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I shouldn’t accept this ride. If I did, I’d be implying that I accepted Will. His kisses, his touches, the sick thrill when he called me little cousin.
“The next train leaves at noon, if you were wondering,” said the driver. “They’re not too frequent on the weekends.”
It was eight o’clock. Waiting for four hours at the train station held no appeal. Staying in the same town as Will for that long — I couldn’t stand it.
I folded up the note and held it tightly in my hand.
“I’m fine with a ride home,” I murmured. “Thanks.”
* * *
When “The Care and Feeding of the Rich” was published, it caused a stir in my high school newspaper. Encouraged, I sent it to online publications. It was snapped up, and I got paid for it — the first money I earned from writing.
I changed all the names and left out the identifying details. Will was described as “a family friend.” I didn’t say a word about his attentions to me. According to the article, I was a fly on the wall, ignored and forgotten as I observed and recorded the hijinks of a bunch of rich kids.
Still, the article blazed with a fire that I couldn’t recapture in anything else I wrote.
Impulsively, I texted the link to Will. He never replied.
I did, however, receive a cease-and-desist letter from Uncle Richard’s lawyers. The letter was polite and civil and stated that under no uncertain terms was I ever to publish material about any member of the family again.
Had Will shown the article to his parents? Could they really take legal action against me if I wrote about him, however well-disguised?
Had I done something wrong? Dangerous? Or simply stupid?
Had I hurt Will?
Had he done this to hurt me?
I was eighteen. I didn’t care to find out. I didn’t show the letter to my parents, or Ivy. I told no one. But that letter took my sparkling ambitions and doused them like a flame in icy water.
Three months later, I left for college. I burned the letter. Ivy and I drifted apart, caught up in our lives at different schools. As a staff writer for the college paper, I stuck to dry reporting and steered clear of any subjects that threatened to catch fire. But I kept the note from Will.
You look sexy when you run, little cousin.
Chapter 4
The Present
As I splashed cold water on my face in the ensuite bathroom, memories of the surreal high school party in the Hamptons flooded in.
I’d convinced myself it was a fluke. Will had been amusing himself, for unfathomable reasons, and I’d been lonely and dazzled. I hadn’t really dated yet. We’d been kids, dumb kids. He could have any girl he wanted. When I accepted Aunt Rose’s invitation to visit this summer, I’d expected that weekend to stay buried in the past.
And the summer job? Either it was Uncle Richard’s way of making up for the threatening cease-and-desist letter that had doused my writing fire, or he’d forgotten that as well. Probably the second. I expected his lawyers sent letters like that every day.
I peeked into the empty hallway. The silent house reassured me that I was alone. Mornings were normally filled with the bustle of staff — maids, a chef, gardeners, drivers and security — but today was Sunday, and Sunday was the house staff’s day off. The silence told me my relatives were also gone, which left me free to roam the house barefoot and not worry what they thought. I could lounge in my ancient nightshirt and drink all the coffee in the world while flipping through the paper and talking to no one.
Padding into the kitchen, I stopped suddenly.
A lone male leaned back in a kitchen chair. Wet dark hair curled around his ears. Unlike me, Will was fully dressed in a lavender polo shirt, khakis, a brown leather belt, and polished shoes to match. I caught myself staring at sleek male muscles, bare tanned arms, a heavy watch that glinted under the blown-glass hanging lamps.
And he was the last person who needed to see my sweaty tumble of red hair, the oversized t-shirt I’d loved long enough to wear holes in, and my bare legs. One look at me, and he’d know all I had on underneath was a pair of skimpy panties.
“Morning.” Green eyes flicked in my direction.
I nodded briefly, rattling through the stained-glass cabinets for a mug. Any excuse not to look at the long lines of my cousin’s body. The business section of the paper was spread out on the table, taking up all the space. I wondered if Will and I were the only two people our age who actually read the news on paper.
Seeing the newspaper brought back more uncomfortable memories of that night in the Hamptons. The article I’d written, the hopes I’d had. I didn’t know if Will had read it through, or how he felt about it. Whether he was capable of feeling anything.
