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My jaw is sore and though I applied concealer like a face mask in the car to cover the red scratches from Missy’s nails, the raised skin still shows through if you look close enough. The driver, Paulo, is kind enough not to ask.
He knows my mother.
He knows Missy, too.
He and Missy even had a tryst a few years back and I remember him panicking because he thought he was going to get fired when he cut it off.
Unfortunately, I think losing his job would have been better.
Somehow, Missy snuck into his apartment and added hair removal cream to his new girlfriend’s conditioner. It completely ruined her pretty black curls and her head had to be shaved because of all the bald patches.
That was when I realized my sister could be pure evil if she really put her mind to it. Vindictive.
“Need me to escort you in, Ms. Gaines?” Paulo asks from the front seat of the Bentley.
Since I’m arriving late, I didn’t have to sit through the insufferable limo drive with my mother and her team. Even if they weren’t there, Michael still would have been and I just need space from him right now.
“No, thank you, Paulo. I can walk in by myself.” As soon as I say it, my door is opened and one of Mom’s security is staring down at me. “Or so I thought.”
I let out a deep sigh, forcing my best face and take the hand extended to me.
And so it begins.
“See you later, Paulo.”
Four men are waiting to escort me inside. Not unusual in my mother’s line of work. Back in Sacramento, we’re surrounded by security constantly.
But LA is my “safe spot”. I can breathe—which is ironic considering the city I’m speaking about—without having to worry about someone watching me like I’m the Declaration ofIndependence. Here lately, though, with my mother spending more time here, it’s starting to become Sacramento 2.0.
Sometimes I feel like a marionette doll, being controlled from all directions. Which dress to wear, which shoes would look classy and chic instead of trashy. What to say, how to walk. When to smile and when to be completely devoid of expression.
Sometimes, I even dream about going back to college. Back when I had the freedom to breathe and do whatever girls my age do.
I’m twenty-three, but I feel older. Like a forty-two-year-old married and kept woman whose husband runs around behind her back and commands her every waking moment.
Just like Monica Parker.
I’ve seen her. The wife to the other-woman scenario my sister is playing out. On the outside, you wouldn’t notice the cracks in her porcelain exterior. I know, on the inside, it’s broken and bloody— a mess from her husband’s betrayal.
She hates me by proxy and though I would love to speak to her, just once, to see what she’s really like, I know no one’s getting through that cool exterior.
It’s no wonder Mason hates his stepfather so much.
Somehow, I feel like if I married Michael and accepted this fate, I would end up just like Monica. Internally tattered. Broken.
Of course, there’s something darker where Marcus Parker is concerned. I could see it in the caustic glint in Mason’s eyes the night I asked him about it. I haven’t seen him since, but I reckon he still hates me for prying into his internal struggles, almost as much as I hate myself for bothering to care.
I wish I was like Missy. Cold. Passionately unfeeling, if that’s even a thing. But I’m not. I care too much and that will be my downfall. Mark my words.
“Ms. Gaines.” The doorman tips his hat at me. For a moment, I wonder how he knows my name and then I remember the four huge men surrounding me like I’m a priceless jewel.
Oh, yeah. My mother’s the governor.
God, don’t let her find out I forgot. I’ll have to hear her speech about paving the way for women in politics and changing this state for the good.
As if she’s any different from the last governor.
The hotel lobby is filled with familiar faces. Men and women dressed in their best gowns and tuxes to show off their wealth for the photographers to capture for the less fortunate. Because that’s what we are, right? The unobtainable, used to remind the average citizen that while they may succeed, they will never be on our level.
