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“You said your father and Edward are away for six weeks, right?”
“Yeah, so?”
“So, why don’t you take some time off from work while they’re away? Why not move to London and go undercover? You could get a shitty job and pretend your name is something completely different.”
“Like what?”
She bites her bottom lip and thinks for a moment. “Lottie Preston. Your friends call you Lottie, anyway.”
“Have you lost your mind?” I gasp, sitting up at once.
She beams at me. “Just the opposite, this is fucking genius. Get a job in a café or a nightclub pouring drinks or something. Nobody will know who you are, and you’ll be treated just like the rest of us. You can run amuck.”
I stare at her, wide-eyed as her idea rolls around in my head. “But what would I tell my father?”
“Hmm.” She thinks for a moment. “That’s tough because he won’t let you go anywhere without security.”
I flop back against the couch, dejected that my plan is already screwed. “It won’t work.” I sigh. “Why doesn’t Lara have the issues that I do?”
Beth rolls her eyes. “You and Lara are completely different.”
“Why?”
“Both her mother and father come from money. She’s had nannies and lived the high life her entire childhood. She has this entitled part of her personality that only rich people have. Your mother was different, Lottie. She didn’t have money. She fell in love with a rich man. You never had nannies and your main influence was your mother. She didn’t rely on money or see it as anything special. That’s why you’re different. Money doesn’t define who you are, and your family knows that. That’s why they feel you have to be protected so fiercely. They know that when you fall in love with someone, it could be with anyone. Social rankings mean nothing to you.”
I become overwhelmed with emotion. “I never thought of it like that.”
“Do you really think that your mother would want you to be a prisoner of your father’s bank balance?”
My eyes tear up from knowing that’s exactly what I am. I shake my head. “I don’t think she would.”
“Then let’s do this.”
“How do I get around the guards? Maybe I could just run away?”
“No. If you did that your father and Edward would come home acting crazy only to drag you back here.”
“That’s true.”
We both think for a moment.
“What about if you did run away, but more subtly so that you weren’t detected,” she says.
I frown. “How?”
“Well… you tell your job here that you are having eight weeks off to travel. But then you tell your father that you’re going to be working the same job as usual, just from the London office for a few weeks.”
This plan already sounds ridiculous. It will never work.
“But then you secretly get another job somewhere else.”
I roll my eyes. “As if.”
“The guards won’t follow you into work, they never do. They will hover around outside, but who cares, because you’ll be inside being someone else.”
“But then where would I live?”
“Hmm.” She thinks for a moment. “The guards don’t guard you twenty-four hours a day, do they?”
