupid will and fuck our evil parents. They don’t care about us, they haven’t since that will was read. You need to think about yourself.”
By the time I finish speaking, my chest is heaving, and anger is pulsing through my muscles.
Strong hands pull me from the floor, and I’m turned into Gulliver’s arms as he smiles widely down at me. “You’re so fucking hot when you’re angry, Little Ghost,” he purrs, a second before his lips find mine.
Our kiss is fast and hard and laced with desire, but I reluctantly pull back, needing to deal with my sister and all of our never-ending drama. Turning in Gulliver’s arms, unwilling to leave his embrace, I lean into his body as I look down at my sister. “You can’t let them do this.”
“I’m not like you,” she whimpers. “I’m not strong.”
“Then you have to get strong. You have to force yourself to be brave. I can help you,” I yell. “We can help you.”
“Why would you want to? I’ve been so awful to you. I’m just as bad as them, and maybe Geoffrey is fate’s way of getting revenge,” she whines.
“Stop feeling sorry for yourself!” I shout. “Get up, wash your face, and then let’s sit down in the living room and figure a way to get you out of this mess and away from Mom and Dad before they find out what you’re doing.”
Two hours and several black coffees later for my sister, all of us, including Hawthorn and Davis, are sitting around the suite’s living room.
“I don’t understand why we’re still discussing this. It’s simple, fail a test,” Gulliver says for the twentieth time.
“My parents have engaged private tutors for every single subject for me. They’re buying the test answers. If I fail a test, they’ll know it was deliberate,” Penelope hisses, her angry tone grating on me.
“Take a shower, and I’ll fuck you,” Davis offers. “I’m not touching you until you wash off the smell of vodka and puke, though.”
“I’m not fucking you. I don’t even like you,” she sneers, turning her nose up at the beautiful boy opposite her.
“But you’ll fuck Geoffrey Bancroft,” Davis sneers. “You know he swings both ways, right? Once you’re engaged, he’s not going to be able to have his boytoy hanging around, so he’s going to have his dick in you, then in who knows how many nasty rent boys. But it’s okay because you’ll be rich enough to pay off the doctors when he gives you an STD.”
Penelope’s jaw drops open, and her eyes widen as they fill with tears.
“Davis,” I snap, and he immediately looks contrite.
“Look, Penelope, we’ve been going round and round in circles for over an hour. There’s no way you can break one of the will stipulations without Mom and Dad finding out. But once it’s done, what can they do? We’ll make sure you don’t have to go back to the house, and once it’s done, nothing they say or do can change that,” I tell her matter-of-factly.
“What about if they do to me what they did to you?” she whispers.
Shrugging, I keep my gaze locked on my sister’s. “I survived, and so will you. If you end up with a few bruises, you take pictures, and then you threaten to release them to the press, and that will keep them away from you for the rest of your life.”
She shudders visibly, and it surprises me how weak she is. I never realized how beaten down by them she was. She’s always struck me as so strong and self-assured, and maybe it’s the alcohol, or maybe this is all an act, but right now, she looks pitiful.
After a long moment, she nods. “Okay.”
“Okay?” I question.
“Yes, I need to do this. I can’t marry Geoffrey, I just can’t, so I need to figure out a way to fail a test that I know all the answers to,” she says, nodding her head concisely like she’s convincing herself.
“I have an idea,” Kip says cautiously.
Turning my head, I look at him and find him grimacing slightly. “You’re not going to like it,” he says.
“What?” I ask.
“Well, the easiest way to get rid of all of Penelope’s tutors is if she doesn’t need them anymore,” he says slowly, looking at us all like he’s waiting for us to catch up.
“No,” Gulliver growls from beside me, his fingers clenching tightly around my waist.
“What?” I ask, twisting to look at him.
“He’s saying you should go back,” he snarls, his lips pursed in a hard, unyielding line.
“It makes sense,” Kip continues. “Izzy moves back in. She plays the role of the subservient daughter. She agrees to take Penelope’s classes again, only she doesn’t. A week, and this would all be over. Penelope fails, the girls leave, and it’s done.”
“No,” Gulliver barks. “Not happening, no. There’s no way I’m letting those evil bastards get her back in that house. I’d never see her again; they’d never let me.”
“He’s right, it’s the easiest way,” I say.
“No. Don’t even think about it. If you step foot in that house, I’ll release those pictures of your face, and I’ll tell everyone who will listen. I’d do that for you, Izzy, even if it hurt you, because I care about you too much to let them have you again,” he demands, dragging me into his lap and burying his face in my hair, a slight tremor running through him.
“He’s right,” Penelope says, surprising me. “You can’t go back there. I’ll just fail the next test on purpose. It won’t be hard. I’m pretty clueless even when I’ve got the answers.”
“It’ll be okay,” I say, trying to reassure her.
“No, it won’t, but I still have to do it,” she says, pulling her lips into a shaky smile.
“Let’s order room service. I’m starving,” Thorn suggests, breaking the tension and making me smile. The boy is always hungry.
By the time I woke up the next morning, tangled in Gulliver’s arms in the enormous, super-king-sized bed, a strong feeling of hopefulness was building within me. After we ate delicious food, we plotted ways to help my sister fail a test. Our parents appear to have the school primed and ready to ensure she graduates with that all-important 4.0, no matter the cost.
Right now, our best plan is an unexpected pop quiz, oral discussion, or presentation that our parents can’t manipulate to ensure she brings her grade down that significant single point, but we have no idea when an opportunity will arise.
“Morning, Ghost,” Gulliver rasps, his voice thick with sleep, his cock hard and enthusiastically saluting the sun.
“Morning.” The fact that our fake relationship is becoming more and more real is playing on my mind. I know I should be stopping this, but with everything that’s going on with my sister, the constant events, parties, and media attention, I haven’t allowed myself to dwell on the fact that this stopped feeling like a lie weeks ago.
I love that he calls me his Little Ghost. I love that he calls me his, like it’s the simplest thing in the world. I love waking up with him. I love the way he touches me, and I love the way he reacted so vehemently to the idea of me going back to my parents’ house when Kip suggested it last night.
When Gulliver and I are together, he acts like a possessive boyfriend, and even though I consider myself somewhat of a feminist, I can’t deny that I love his growly caveman side. The sex is unbelievable, and for the first time in what feels like a lifetime, I feel seen and wanted. If you’d have asked me a month ago—after that first dinner with him when he thought I was Penelope—if there was ever a time when I thought I’d have any kind of feelings beyond revulsion for Gulliver Winslow, I’d have laughed. But I’m not laughing now. Right now, he feels like the lightning that brightens the sky after the thunder rumbles. He’s still dangerous, but it’s a beautiful danger—the kind that makes your blood sing and makes life exciting and terrifying all at the same time.
Being with him is stupid, it’s a risk, but I just don’t seem to be able to bring myself to care.