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I hear the doorbell and my heart seizes. Cat turns toward me. “Don’t worry. I doubt Dane will bring up the restaurant if he hasn’t already.”
It seems that Harrison’s pride prevented him from telling my parents or anyone else I walked out on him the other night—at least so far. I wish that was my only fear about this evening.
With a few days’ distance and Cat’s reassurance, I’m more sure than ever that I didn’t overreact the other night—I was right to get out of there. I just wish I could trust my parents to take my side.
Right now, I wouldn’t trust either of them as far as I can throw them. They could tell me it was raining while I was looking outside at a thunderstorm and I would still go outside and soak myself, just to check.
As if summoned by my thoughts, my mother appears in the doorway like a dark specter. She wordlessly beckons Cat and I toward the living room, her expression pinched. I feel my feet move without my permission, as if I’m a puppet on someone else’s strings. Sometimes I wonder if my mom is using spells, or if she’s justthatmanipulative.
“Tilt your head,” Cat mutters.
I glance at her, hissing under my breath. “What?”
“That thing on your neck is not subtle. Like, at all. My gods, get some better concealer.”
The three of us step into the room and find Harrison, Tyberius, and my father already gathered around the drink cart. Now I realize why Cat was invited to stay—she might be staying with us while her family is away, but my mom would have absolutely no problem telling her to go out for dinner if her presence would mess up the symmetry of the place settings. With Ty here, and his on-again-off-again girlfriend nowhere in sight, it looks like Cat is about to be thrown to the wolves.
“Sorry,” I mouth at her.
She shrugs, plastering a grin on her face. “Whatever.”
Taking my friend’s lead, I also force myself to smile, slipping into the easygoing beauty queen façade my mother has cultivated for me over the last twenty-one years. At the last second, I remember to tilt my head down to hide my neck. “Hello.”
Harrison turns, and his gaze frosts over as he takes me in. He’s wearing a brown tweed blazer over a black turtleneck sweater with no tie. His pale lips are turned up in an unamused smile, his arms folded in front of his chest. His back is to my father, who can’t see his expression, and therefore smiles genuinely, unaware anything is amiss.
“There you are, Etta.” My dad beams. “I was starting to think you got lost.”
I focus on my dad, ignoring Harrison. Of my entire family, he’s the only one who never calls me Juliette, for which I am grateful.
I grin, nodding at the drink he just poured. “Is that for me?”
Dad pretends to frown, before handing it over with a jovial wink. My heart squeezes. I rarely see him, now that he spends so much time with his barely-legal mistress. “How was work, dad?”
I immediately cringe. What a basic question—I’d been meaning to ask him about that book I spotted in his room, or my pledging, or talk about school, oranythingthat might result in a conversation longer than a few sentences.
Sure enough, my father waves me off. “Uneventful. Harrison was just telling us about the business.”
I deflate. I don’t care about Harrison—worse than that, I actively despise Harrison, which I’m fairly sure my mother realizes and my father would realize if he’d been present for a single, solitary day since I’ve been home.
But I don’t say that. I don’t say anything. Like Pavlov’s dog, the dismissal from my father has me smiling sweetly as I fall back into old patterns. “Fascinating. Please continue.”
We all fall into seats around the dimly lit living room. The ice in Harrison’s glass clinks against the crystal as he takes a sip of the scotch. He glances at me with his pale eyes and smiles tightly. “As I was saying, we’ve been having success with our venture capital investments. It’s a good time to be in the media.”
I couldn’t care less about what he’s saying, and it must show because as he speaks, my mother glares daggers at me across the room. I stifle a groan. Usually, silence is my best option, but apparently not tonight. Dinner hasn’t even started yet, and already I’m in trouble.
I don’t know what my mother is expecting me to say. I know little about Harrison’s role in his family business, and have nothing to add to this conversation. Cat looks across the room and at me and smiles encouragingly.
I take a deep breath. “So, do you have any fun stories?”
Harrison blinks at me, as the room falls silent. “Fun?”
“Yeah, you know...what’s the point of working in news if you don’t get all the gossip first, right? Have you ever had to bury a scandal?”
My mother looks like I’ve asked Harrison about his porn watching habits and followed it up by uttering a vile slur. I blink, confused as to what I’ve possibly said that’s so offensive. To my credit, even Tyberius —difficult and fussy as he is—seems perplexed.
“No, Juliette,” Harrison snaps. “We report the news fairly and accurately, exactly as it is.Every. Single. Day.We don’tbury scandals.”
I bite my tongue. I have never been more sure that he absolutely has bodies in his yard—probably literally, but that’s none of my business I guess. “Right. Okay, sorry. So, what’s the headline for tomorrow then?”
