Spice (The Gilded #2)

Prologue

GREER

Everything hurt.

My feet ached since the sneakers I’d distractedly thrown on in my frantic rush were designed for fashion, not function. I’d also accidentally skipped socks and was keenly aware of the blood that seeped from the blisters at the back of my feet.

The sticky wetness was the perfect complement to the sweat that dripped down my spine to pool uncomfortably at the top of my ass crack. November in Los Angeles wasn’t sweltering, but it also wasn’t snowy and cold. It definitely wasn’t cool enough to compensate for the exhausting hike.

My lungs burned, and each attempt to fill them with needed oxygen resulted in a painful stabbing behind my ribs.

The tightness pulling at my calves was a stark reminder that I hadn’t stretched properly.

Or at all.

Rather than sitting in hot yoga surrounded by other people, I’d headed straight for the solitude of the trail. It was the correct choice. I’d been walking for almost two hours, and the approaching man was the only other person I’d seen.

He was making the slow trek downward, but we didn’t make eye contact or exchange that awkward smile of mutual discomfort. He glowered as he slowly trudged ahead, looking ready to curl into a ball to roll down the hill rather than deal with the treacherous terrain.

The trail I’d chosen was the worst I knew. There were no easy portions. No pretty wildflowers to soften the torture. It didn’t even offer a picturesque and Instagrammable view from the top as a reward for the tireless journey.

It was grueling and intense, and most people who hiked it didn’t know better—and usually turned back after less than a mile.

Or they were like me.

Gluttons for nature’s punishment.

I chose the route because of its awfulness. I pushed through with stubborn determination, hoping the hike would bring me what I needed most.

Clarity.

Calm.

The contradictory mix of physical pain and mental peace.

It wasn’t happening.

I had the pain, but it was physical and mental.

The deepening pit in my stomach and the widening crack in my heart worsened by the second, stealing my breath more than the exertion was.

My brain was in worse shape than my body.

Thoughts swirled around and around, tearing at me like they were serrated-edged jigsaws.

Each orbited back to the same thing, eviscerating my…

My everything. My entire life as I knew it.

When Maddie—one of my lifelong best friends—had shown up at my apartment early that morning, I’d known it had to be something major. At first, I’d joked that her older lawyer boyfriend had proposed.

It hadn’t really been a joke because it wasn’t outside the realm of possibility. That man was obsessed with her.

The tendril of apprehension at her early visit—unlike me, she was not a morning person—had grown into a chasm of dread when I’d taken in her appearance.

The worry lining her blue eyes.

The dark bags under them that signified her sleepless night.

The dullness to her tan complexion.

I could’ve had a million chances, but I never would’ve guessed what she’d told me.

The night before, Maddie had run into my ex-boyfriend at some douchey actor’s house.

Josh’s attendance at a Hollywood party wasn’t the shock. He’d never met a party he didn’t want to attend, and that included ones with his new boss.

His spoiled mother had put it in his head that he should be a star—ensuring she could ride his coattails and the alimony from her fourth divorce straight into a permanent life of leisure.

The quickest way to get his foot in the door was by cutting the hours he worked as my dad’s admin at the plastic surgery practice to put in the grunt work as a personal assistant.

Not to Maddie’s friend the douchey actor, but to an even douchier one.

The whole thing sounded like hell to me, but it wasn’t my life.

It also wasn’t shocking that she’d found Josh and his actor boss with a table of pills and coke between them. That was Hollywood up, down, and all around.

Nope, the real kick in the fucking face was Josh’s revelation that my father was knowingly providing said pills.

My father is selling drugs.

It was like a cruel taunt on repeat in my head, slamming harder with each punishing step I took.

Father.

Drugs.

Father.

Drugs.

Father.

Drugs, drugs, drugs!

I stopped abruptly, nearly stumbling to the ground. My vision began to tunnel as my breaths came in short pants.

Selling prescriptions wasn’t simply going against his oath or a shady business loophole. It was illegal. It put his entire practice at risk—impacting Maddie’s parents, too, since our dads started that practice from nothing.

And, sure, powder snorting and pill popping were as much of a part of upper-class suburbia as inground pools and luxury SUVs, but that didn’t make it okay.

People died from drugs.

If something happened to one of his patients because of his overprescribing…

The practice.

Maddie’s family.

The reputations.

The human life.

I couldn’t even fathom the damage it would do.

I lifted my shirt to swipe at the sweat before it could roll down into my eyes as I looked longingly in the direction I’d come. As badly as I wanted to go back down the path, I didn’t.

I inhaled deeply and began walking again on the slim hope some answers waited for me at the top of the trail.

Maddie wouldn’t lie. I trusted her and Wren—our other bestie—more than anyone else in the world. But there had to be something more to the story. There just had to be.

I’m missing something.

Some explanation to make this make sense.

With each step, I shut out the guilt. Then the panic. Then the shock. I closed off my emotions and did what I did best.

I organized.

I visualized the bullet points of what Maddie had shared.

Josh worked for my dad.

Josh had a stocked pharmacy of prescription drugs.

According to him, my dad supplied said drugs.

How many pills?

No clue.

What kind?

Mental shrug.

For how long?

No idea.

Why?

That was the million-dollar question in my head.

Exquisite Aesthetics was doing well—as far as I knew, at least. Dad wasn’t exactly forthcoming with the details. I might’ve been twenty-two and in my senior year of college, but he still treated me like I was a kid.

And honestly? I usually liked that. With a shit-ton of assignments and the stress of my business administration degree—not to mention, a daunting future looming ahead of me—it was nice to visit home and feel like a carefree kid.

But even if I wasn’t involved at all, I’d overheard enough. They had no shortage of famous patients keeping their appointments solidly booked far into the future. They hadn’t resorted to offering buy-one-get-one boob implants or discounted BBLs that they advertised on peeling, faded billboards.

It seemed unlikely that he needed to resort to dire measures to save the thriving business.

My parents’ financial well-being also didn’t appear precarious. They’d never so much as hinted that I needed to start paying my own bills. I kept my spending to a minimum—minus boozy brunches—but if there were issues, they likely would’ve told me that I need to hurry up and land on a career choice.

And I would’ve hidden the panic attack it sent me into because I was a good daughter like that.

They went to events that included high ticket costs and new outfits for Mom.

They made charitable contributions from Exquisite Aesthetics and themselves personally.

They drove new cars. Had a house that was far too big for the two of them.

They even wanted to add to that real estate portfolio and had been on the hunt for a luxury vacation house near one of the many vineyards.

None of that screamed that they were hovering on the edge of bankruptcy.

A wave of panic crashed over me again as I wondered if Dad was secretly sick. That he was pulling a Walter White and breaking his own version of bad by selling the drugs in order to leave Mom with the lifestyle she was accustomed to.

Bile rose in my stomach at the thought of him silently suffering.

Calm down. It’s okay. It’s unlikely he’s on his deathbed. He doesn’t look sick. He sure as hell doesn’t act sick. He’s got more energy than I do, gallivanting all over until late at night while I’m asleep in my apartment by nine. Mom hasn’t mentioned any mysterious appointments…

The discrepancies.

I stumbled, that time needing to drop down in the dirt to take a break. It was that or allow my wobbly legs to give out, making me collapse anyway. My brain raced as I thought about the conversation I’d overheard at the end of the summer.

The OGs—the label Wren, Maddie, and I had given our mothers since they were the original friends—had been seated out near the pool with pitchers of margaritas in their hands.

Not glasses.

Pitchers.

That wasn’t unusual. Well, them chugging straight from pitchers had been a new one, but not them being clustered together. The three had been friends since college. It was a promising sign for our second-gen friendship that they only seemed to grow closer as time passed.

The strange part had been the vibes. There’d been no raucous laughter. No playful ribbing. They’d been whispering, but it wasn’t the excited kind that said there was a juicy piece of gossip they were sharing.

The heaviness was why I’d tapped into my nosy inner Maddie and snuck outside to check on them.

Fine.

I’d gone outside to eavesdrop.

But it was out of love and concern, so that made it okay.

It turned out that Kerri was also a lot like her daughter. While helping her husband with paperwork, she’d come across some discrepancies in my dad’s schedule and procedures. She’d dug in to verify before going to my mom.

There’d been a brief discussion of a possible affair, but Mom cut it off before they’d gotten into any nitty-gritty. Not because she was so trusting of Dad’s loyalty. It was simply because she hadn’t wanted to know.