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My parents’ jet lands at a small private airport on the outskirts of the city a little after noon, and Kip’s guy leaks the news of their safe return to the States along with the pre-surgery pictures thirty minutes later.
* * *
The last of the evening sunlight slips beyond the horizon as the guys tie off the lines and secure The Escape back into its slip at the marina. My hair is windswept, my nose is pink from the warm fall sun, and my smile is huge. I’ve been sailing before, but it’s always been more about being seen than actually enjoying the freedom that comes from being out on the open water.
Searching for Hawthorn, I find him and the other guys coiling rope across the deck. His smile is wider than I’ve ever seen it, and as he tips back his head and laughs at something one of them says, the sound is loud and free and easy. He told me this boat was his favorite place, and now I understand why.
When my cell rings, I slip it from my shorts pocket and lift it to my ear without even glancing at the screen, my attention riveted on my boyfriend. “Hello?”
“Hello Penelope, would you like to explain why it is that the world thinks your father and I are dead and why there’s pictures of you and your sister at my house?” my mother growls.
Waving my hands in the air to garner the others’ attention, I point to the cell at my ear and motion for them all to follow me inside. Switching the cell to speakerphone, I lay it down on the breakfast bar as the others crowd around me.
“Mother, I’m so glad you’re okay. Izabella and I were so worried. We were pulled out of class the other day and told by the principal that your yacht was missing. Obviously we were heartbroken, so we headed home to arrange a search and rescue mission,” I say as calmly as I can muster, even though my heart feels like it’s beating out of my chest.
“How did you get in? The new housekeeper was given clear instructions not to allow anyone in without our prior consent,” she snarls, anger and hatred dripping from every word.
“It’s our home, Mother. Our parents were missing, assumed dead, why wouldn’t Izabella and I seek out the comfort and love of our childhood home?”
“And while you were searching for us, you felt the need to change the locks and fire our housekeeper? I don’t know what you think these childish games are going to achieve, I thought you were more mature than that. But just to clarify, you and your whore of a sister are not welcome in our home. You sacrificed all claim to the Rhodes name the moment you ruined all of our lives and walked away from billions of dollars. Really, Penelope, you’re nothing but an idiotic, fat, waste of life. That money was the only way you would ever have anything of worth to offer to the world, and now it’s gone. Your sister might be a whore, but at least she bagged herself a good husband. That should have been you. You should have been engaged to the Winslow boy, and we’d have been the most powerful dynasty in the country. But no, between the two of you, you’ve destroyed everything. We should have aborted you when we found out you were both girls, if we’d have been able to have a son, we’d have given you away.”
Hawthorn leans forward and ends the call, picking up my cell and launching it out of the open door and into the ocean. “Your mother is a fucking bitch,” he snarls angrily.
“It’s nothing I haven’t heard before,” I mutter, my embarrassed gaze firmly fixed on the counter. I’m not hurt by her words; the insults are practically a mantra I can recite because I’ve heard them so many times before. It’s that everyone else heard them too that’s making my cheeks heat with shame. It’s common knowledge that my mom’s a bitch, but to have them witness her vitriol sucks all of the strength I thought I’d gained from me in the blink of an eye.
“Who the hell does she think she is?” Davis growls, shocking me with the anger in his voice.
“What?”
“What the fuck gives her the right to speak to you like that? That motherfucking bitch,” he hisses.
“No more playing around, we need to fuck with them, I want to ruin them,” Kip snarls, his normally happy-go-lucky expression gone and replaced with clenched teeth and barely restrained anger.
“I want the party brought forward to as soon as possible. I want the world to know you’re mine, and I want us to own as much of Rhodes Corp. as we can, as soon as possible,” Hawthorn demands, sliding his palm over the nape of my neck and encouraging me to lift my head.
When I do, I find all eyes on me, anger and fury and barely restrained violence clear on all of their faces.
“We don’t put up with this shit from them anymore,” Gulliver confirms, his eyes locked with mine.
We’ve never exactly given him the title, but it’s clear to everyone that Gulliver is the leader of our group, and this is the first time he’s looked at me like I’m one of them. His firm confidence, combined with the others’ obvious anger, gives me the strength to nod.
Hawthorn owns my body, he’s mine, and I’m his, but it’s Gulliver’s acceptance of me that has me standing straighter and nodding with more ferocity. Besides my sister, he has the most reason to hate me. I knew he was prepared to tolerate me for my sister and Hawthorn, but feeling his support and acceptance is something I didn’t know I needed.
“It’s time to get to work,” he says, pulling Izzy into him and smiling down at her.
* * *
The next few days are a flurry of activity. We arrange a venue for my “I’m not going to be a billionaire” party, make a guest list, and send out invites bearing the Rhodes family insignia. Izzy and I post picture after picture on social media and pretend that we haven’t seen the humiliating news stories that are circulating about our parents’ near-death experience.
We’re at Gulliver’s house, exactly five days before the party, when the first news article about me hits the internet. The story shows pictures of me bent over a toilet, throwing up, the pills my mom forced me to take in a smaller picture to the side. The headline reads, Rhodes Heiress on the Verge of Hospitalization: How Girls of Today Are Obsessed With Being Thin. Several other pictures of me looking ill and skinny with fake smiles plastered across my face appear in the article. The story is a sensationalized version of events, with me being described as hooked on diet pills and making myself ill every day in order to remain a size zero.
My legs buckle, and I collapse to the floor as I stare at the images of me purging in my bathroom. What the photo doesn’t show is that my mom was standing behind me, watching me, forcing me to throw up again and again before making me swallow pills that made me even sicker. What the headline should say is, Teenage Girl Was So Hungry On Her Restricted Diet That She Ate a Candy Bar and Was Forced to Vomit Until She Was Throwing Up Blood, Then Starved for Three Days as Punishment.
Tears roll down my cheeks, but I don’t lift my hand to wipe them away. I can’t believe they did this, although it really shouldn’t surprise me. We released pictures of them, they released pictures of me, an eye for an eye.
“Penelope,” Izzy shouts, rushing into the bedroom that is Hawthorn’s when he stays here and throwing herself down onto the floor next to me. “They’re fucking assholes,” she seethes, curling in close to me but not touching me, like she’s unsure if I want her too.
“Mom was standing there,” I say, pointing to the edge of the picture. “She made me do it. I don’t have an eating disorder, the only time I ever made myself sick was when she forced me.”
