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Chapter 1
Whitney
WHITNEY ELIZABETH DAHL, Doctor of Philosophy in Sociology. It has a nice ring to it, right?
My parents didn’t think so. In fact, they spent the entire summer trying to convince me I was educated enough. Why would a girl as pretty, popular, and filthy rich as me need a master’s degree? Let alone a doctorate? Why, for the love of all things holy, would I want to spend another three to four years in school when I could do what my mother, and her mother, and her mother’s mother did?
Marry rich. Laterally, if not up. Never work a day in my life as long as I looked the other way when it came to my future husband’s affairs. Be barefoot and pregnant in the kitchen of some Hampton estate and breed the next generation of haughty billionaires with a half a brain who at least look good in an Armani suit while in the board room of a company their great-grandfather built.
Nope. That kind of life was never for me. Even from the beginning of my life, I knew I was destined for something other than designer clothes, fast cars, and garden parties. I wanted more. I needed more. My father liked to say that I’ve never been satisfied a single day in my life, and he was right.
I spent the summer lying out by my parents’ pool in the Hamptons while my mother chided me about wrinkles from beneath her UV blocking umbrella. I sipped white wine while she listened to her friends cooing and comforting her while saying things like, “Rachel, you poor thing! She’ll get tired of those books and marry into the Brockford family soon enough.” And my mother, poor thing, had held back tears as she whispered that I’d already turned down three proposals from the man in question.
It wasn’t like they wanted me to marry Christian Brockford because they loved him and wanted him to become part of our family. No, marriages were a business arrangement if someone came from a family like mine. Love was never part of the equation. Building and maintaining dynasties was the golden rule.
I wanted more.
So I decided to reach out and take it.
FIRST SEMESTER OF GRADUATE School
“All hail the Queen, XOXO”
I pulled the sticky note from my bedroom door, smoothing it between my manicured thumb and forefinger as I nudged my way inside the bedroom I’d called home since freshmen year. Cream-colored walls illuminated by string lights welcomed me into the cozy space, and the familiar scent of honeysuckle and vanilla brought me back to the moment I’d first stepped foot in the Theta Nu Delta house four years ago.
I’d been starry-eyed and shy, unsure of what my future held. All I knew for sure was I was meant to be at Gatlington University, and I was born to be in Theta Nu Delta. Just like my mother, and her mother, and her mother’s mother, so on and so forth.
That moment felt like yesterday and an eternity ago all at once, especially after catching my reflection in the mirror over my vanity. I was older now and wiser but still as bright-eyed and bushytailed as I had been as an ecstatic freshmen dead set on making a name for myself.
I set down my shopping bags on my bed and sat down to unzip my Prada boots. I patted down my thick, black hair that had spent the entire morning rolled and pinned in the biggest hot rollers I could find. Eyebrow wax? Check. Makeup on point? Of course. New designer clothes that would make the rest of my sorority drool? Always.
I glanced down at my Cartier watch—gold and dusted with little diamonds—and felt my stomach tighten with anticipation. I’d come home to Gatlington for one more year.
I felt happy to be back, even if this year would be completely and utterly different than the rest.
Thank goodness.
Rain pattered the double-pane windows in a steady, rhythmic thrum. The late August heat still hugged the humid air, but there had been a definite shift in the seasons since I’d arrived at campus a little under a month ago after a long summer spent lounging at my parents’ estate in the Hamptons. I unpacked my shopping bags and organized the notebooks, pens, and highlighters I’d just picked up from the campus store. I packed them into the leather satchel I’d been wearing on my hip to class for the past four years, and then moved across the room to pick through the massive stack of textbooks arranged haphazardly on top of my dresser.
I carefully eased my copy of Primitivism and Its Effect on the Modern Art Movement from the stack and tucked it into the satchel, as well as a few others I would need for my first day back on campus as a graduate student.
Pinch me. I never thought I’d get here. Not because of my grades—those were always stellar. No, it had nothing to do with me or my ability to fight my way into Gatlington’s prestigious graduate school for the liberal arts. It had everything to do with my parents and their inability to envision my life as anything more than a rich housewife.
Going to Gatlington University for college had been nonnegotiable for them, but only because it was an opportunity for me to meet my future husband. Someone, they hoped, who already ran within the elite social circles they were accustomed to.
My getting a real education was likely at the very bottom of their list.
I didn’t dwell on that fact I’d disappointed them. I mean, how could anyone be disappointed that their child got into grad school?
I’m doing this for me, and I’m damn proud.
“All right, let’s do this,” I said to myself in the mirror, adjusting my makeup once more. The smoky eye I’d perfected over the course of several years really made my green eyes pop. Freckles dusted my nose from a summer spent lying out at my parents’ pool.
Yes, I looked great. I felt great. And I was ready to step out on campus as a graduate student for the first time and shed the carefully crafted persona I’d spent several long, arduous semesters of my undergrad building.
Once upon a time, I was the It Girl on campus. President of my sorority. Track star. Loved by the students and professors alike.
I hosted parties. I organized charity balls every spring. I volunteered my time as a tutor.
