“What’s your plan, newbie?” she asks, shaking her empty glass again so the half-melted ice tinkles against it.
“I’m going to sit in my room and try to refresh the broken internet for thirty minutes and pretend I’m not having a panic attack.”
“I knew I liked you,” Piper says, smirking. “I’m going to get a refill.”
She flounces out of the bridge. The increasingly agitated sounds from the men at the control panel over my shoulder motivate me to follow her. Maybe I should go have a drink with Piper instead of sequestering myself in my room. There are things she needs to explain. Like the bracelet.
But when I reach the billiards room and slip into the hallway, she’s already gone.
How fast can she move?I think.
As I stride down the hallway, I realize that Ashley was right; it does feel colder onEmpressnow. Maybe it’s because of the storm—we don’t have the usual balance of humidity and sun to even out the temperature. Regardless, my thin lounge set isn’t made for what feels like fifty-degree weather, and goose bumps are prickling my skin.
As I pass by one of the bedrooms, the door swings open, something hard and viselike latches on to my wrist, and I am yanked into the room.
Behind me, the lock clicks.
“What the hell?” I yelp, facing Ashley, who moves resolutely in front of the door, blocking the exit.
She crosses her arms in front of her surgically enhanced chest, glaring at me.
Ashley’s room has the exact same layout as her twin’s, but her room includes a white leather love seat with green satin pillows near the door to her bathroom.
“What do you want?” I ask, sizing her up. Ashley doesn’t look particularly intimidating, but she’s definitely in better shape than I am. “You could have asked to talk instead of snatching me out of the hallway.”
“Fine. I need to talk to you.”
I can see Ashley’s entire body in her skintight clothes—no wonder she’s cold.
I decide to feign innocence. “About what?”
“Listen to me.” Ashley steps toward me, invading my personal space until her face is mere inches from mine. Her breath smells like cinnamon, and her skin is radiating heat, which is strange considering how cold she claimed to be. “I saw you peeping last night. Watching me. And…him.” She is unable to say Carl’s name. Perhaps she feels some guilt about what she did after all. “Did you tell anyone?”
“No,” I insist, forcing myself to make eye contact so she’ll believe me. “I didn’t tell anyone. I figured it wasn’t my business.”
“That’s right, it’s not. And it’s…complicated.”
I can’t help but scoff. “It’s notthatcomplicated. He’s got a girlfriend. You don’t care. The end.”
She glowers at me, but there’s a flicker of something that looks a lot like pain behind her glare. “I don’t owe you an explanation, but if you must know, we dated this summer before he dated Fee. He was with me first. And then when I got bored with his inability to converse about anything other than sex, Fiona decided to try him on for size. I told her I was cool with it, and I was. I can’t help it that he’s still totally in love with me.”
I don’t really care about this. It’s very likely that someone onEmpressintentionally trapped us here during a hurricane, and there’s a dead girl’s phone in my room. But I can’t help quipping, “That’s pretty incestuous. Aren’t you all supposed to be a family?”
“That’s why I don’t want to hurt her,” Ashley hisses. “So, keep your mouth shut.” She pauses, adjusts her tone. Or perhaps drops the tone she’s been using this whole time. “Please? Leave it be.”
I cross my own arms, mirroring Ashley. “Stop fucking her man if you don’t want to hurt her.”
She looks down at my arms, uncrosses her own. “I owe him,” she whispers. “He…he got me this job. He’s the one who recommended Rachel and me. We were desperate to find something that would allow us to actually make livable money from influencing. Not just pocket change and free products.Empresssaved our family.”
I let my hands drop to my sides too. I remember Rachel saying something similar, mentioning their mother. Tentatively, unsure of Ashley’s reaction, I ask, “It’s your mom, right?”
Ashley looks askance at me, then sighs. “Yeah. She doesn’t havehealth insurance and she has fibroids. The surgery alone costs…” She trails off, a queasy expression on her face. “Too much. So much. Mom’s in deep medical debt, but with the money Rachel and I make fromEmpress, we’re close to paying it off completely. This is a job we need to keep. Fibroids can come back, even after surgery, so we need a nest egg, just in case.”
“That’s awful, I’m sorry,” I say, melting a little toward her. Ashley’s much more standoffish than her twin, but it’s like shewantsto be. I recall the conversation I overheard between the twins. Rachel told Ashley to stop acting like she was ruder than she really was. Maybe this abrasiveness is an act. It’s clear Ashley is dealing with a lot. I can’t blame her for being stressed about her mother’s debt. “My mother died. She was sick,” I offer. “Cancer.”
Ashley grimaces. “That’s right. You mentioned that at the meeting. I’m sorry too. But you understand, then. Rachel and I will do whatever it takes to help our mom. And a job like this means you have to keep people happy. So if Carl wants to hook up from time to time when Fiona is being a nag, how can I say no?”
“Hang on,” I interject. “Are you saying this isn’t consensual?”
