Good Girl Complex(Avalon Bay #1)(54)

“I get that. But you spoke to me like I was a disobedient child. Do you even realize how humiliating—” I stop, drawing a calming breath. “No. I don’t want to rehash this right now. We do need to talk, but not now. And I can’t do dinner. I just can’t.”

There’s a brief pause.

“Mackenzie. We both know you’re not going to tell your parents you can’t go.”

Yeah.

He’s got me there.

“Pick me up at quarter to seven,” I mutter.

Back at Tally Hall, I steam a suitable dress my mom won’t side-eye and make myself presentable. I decide on a navy boatneck that’s just on the slutty side of modest. My silent protest against having my evening hijacked. As soon as Preston picks me up from my dorm, he suggests I put on a cardigan.

I sit in silence on the drive over to the fancy new steakhouse near campus. Preston is smart enough not to push me to talk.

At the restaurant, we’re given a private room, thanks to my dad’s assistant calling ahead. On the way in, Dad does his usual grip-and-grin with voters, then poses for a picture with the manager that’ll end up framed on the wall and run in the local paper tomorrow. Even dinner becomes a major affair when my father shows up, all because his ego isn’t content to anonymously eat out with his family. Meanwhile, my mother stands to the side, hands clasped politely in front of her, a plastic smile on her face. I can’t tell if she still loves this stuff or if the Botox means she feels nothing anymore.

Beside me, Preston has stars in his eyes.

Through cocktails and appetizers, my father goes on about some new spending bill. I can’t find it in me to even feign interest as I push my beet salad around my plate. Preston engages him with an eagerness that, for some reason tonight, is getting on my last nerve. I’d always appreciated Preston’s ability to chat up my parents, take some of the burden off me at these things. They love him, so bringing him along keeps them in a good mood. But right now, I’m finding him incredibly annoying.

For a fleeting moment I consider plucking up the courage to break the news to my parents—Guess what! I bought a hotel! But as Mom starts on how she can’t wait until I get more involved with her charities, I’m convinced they won’t react any better than Preston did.

“I was hoping you’d let me take Mackenzie along to Europe this summer,” Preston says as the entrées arrive. “My father’s finally bowed to the pressure and agreed to take my mother shopping for a new vacation home. We’re sailing the yacht along the coast from Spain to Greece.”

This is news to me. I’m pretty sure there’s been no recent discussion of my summer plans, and even if there has been, that was before I had a hotel to restore. Preston knows damn well I can’t leave Avalon Bay this summer.

Or maybe he’s confident he can talk his immature, irresponsible, wife-material girlfriend into not going through with the purchase.

Bitterness coats my throat. I gulp it down with a bite of my lemon and garlic infused sole.

“Doesn’t that sound marvelous,” my mom says, with the slightest edge to her voice.

One of her greatest resentments over her husband’s career—not that she hasn’t enjoyed the privilege of being a congressman’s wife—is her enforced poverty of only two domestic vacation homes when all her friends are always skipping off to their private chalets in Zermatt or villas in Mallorca. Dad says it isn’t a good look for them to flaunt their wealth while on the taxpayers’ dime—even if the vast majority of the family money comes from inheritance and the corporation my father stepped down from to run for office, though he still sits on the board. But attention invites questions, and Dad hates those.

“She does put up with a lot from him,” Preston jokes, grinning at my mother. “So does this one.” He nods at me and finds my hand under the table to squeeze.

I shrug his hand off and reach for my water glass instead.

My patience is at an all-time low. I used to be so good at tuning out these conversations. Blowing them off as harmless banter to keep my parents happy. As long as Preston kept them entertained and everyone got along, my life was infinitely easier. Now, it seems the status quo isn’t doing it for me anymore.

“What are your plans after graduation next year?” my dad asks Preston. He’s barely said two words to me all night. As if I’m an excuse to see their real child.

“My father wants me at his bank’s headquarters in Atlanta.”

“That’ll be quite the change of pace,” Dad says, cutting into his bloody steak.

“I’m looking forward to the challenge. I intend to learn everything about the family business from the bottom up. How the mail gets processed to acquisitions and mergers.”

“To how the regulations get passed,” my father adds. “We should set something up for next term. Have you at the Capitol. There are some important pieces of legislation up for committee—it’d be an invaluable learning experience to sit in on those hearings. See how the sausage gets made, as it were.”

“Sounds great,” Preston says, beaming. “I’d appreciate that, sir.”

Never once has my father offered to have me out to Washington for a take-your-daughter-to-work day. The only time I ever stepped foot inside the Capitol building was for a photo op. When Dad was sworn in, I was ushered into a room with the other freshman families, posed, and was promptly shoved out the door. The other ne’er-do-well congressional kids and I ended up running amok through the bars and clubs of DC, until some senator’s kid started roughing up a diplomat brat and it turned into a showdown between Secret Service and foreign security forces.