Well Suited (Red Lipstick Coalition #4)(22)

“We do so solemnly swear,” she recited, “to use this shiny little tube of power to inspire braveness, boldness, and courage. We promise to jump when it’s scary, to stand tall when we want to hide, to scream our truth instead of whisper our fears. May we be mistresses of our destinies, and to hell with anyone who tries to tell us otherwise.”

Hear, hear, Amelia and Rin chimed, smiling.

Val handed me her lipstick with all the hope and faith in the world written in her smile. “Be the mistress of your destiny.”

I took the shiny tube, staring at my stretched-out reflection on the metal surface. It was as disorienting and distorted as I felt. But her words rang true. They were etched on my heart and had been since we first uttered them.

“I don’t trust myself,” I admitted.

“Well, that’s why we’re here,” Val said. “And so is Theo. Lean on us. We won’t let you down.”

I squirmed against the discomfort of being reliant on others. I had always been self-sufficient, and now…well, I couldn’t even choose what I wanted for lunch without potentially crying. I could count the number of times I’d ever cried on two hands, and seven-tenths of those had happened since I peed on that damnable stick.

And then there was the matter of Theo.

I’d wanted him to kiss me today. I wanted him to kiss me right freaking now. I wanted to throw my rules and rationality out the window.

And though I knew it was a horrible, potentially catastrophic idea, a sizable percentage of me didn’t care.





10





If I Have My Way





Theo 8 weeks, 6 days

My office was silent but for the scratch of my pen in my checkbook.

Pay to the order of John Banowski in the amount of Ten Thousand and 00 cents.

The scribble of the pen as I signed. The rip-crack of perforated paper tearing.

It had been nearly six years since John Banowski first showed up on my doorstep with an open palm and a smile to rival the devil himself.

I couldn’t call him my father. I couldn’t call him anything but a waste of skin.

Six years ago, Tommy had broken out, hit number one on the New York Today bestseller list. A week later, the doorbell rang to reveal the man who’d abandoned us twenty years ago. It didn’t matter that I barely remembered him from my childhood—at least not as much as I remembered his absence. The second I’d opened the door, I knew exactly who he was. His height alone was the first clue—few people could look me straight in the eye other than Tommy. Dark hair, the same jaw I saw in the mirror every morning, a smirk that was mine.

Thank God Tommy and Ma hadn’t been home. I couldn’t imagine what his showing up twenty years late would have done to Ma. And Tommy…well, I probably wouldn’t have been able to stop him from disfiguring John if I’d tried to. Which I wouldn’t have.

Especially when he asked for money.

Demanded really.

You see, when Tommy had gotten his first book deal, we’d sat down and made a series of decisions. Ma had just been diagnosed with Parkinson’s, and the last thing either of us wanted to do was expose her to the media. So we came up with an elaborate plan to smoke-screen our lives, to create an image for him. We changed our last names, covered up our meager beginnings in the Bronx, started fresh. And Tommy’d made a deal to fake date a famous actress in the months leading up to his first book release.

Six years ago, John Banowski stood on my stoop, noting with calculated precision all the things we’d done so much to hide. The front we’d developed to keep her safe from the public eye had been endangered with the help of a medical bill that had made its way to him.

He and Ma had never gotten divorced.

Hard to divorce someone you couldn’t find.

Of course, at the time, she couldn’t afford to divorce him, and then the prospect just drifted away. That bill was his leverage. His knowledge was a foot in the door. He knew we’d made the whole story about Tommy up, and he’d be the first to take it to the media.

Unless I paid him.

And with that bill in hand, he’d explained the ways he would systematically take us down.

So, for six years, I had been writing a monthly personal check to keep Tommy and Ma safe from John Banowski’s designs. No one was to know. If Ma or Tommy found out, the deal was off.

I’d do everything in my power to keep him away from them. Especially Ma. Tommy would kill him. Ma would just be devastated.

It was so much easier to bear my past when I could pretend he never existed. That was one thing I had been sure of the second I shared air with the opportunistic trash pile. And it was a comfort I was determined to keep intact for my family.

We hadn’t spoken a word since he showed up that day so many years ago. And as long as his checks came on time, I figured we wouldn’t.

Which was exactly how I preferred it.

The financial burden wasn’t a burden at all. Tommy paid me half a million a year to be his assistant, manager, and publicist, and I had no bills to speak of. The house had been paid for in cash, and Tommy took care of the utilities. Well, I took care of them. With his credit card. I didn’t go out, didn’t go on vacation, didn’t own a car—what’s the point in New York?—didn’t do much of anything other than work and take care of Ma.