Page 47 of Scandal
“What do you mean?”
“I like order and organization. My entire life has revolved around it. My only hobby is reading, for god’s sake. Getting on a plane and flying halfway across the world with just three days’ notice isn’t something I usually do. Lying to an earl and pretending to be someone’s girlfriend? Definitely not something I normally do.”
I start to apologize, but she raises her hand. “At first, I thought I’d hate it—the fear of the unknown. But there’s a sort of thrill in it I didn’t expect.” She pulls her knees to her chest. “You said my dad told you I was driven?”
I nod. “He’s always been proud of you.”
“I know,” she says solemnly. “And I’m happy to make him proud. It was never my sole purpose. I’ve always been driven by my own goals, but it makes me glad to know I’m contributing to the legacy he’s built.”
It’s not lost on me that our situations, though vastly different, are similar in some ways. Her family legacy may not be centuries old, but it could still feel like a burden if it was something you felt pressured to carry. Unlike my family, Lance would never force one of his children into the family business. For the Creeds, it’s always a choice.
I may have thought I walked away all those years ago, but I simply delayed the inevitable. For me, there never was an option. I was always going to become the Earl of Dunloch.
“I’ve been laser-focused on those goals for nearly my entire life. I knew early on that I wanted to work in the music industry, and I never wanted anyone to think my career was handed to me because of who I was. So in high school, I took AP classes and every extracurricular I could manage. In college, I double majored and interned every summer. I never stopped.”
“There’s nothing wrong with being highly motivated.”
“I know,” she agrees. “And I’m proud of everything I’ve accomplished. I truly am. Turning on the radio and hearing songs I’ve helped produce is an amazing feeling, but I’m starting to realize how much I’ve missed along the way.”
“Like what?”
“Like friends,” she says softly. “I don’t have a single friend from college, Ash. And I was in a sorority.”
“Maybe that was your first problem.”
“That’s fair,” she agrees, but then follows it up with, “I’m sure not all sorority girls are bad. In fact, I’m sure some are lovely. But mine were just…awful.”
“So a couple of sorority girls are mean to you, and now you think you’re no fun?” It comes out sharper than I meant. When her head dips, I add, “Sorry, I didn’t intend for that to sound harsh. I guess I’m just having a hard time understanding, because to me, youarefun. You’re funny and clever. You’re one of the least boring people I’ve met.”
“That’s because before this, we hardly knew each other, and now we’re in this odd little bubble where we go to fancy dinner parties and galas. No one looks boring in a six-thousand-dollar dress, Ash! You’ve never met the real me, the one who orders takeout at my desk, even though it’s well past nine o’clock and I should have gone home hours ago. You don’t know the girl who watches concerts on her computer because she’s too scared to go to a real concert.”
“You went to mine,” I counter.
“Watching my brother’s band from the safety of backstage is hardly badass.”
“Did you wear headphones?” I know for a fact she didn’t. I couldn’t take my eyes off her when she was on the edge of that stage. I told myself it was because she was so into the music, but I know it wasn’t.
It was just her.
“What?” She’s momentarily distracted. “Of course not.”
“Hearing loss seems pretty bad ass to me.”
She stares at me for a moment, then laughter bubbles up her throat. “You’re an idiot.”
I’ll gladly be an idiot if it makes her smile.
“Look,” I begin, sliding my arm around the back of the sofa. “Early in my career, I was considered fun by most people’s standards. I partied. I drank. I slept around. Because that’s who I thought I needed to be to make it.”
I close my eyes, remembering those early days. “And for a while, it worked. The band became famous. My name waseverywhere, and I thought we were invincible. I thought our friendships were invincible too. But I was naïve.”
Her hand slides into mine, and when I open my eyes, I see dark sapphire irises staring into mine. “Mitch?”
My stomach clenches the way it always does whenever I think of my former friend. “Yeah, Mitch.”
I realize we’ve gone a bit off topic when she asks, “What was he like…before?”
Before he got so caught up in himself, he became someone neither of us recognized? Before he slept with a seventeen-year-old girl and then tried to pay her off when she came to him, desperate, alone, and pregnant? “He was funny,” I end up saying. “Funny and kind of arrogant, which, in hindsight, makes sense.”
