AllFreeNovel
Share Us
She hasn’t noticed me yet, and I pause for a minute to watch her while she’s unaware. Her posture is defeated, her head lowered like she doesn’t have the energy to lift it. A pang of sympathy ripples through me, but I bat it away. Until she proves herself to be the opposite, I’m assuming she’s just as much of the villain of this story as she’s been for the last three and a half years.
“I’m ready. Where do you want to go?” I ask, my voice loud enough for her to jump, then twist to look at me.
“Anywhere we won’t be overheard,” she says meekly, swallowing thickly as she gracefully rises from the sofa and takes a step toward the door.
“We can go to my boat, the crew won’t be there,” I suggest, not really wanting her in my personal space but unsure where else we can go that will guarantee our privacy and that we won’t be overheard.
“Okay.” She nods, placing a folded piece of paper on the coffee table before turning and heading for the door.
Crossing the room, I pick up the note she just left and scan the contents. Lifting my head, I watch her watch me, but neither of us speaks. Instead, I place the note back down and follow her out of the suite.
The hotel is quiet and still, too early for the guests to be moving around. We pass a few staff, but no one comments on Penelope’s cocktail dress or the ridiculously high heels she is wearing. “How the fuck do you walk in those stilts?” I sneer.
“Practice,” she snaps back, her tone full of snark and vitriol.
“Stop,” I demand, and her feet literally freeze to the spot as she becomes statue still. “Turn the fuck around and look at me.”
My dick twitches excitedly when she immediately spins all the way around on her stupid heels until she’s facing me.
“What?” she asks, her lips twisting into a sour expression like I’m beneath her interest, even though her body has obeyed my orders so perfectly.
“Let’s get one thing straight here, Princess. I am not one of your little fucking minions. If you want me to help you, then you need to start treating me with a little respect. I might fucking hate you, but I’ve never been disrespectful to you, and I expect the same in return.”
Her lips part, and shock flashes across her face. Has no one ever called her out for her holier-than-thou attitude before? “I’m…” she stutters. “I’m sorry.”
“I’m glad we understand each other, let’s go,” I say, walking past her and toward the elevator.
“That’s it?” she asks, her voice unsure.
“That’s it. I told you I wasn’t happy with your behavior. I explained why and what I expect of you, and you apologized. It’s done, so let’s go.” Pressing the call button for the elevator, I motion for her to go ahead when the doors slide open, watching as she walks forward, her heels clicking on the tile floor. “Do you need to get a change of clothes?”
“Everything I own is at my house, and I don’t plan to go back there, so until the store’s open, I’m stuck with this,” she says, gesturing to her tight-fitting dress. “I suppose I could have worn the pajamas Izabella lent me, but I think I’m less of a spectacle in this than in pajama pants with donuts on them.”
I shrug, then smirk. “I don’t know, in that dress, at this time of the morning, you look like you’re doing the walk of shame.”
Her eyes widen comically large. “I do not.”
“Princess, you’re in a skin-tight dress and hooker heels at…”—I look at my watch—“almost five thirty in the morning. You look like you’re either a very high-class prostitute who just finished working or a socialite getting home from a hookup.”
The look of horror that takes over her face is hilarious, but I manage to bite back the laugh that threatens to break free. “We’ll stop somewhere and find you something more casual to wear, don’t worry about it.”
“Where are we going to find a store open at this time in the morning?” she groans, self-consciously smoothing down the wrinkles in her cocktail dress.
“There’s a twenty-four-hour mall near the financial district, we’ll go there first. We can pick you up something to wear and grab some food. Then we can go to the marina to talk.”
When we arrive in the lobby, the elevator doors slide open, and I grab her hand, not allowing her a chance to worry about who might be judging her as I tow her behind me, guiding her out of the hotel and toward the valet station.
Five minutes later, we’re sitting inside my Mercedes, cruising along the quiet early morning streets of Green Acres, California, in surprisingly comfortable silence. I don’t really know Penelope that well. Truthfully, beyond my general dislike of her bitchy, mean girl persona and my loathing for the despicable way she’s treated her sister, I barely know her at all.
My family is rich, but apparently not old money rich enough to have made it onto Reginald Rhodes the Second’s list of suitable husbands for his great-granddaughter. So unlike Gulliver, I’ve never been a target for Penelope or her mother’s attention.
Since I met Izzy and heard how fucked up the last few years have been for her because of her sister and parents, I labeled Penelope as a heartless, evil bitch, and despite her behavior in the last few weeks, I’ve haven’t seen anything that’s really changed my opinion of her. For years, she’s helped her parents hide and enslave Izzy. She forced her twin to give up her own identity just so that she could pretend to be Penelope, and help her pass high school with an all-important 4.0 GPA.
In the world we live in, money is power, but even without Reginald Rhodes’s fortune, Penelope and her parents are still wealthier than most people could ever imagine being. If we were all poor, I think the Rhodeses’ single-minded pursuit of this inheritance and Penelope’s willingness to be completely controlled by a dead man’s rules would be at least more understandable and possibly even acceptable. But none of us will ever understand the concept of being poor, and for me, that’s what makes her behavior inexcusable.
Izzy is convinced that Penelope is as much a pawn in their parents’ game as she was. But given everything her sister has done in the last few years, I think Izzy wants her sister to be innocent, and this is all just wishful thinking on her part. She wants her twin to be redeemable, and I can understand that desire, but I’m not willing to overlook everything Penelope’s done so easily.
Glancing at the girl who looks so much like my friend but couldn’t be more different, I try to see what Izzy sees in her sister. I try to consider that it’s possible that they manipulated Penelope in the same way they manipulated Izzy, and I suppose it could be true. But if she is a victim, what did they do to her to make her play her part so effectively? The girl’s parents are definitely twisted enough to do whatever it takes to get control over that money. In the last few months, they’ve shown that there are no lengths they’re not willing to go to. But what threat or hold could they have on Penelope that would make her go along with their plans?
