Thrive (Addicted, #4)(78)

She glowers, one so fierce that my breath dies in my chest. “You’re not an expert in liquor. You’re an alcoholic.” She sets the whiskey bottle on the table and takes a giant swig from her wine glass.

She doesn’t even cringe.

“Which makes me an expert,” Loren argues. She waves him off like she’s shooing away an animal.

“What’s going on?” Connor’s voice emanates from the stairs. His gaze travels to the television, the source of the cacophony. No…

That’s why she turned the television up so loud? She decided to deafen everyone just to call him downstairs.

“Look honey,” Rose says. “We have a sex tape together.”

She’s lost it. Officially.





{ 36 }

0 years : 10 months

June





LOREN HALE


Want to know the most deplorable, heartless thing in my head?

I am so fucking relieved that wasn’t Lily on the news. Extending empathy for my best friend, Connor, or for Lily’s sister—I can’t do it. Deep down, I just think: finally it’s not us, finally the world has shit on someone else.

It’s a thought that turns my blood cold, my forearms on my knees, sitting on the couch and waiting for the guilt to come crush me. I wish that I was like my brother. Ryke stares at Rose with so much concern that you’d think he was dating her.

“I’m on the phone with my attorneys and Cobalt’s,” Greg Calloway says through the cell’s speaker in Connor’s hand. “We’re looking through the contracts all of you signed. Until we can come to a clear picture of what’s going on, I need you to get my daughters out of that townhouse. No more cameras.”

Goodbye, Scott Van Wright. I thought Scott would go further and further until he reached an unbearable point with us, but leaking a sex tape with Connor and Rose—it never crossed my mind.

Connor has been unsurprisingly stoic during the whole ordeal. Sometimes I just want him to scream like the rest of us. Most of the time, I don’t want to see it. Because if someone like Connor ever breaks to that degree, then the whole world is headed for hell.

He places his hand on Rose’s shoulder, but she barely relaxes. “We’ll pack today and leave,” he tells Greg over the phone.

“Let me know when you make it safely back to Princeton. If there’s too much press around the house, you should all stay at our place in Villanova.”

My frown deepens, waiting for Greg to add, I need to have a serious talk with you, Connor. He just watched Connor screw his daughter on national television, albeit censored. And not only that—they’re into bondage and kinky shit that I’d think would have Greg tapping into his paternal side, ready for an hour-long conversation.

It never comes though.

“Do you know where Scott is?” Connor asks him.

My ribs burn when I inhale.

“No idea,” Greg says, “but Loren’s father is about to rip him a new asshole.” Good. “To be honest, I’d love to see it happen.” He pauses. “Is Rose around?”

“She’s on speaker.”

“Rose, honey, how many lawyers looked over the contract before you signed it?”

I presume he’s talking about the reality show contract—the one we trusted Rose with before we all signed the bottom. What the fuck did she do? I glare at her with everything inside my soul. What the fuck did she do?

She cradles Sadie in her arms, Connor’s orange tabby cat that usually scratches Rose. Instead, Sadie purrs. The world is backwards today.

“Just me,” Rose suddenly announces.

“What…the fuck?” Ryke says, stunned.

I groan and lean back against the couch, my hands on my head. “Why did we trust you?” I snap. I should have realized that she’d be too conceited to actually hire a real lawyer.

“I’ve taken multiple law classes at Princeton,” she refutes. “I understood every line of that contract.” Sure. That’s why you now have a sex tape released to the public, Rose.

I shake my head repeatedly. So they could film in the bedrooms then? A weight bowls straight into my chest, the pressure knocking the wind out of me. If they filmed us—that means they have tapes of Lily and me.

Scott’s just waiting around to release them then?

Lily breathes choppy, sporadic breaths beside me. I reach out and hold her hand. “It’s okay,” I whisper to her. It’s okay. She can read my uneasiness through my features, her eyes growing bigger and bigger. “It’s okay, Lil.” Repeating it doesn’t help. We’re going to be okay.

“I thought you took my lawyer to the meeting,” Connor says, already off the phone with Greg. “And I thought he read the contracts.”

“I thought I told you I left him behind,” Rose retorts.

Connor frowns, shaking his head. “You must have mentioned that to someone else, darling.” He snatches her whiskey-filled wine glass and drinks the rest in one swallow.

I concentrate on him. It takes my mind off what seriously could be the end for us. “What the hell was that?” I ask him. “Greg gives me a two hour speech about sobriety after our scandal, and he doesn’t even acknowledge yours.”

“To be fair,” Connor says, “you lied to Greg and Samantha about being addicts. That news is a bit more jarring than a sex tape…”