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“You’re pissed off,” I said. “What else is new?”
He shot me a hard look, sending the message loud and clear how he felt about my backtalk. Dad stood at the entrance to my bedroom, his hands on the doorframe as if he wanted to make sure there was no chance I could run by him and flee the situation.
Dad nodded to the big Louis Vuitton bag he’d hauled in and tossed onto my bed without warning only a few minutes ago. The bag fit in among the décor of my richly appointed bedroom, the space that had always felt like a gold-plated jail cell ever since I was a little girl.
“Pack that.” He narrowed his eyes in thought after he issued the command, thinking better of it. “Actually, I don’t want you screwing around.”
With that, he stuck his head out of the bedroom and let out a sharp whistle, two members of our estate’s staff dutifully appearing behind him. “Help her. She starts dawdling, you come tell me.”
The staff members slipped past Dad and into my room. They made no eye contact with me as they entered—not out of rudeness, but because no member of the staff, especially the men, wereallowedto do so. They hurried into my enormous walk-in closet and began right away going through my things.
“Stop!” I shouted.
The guards froze, expressions of worry on their faces as their eyes flicked from me to Dad. No doubt they were wondering which Marone to obey.
“I’m not going anywhere until you tell meexactlywhat’s going on. You barge in here, telling me to pack for a trip where I’ll be staying with some man I don’t even know. And then you don’t even give me a moment to process it before ordering the staff to start rooting through my underwear drawers!”
Dad opened his mouth to speak, closing it quickly and shaking his head.
“Leave us,” he barked at the staff.
The staff members obeyed without a word, hurrying out of the room and shutting the door behind them. Once Dad and I were alone, he slipped one hand into his pants pocket and raised the other toward me, pointing.
“You’re leaving. You’re going to be staying with a man named Logan Stone on his private island.”
“I’mwhat?”
“You heard me.”
My first instinct was to ask just who the hell Logan Stone was. The longer the name stayed in my ears, however, the more I realized I knew exactly who he was. Marta, the head maid and pretty much my surrogate mother ever since my real mom diedyears ago, loved to disobey Dad’s wishes, keeping me abreast on the happenings from the outside world. In addition to smuggling in movies and TV, she always made sure I had access to the latest gossip rags.
Logan Stone, if I remembered correctly, was some hotshot CEO in New York, one of the richest men in the world, if my information was correct. Supposedly, he was one of America’s most eligible and desired bachelors, as well.
Still, I needed to play dumb. Dad did his best to make sure I was as isolated from the outside as much as possible. Admitting to knowing who Logan Stone was might tip him off. Lucky for me, Dad was never too hard to fool; thankfully, I got my brains from Mom.
“Who is Logan Stone?” I asked, putting my hands on my hips. “And why the hell am I supposed to go stay with him?”
Dad’s eyes widened, his eyebrows arching. “First of all, don’t you dare take that tone with me, understand?”
I formed my mouth into a hard line. Dad might’ve been easy to intellectually beat, but I didn’t want to risk him putting his hands on me like he’d done so many times in the past.
“I understand.”
Dad’s expression cooled. “Good. Logan Stone is the CEO of Stone Holdings, one of the biggest investment firms in the world. He’s a, ah, business partner—one that we owe quite a bit of money to, money that we don’t have right now. So, in place of money, we’re sending you.”
I felt sick. Sure, I’d known since I was a girl that my destiny was to end up with some rich man that Dad had picked out for me without so much as a word of my own thoughts on the matter. All the expensive boarding schools and etiquette classes and language lessons I’d been subjected to over the years had never been about my own enjoyment, but instead to make me a prize, like some show pony.
Thankfully, Marta had balanced that education with one of her own. I thought about those old romance books she liked to slip under my bedroom doors, some of them set in Victorian times, featuring women being married off to men for strategic, rather than romantic, reasons.
“As if I were nothing more than a piece of property,” I said. “Like some expensive piece of jewelry or one of your stupid cars.”
Dad rolled his eyes. “Don’t be so dramatic. That’s always how you’ve been, you know? Major drama queen, just like your mother.”
Ihatedwhen he talked about Mom like that.
He crossed his arms. “Anyway, this is what’s happening, and I expect you to comply. Get it?”
In those moments I felt totally helpless, totally without power. I was an adult but never in my life had I been made to feel independent, like I was capable of making my own decisions.
