"Then he'll try to destroy you publicly and privately. He'll find every skeleton in your closet, fabricate the ones you don't have, and make sure you're too damaged to be useful to anyone."
I process this, trying to think tactically instead of emotionally. “But I’ll still have money. Damaged reputation or not.”
“True, but what’s the use of money if nobody lets you spend it?”
“What do you mean?”
“Think about it this way. Many billionaires have enough money to buy, let’s say, a professional football team, but not everyone is permitted to do so. Money or not. It’s about whether or not the big boys want to play with you.”
“Should I care about that?”
“You’re the daughter of a senator. You already know the answer to that.”
He gets out of bed, and I try my best to keep my eyes off his huge morning wood. It’s ridiculous. I feel like a horny sixteen-year-old girl when the only thing I should be contemplating is my new life as a Kingsley heir.
Get it together, Peyton.
“What about the FS meeting?” I ask him. “Should I go?"
“The FS are longtime friends of our family.” Blake considers. "The Evermoore matriarch runs the Frost Society. Helena Evermoore. She's brilliant, ruthless, and plays a longer game than the Hollow Club. The rumor in my family is that she once had a summer-long affair with Nonno. He won’t confirm or deny it. But if she wants to meet with you, it's because she sees an opportunity."
“An opportunity for what?"
"To use you. To control you. Or,” he pauses. "To help you. The Frost Society and the Hollow Club have been at war for decades. It’s a quiet war, but a war nonetheless.”
“A man’s social club versus a ladies’ social club?” I scoff.
“I need you to think of the names of their organizations as putting makeup on a pig. Neither of these clubs is social. They plan people’s rises or falls under the guise of golf dates and dinner dances. If Helena thinks you can tip the balance of power, she might back you. They’re always looking for stronger female alliances.”
“But at what cost?"
"That's what the meeting will tell us." Blake stands and starts pulling on his jeans. “Put on your clothes. I’ll make coffee. Then we go, we listen, we don't commit to anything, and if it feels like a trap, we get the fuck out of there.”
"Everything in Wintervale feels like a trap,” I sigh.
"Yeah, well. Welcome to my childhood."
* * *
We return to Blake's actual apartment above Frost & Flame to shower and change. Now that the DNA results are in and half the town already knows, there’s no need to hide out at the safe house. Of course, we still need to keep an eye out for stray bullets, but the only person to really benefit from my death at this point would be a Kingsley, and people are watching them tonight.
While Talia did her best to pick out some things for me, the dress and jewelry I want to wear tonight belonged to my mother, which means we need to make a stop I've been dreading.
My house.
"I'll come with you," Blake says when I tell him.
"No. If you show up with me, my father will have all sorts of questions that I’m not prepared to answer right now.”
"Peyton, I guarantee your father already knows you’re with me. Think about it. He hasn’t called, and the police haven’t come looking for you.”
“True.” But there's a difference between suspecting and confirming. I check my reflection in Blake's bathroom mirror, still wearing yesterday's clothes, hair a damn mess, looking exactly like a woman who spent the night with a man her father would hate. "I need to control this narrative. Make him think I'm still playing by his rules."
"Are you?"
“Trust me, all my father believes is that I’m a spoiled brat who spends her time on social media and blaming him for my poor choices in therapy. He was livid when I quit my job as the director of his nonprofit. All he probably thinks is that I spent a drunk weekend with a guy who’s paid to protect me. He’s always underestimated me.”
Blake doesn't like it. I can see the objection forming in his eyes, the protective instinct that wants to shadow me everywhere.
