Page 71 of Devious Lies (Cruel Crown)
Reed wrapped an arm around my shoulder as if he could shield me from Dad’s woeful eyes.
Dad took in my face, flicked a glance at Reed, and cataloged our limbs to make sure they were still attached to our bodies. “Anything hurt?”
Reed stood up with me. “No, sir.”
“Emery?”
I shook my head. “No, Dad.”
“Good. Follow me.”
Reed and I trailed behind Dad. He swung open the trunk to his G-Wagon and pulled out two child-size bikes.
“No way.” I backed up a step, ignoring the rain. It lashed at my face, punishing me for my mistakes. I could guess where this was going, and I hated it with a capital H. “Dad, that’s child torture.”
“You two are going to get on these bikes and take yourselves home. When your calves are burning and your lungs are struggling for air, I want you to think about the consequences of your actions. By the time y’all get to your rooms, I expect you to be sober with your heads on straight. Y’all got that?”
“Yes, sir,” Reed agreed.
Not me.
I went down swinging.
Always.
I flung my arms out, splashing rainwater in Reed’s face. “That’s insane! Dad, it’s freezing. The rain—”
“You mean the rain you drove drunk in?”
I shut up. I mean, what could I say to that?
He leaned down, placed a hand on my shoulder, and forced me to look him in the eyes. “I can bring you bikes and bail you out of trouble all day, but I won’t always be around, sweetheart. Storms will always rage. Don’t run from them. Face them. Some things in life can only be learned in a storm.”
Dad pressed a kiss to my forehead and sped off before I could complain. The downpour cloaked my sight as we biked back. All I could feel was icy water splattering my face until my vision blurred and my teeth chattered.
I wasn’t sure what lesson Dad was trying to teach me on that bike, but I learned that storms could be relentless.
They were supposed to come and go.
But when you needed it to most, the storm never receded.
Working at Prescott Hotels, I felt trapped in the middle of one daily, like every conversation was a battle I had to fight unless I wanted to be drenched.
Shivering.
Defeated.
My throat burned from arguing all day. Chantilly had overspent on flooring we didn’t need, which meant our already dwindling budget had been blown on statuario marble with silver and gold veins nearly identical to the Winthrop Estate’s.
The Winthrop Estate reminded me of a boomerang. Every time I gained some distance, it always came hurtling back at me. I couldn’t escape it. I saw pieces of it in the Greek statues at the park down the street; in the floor-to-ceiling curtains at the soup kitchen; and now, in the floor I was expected to walk over every day of my internship.
Hannah suggested reducing the design to the absolute basics, creating a minimalist effect like Kim Kardashian and Kanye West’s sixty-million-dollar home in Hidden Hills, California. The one that possessed the personality of a peanut—all beige and not much to look at.
(For the record, the property tax on that home is over seven-hundred and five grand a year. I Google’d it. A UNICEF donation in that amount could vaccinate nearly four million toddlers. Google’d that, also. Virginia spent triple that each year on chartered private jets alone. Didn’t have to Google that. She bragged about it to anyone who would listen.)
The five of us had all reluctantly agreed to the minimalist aesthetic. What choices did we have? The budget had been nearly wiped out. Anything else wasn’t possible. I argued we could cut corners in some design aspects, like using remnant materials and spending the money that saved on a centerpiece that would make the hotel design less boring.
Today, Chantilly took that idea and twisted it, so the extra money went to custom cabinet handles that I swore resembled butt plugs. By the end of the day, I’d checked my project calendar five times, ticking down the days until my internship ended.
