“No. She’s cut me off. Not just me, Lachlan and Harris too, that’s why you need to come home. She said she’ll make everything right again if you come home.”
I pull away, horrified.
“Don’t,” she cries. “It’s not about going shopping or cars or whatever. If I can’t make my college payments, I’ll have to drop out! And Lachlan’s going to lose his house and Harris and Penny just had Lila! Everything’s a mess, JJ, weneedyou.”
I stare at my sister, trying to process what she’s saying. “Why does mom have control of your money? I thought your trust fund came from Daddy?”
“That money’s been gone for ages. All we have now is her payments.”
Which means Mr. Parker’s payments.
I slump onto the marble counter. Does my family haveanythingthat wasn’t paid for on the promise of my body?
“JJ, I’m so sorry,” Margot says. “I know you didn’t want to marry Mr. Parker, but I didn’t know what to do.”
“It’s okay,” I mumble into my forearms. A dull anger pounds in my chest, but it would be wrong to take it out on Margot. She’s not the one who sold me. My stepmom, Corinne, is. From this point onward I vow to call her by her name. She’s no mother of mine, step or otherwise.
“You need to come home, JJ.” Margot’s voice is tight. “You have to.”
I lift my head. “I told you, I couldn’t marry Mr. Parker even if I wanted to. And I’m not a virgin anymore, so I can’t be sold to anyone else.”
“But it’s what she wants!” Margot says, her eyes filling with tears. “If we don’t give her what she wants, she’s going to sell all the houses and cars! She’s going to sell Mama’s jewelry.”
Mama. The word still takes my breath away. I never knew her, but Margot, Lachlan, and Harris did. They told me she was an angel with long black hair, red lips and blue eyes. The sweetest woman in the world. I wish she was here to solve all of this. To pay Margot’s college fees and get rid of Corinne and approve of my relationships because they make me happy…
Zia Teresa’s voice comes to me.‘What do we say about wishes, bella?’
“They’re for fools,” I mutter.
“What?” Margot demands. “Did you just call me a fool?”
I look at my sister, tears glittering on her cheekbones. I love her. I don’t want her to be in pain, but I can’t heal her by going home. I’ll have to try and fix things myself with what I have now.
I draw a shaky breath. “Margot, I was in the contract negotiation meeting. Do you know Mr. Parker gave Corinnethirty million dollars.”
Margot’s mouth falls open. “What?”
“Thirty million dollars. That’s what Velvet House has to repay Mr. Parker to get me out of our engagement. So, Corinne can’t be broke. She just can’t be. She’s threatening to sell our stuff out of spite and if I go home just because she wants me to, she’ll own me forever.”
Margot sits back in her chair. “But what about mytrust fund?Since mom cut me off… you have no idea what it’s like. I can’t buy lunch on campus or put gas in my car, all my friends are getting weird around me and asking all these questions…”
She sounds so spoiled, but I know she’s not faking how scared she is. I think of a documentary I once saw about pandas. How it took zookeepers and researchers years to teach a domesticated panda to fend for itself in the wild. Margot is like those squishy, hand-fed pandas. Someone needs to teach her how to live without Corinne’s money and it might have to be me.
I put my hand on hers. “Why don’t you come and stay at Velvet House? You can have your own room and we can look at getting jobs and applying for scholarships together?”
Margot pulls her hand from mine. “I’m not living with you in some freak house in Albany.”
Her words strike at me like a whip. I try to keep my breathing steady.
“Sorry,” she says. “I just… I want my life. I don’t want things to change.”
They already have. “Then why don’t I find somewhere else for you to stay? I can speak to Eli about getting a lawyer and seeing what we can do about Daddy’s money?”
“That won’t work! I already spoke to my friend Timothy, he’s a junior lawyer with Monaghan & Shepard, and he said unless Daddy left us specific things in the will, everything would have gone to Mom when he died. Lachlan checked and we’re not entitled to anything.”
“Oh.”
“JJ, just come home andtalkto Mom…?”
