Party Foul - Abby Knox Page 0,8

Dockside, she’d rolled with it rather than calling for her driver right away. She’d hopped from a diner over to a bar that looked quiet during the day, where the only other people were the bartender, wait staff, a few barflies and a bunch of thick bouncers who seemed like they had nothing better to do during the afternoon than hang around and shoot the shit.

After dark, things had gotten interesting. A strange man had approached her table with a drink, and when Fiona had refused—she’d watched enough true crime documentaries to know she couldn’t accept drinks from the hands of another patron—he’d become agitated.

The tall, dark bouncer in the leather jacket had spotted the interaction and had warned the guy to leave her alone.

When the bouncers were caught up in their own drama for a minute—drama that she had been trying to drown out while she studied—the creepy guy had approached her again, asking her all kinds of questions about who she was and what she was doing there.

He’d actually asked her, “How much?”

Her blood had boiled, and she’d told him to fuck off and leave her alone. Not that there was anything wrong with sex work, but she was pretty sure this was not a man who held sex work in any esteem, judging from the way he was looking at her.

Her cursing at him really had ramped up the guy’s attitude, and he had launched into a rant about how if she thought she was too good for him, she shouldn’t even be here.

And that’s when the guy with the leather jacket had stepped in and dragged the guy’s ass out to the alley. She hadn’t been able to stop herself from following to watch it all play out.

Fiona loved to watch an ass-whooping.

After that, so much had happened. Her tiny muscles between her legs clenched with the memory of that man in the leather jacket and all the things she’d let him do to her. All the things her body had begged him to do to her.

As soon as her driver, Roger, had her safely over the river, she’d kicked herself for not asking the man what his name was.

And now at her house she shared with three other people on the Castle Hill University campus, she not only couldn’t stop thinking about that man, she still had no peace and quiet.

She should have taken her parents’ offer of renting her an apartment off-campus. But no, she’d wanted to room with her crew. The gang that had known each other since high school. She’d thought it would help insulate her in college. Help her keep her nose clean, help her stay accountable for her class work.

Boy, was she wrong.

If anything, her party girl reputation had only gotten worse as soon as she hit campus freshman year. And now, in year five—yes, five—Fiona’s time of reckoning was upon her. Now at age 24—she’d taken a gap year to travel Europe with her cousins after high school—she was still nowhere near earning her degree and also really having a hard time caring anymore.

She was only sticking it out for her parents, but try as she might, there was always something more fun to do than study. And when she tried to study, someone always found her. Either her friends, the college students fascinated by the stories they’d heard about the governor’s daughter and wanted to hear more, or the press looking for Page Six material on her.

She hated Newcastle. She much preferred the country estate where she’d spent her early childhood, before her father had gotten involved in politics. Before he was governor, her family only visited Newcastle to stay at her mother’s Shoreline beach house. Living in this sprawling city these days made her feel like she was under a microscope twenty-four hours a day. The beach house at Shoreline didn’t even feel as carefree as she’d remembered it as a child.

She should have just gone to community college to study forensics and criminal justice like she’d wanted to. But her mother, the heiress of the canned tuna dynasty, wouldn’t hear of it.

“Please, could you keep it down, Pete?” Fiona asked from the doorway of her bedroom.

Pete ignored her and went back to re-stacking the cans like it was serious business.

Fiona rolled her eyes and went back to her desk.

She wished she could disappear again without telling anyone and go back to that bar. For the first few hours, anyway, she’d gotten some quality studying done. But