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“Bethany!” Mom hissed.
I smirked to myself as I yanked my bedroom door shut. I didn’t have a lock—Mom had removed the locks on my bedroom as soon as I reached puberty—but I wedged a chair under the door handle, preventing her from barging in after me.
I flung my shoes to the floor and flopped face-first onto my bed, screaming into my pillow with frustration.
Just move out,I thought, not for the first time.
I was twenty-one years old and despite my lucrative modeling career, working for big-name clothing lines, like Victoria Secret and Calvin Klein, any money I earned went into a joint bank account with my mother. So, she controlled everything.
I’d been saving a little on the side, taking a few gigs under the table that my mother didn’t know about. But it wasn’t enough to live on. And I didn’t have any close friends I could move in with. Everyone I knew had a connection to my mother somehow. If I tried to escape, they would report back to her and rat me out.
I felt like I was slowly getting strangled in this picture-perfect life. To my mother, I was her Barbie doll that she could dress up and parade around in order to get the applause she craved.
My phone rang in my purse where I’d dropped it on the floor. Reluctantly, I dragged myself out of bed and retrieved my phone. The name on the screen read: Lionel Holmes.
I groaned and flung my phone back in my purse.
By morning, Mom would have this whole thing smoothed over and everything would be back to normal. Lionel and I would resume our relationship as if nothing happened. Axel would be a subject swept under the rug, never to be discussed again.
At the thought of Axel, my lips burned with the memory of his kiss. I’d never been kissed like that and I already ached for more.
Curling up in bed, I pressed my fingers to my lips and closed my eyes. Clinging desperately to the memory of Axel—the feel of his body against mine; his big, warm hands cradling my lower back; the taste of him and the slick heat of his tongue.
***
I don’t remember drifting off to sleep, but I woke to the incessantping, ping, pingof notifications on my phone. My mother insisted that I kept a close eye on celebrity websites, news, and social media, claiming this was part of my job and I had to take it seriously, monitoring my reputation and the reputation of other social media influencers like me. However, that meant my phone was rarely quiet with all my subscriptions.
Groggy and sluggish, I crawled to the foot of my bed, flailing around with one arm until I found my purse and hauled it closer. Blindly, I fished my phone out, squinting in the screen’s glare.
The clock read 6:04am.
Dozens of little notification bubbles scrolled across my home page.
Congrats!
Power couple goals!
The wedding is going to be GORGEOUS!
My stomach twisted with dread. I pulled up my social media accounts to see Lionel plastered all over my feeds with a picture of his morning latte, a little black box beside it and a chunky diamond ring on display.
The caption read:time to lock down my woman. Get ready for the biggest YES heard around the world!
“Fuck, fuck,fuck,” I hissed. My hands started to shake. I felt sick.
Why would Lionel even consider proposing after last night?
The cold certainty of my mother’s hand in this move settled over me. Hadn’t she threatened that she would make amends with Lionel? And she wasted no time doing so. Since Lionel wasn’t keeping his proposal a secret, making it public before he even asked me, it was obvious he was only doing this for status and attention. He wanted to be the man people admired because of the way he flaunted his wealth, because he could get any woman he wanted.
I scrubbed my hands over my face. There was no way I could marry him. I didn’t love him. To Lionel, I was a pretty, empty-headed trophy wife. A prize to be won and put on display. I was athingto possess.
I had to put a stop to all this. My mother would only dig my grave even deeper and shove me in, piling the dirt on top of me. My father wasn’t in the picture—Mom had cut him out when I was a baby, and paid him a substantial amount to stay away from me, granting her full control over my life.
But who could I turn to?
A firm knock echoed at my door.
“Bethany Marie, it’s time to get up,” Mom barked. “You’ve slept late enough as it is. I need to have a word with you about what’s on your agenda for the day.”
