her, you’d know I was actually doing her a favor.”
But she doesn’t stop. She keeps bounding down the hallway toward her room.
“All I said was she needed to tell the truth in her art. That she shouldn’t try to mimic—”
She stops in front of her closed door and whirls around on a dime, making me nearly run into her. “You told Alessandra to ‘tell the truth’ in her art? Oh, that’s rich, seeing as how you don’t even know the meaning of the fucking word.” She turns and swings open the door to her room, and gasps at what she finds inside: her stepsister lying on the bed in tears. “Ally!” she shouts as she runs into the room, leaving me in the doorway, like a vampire who hasn’t been invited inside.
Georgina takes her beloved stepsister into her arms, while I stand watching helplessly from the doorway. After a moment, though, when she notices me, she gets up, marches to me, and slams the door in my face. And that’s when I know: all hope is lost. If Georgie were standing over my Bugatti now, holding a golf club raised above her head, she’d smash it to Kingdom Come, even more so than she did to my Ferrari. And no command or plea from me would stop her.
I place my palms flush against the closed door, my heart feeling like it’s physically bleeding onto the wood. Let me in, Georgie. Please, please, let me in.
After what feels like forever, the door swings open, making me lurch back into the hallway, and Georgie and Alessandra barge out of the room.
Georgie’s wheeling her suitcase behind her, her regal head held even higher than when she wore that ruby necklace. Alessandra’s wearing a backpack on her back, and holding the cardboard box Georgie doesn’t know I know about. The one containing the documents from Stephanie Moreland’s lawsuit, plus, God knows what else.
“Where are you going?” I choke out.
“None of your business,” Georgie tosses over her shoulder.
I follow the girls down the hallway. “Alessandra, you misunderstood me. I’m sorry if my words seemed harsh, but—”
“Don’t speak to her,” Georgie hisses. “And don’t speak to me, either. Ever again.”
Down the stairs they go, with me following behind like a stray dog.
A new “super-group” is performing onstage now, which means, thankfully, everyone at the party is crowded in the main area, blissfully dancing and cheering with their backs to us. It’s the perfect time for the girls to make a getaway, completely unnoticed. Which is exactly what they do. Indeed, they walk straight out my front door, past security, and into the cool night, without anyone noticing a damned thing.
I follow the girls, of course, talking the entire time. Explaining. Apologizing. Defending. Rationalizing. Fixing, convincing, begging. Yes, fuck it. I’m begging Georgina to stay. To listen. To forgive. It’s something I swore I’d never do with Georgina again. But now isn’t the time to be proud. Now is the time to make her understand. To fix this mess I’ve gotten myself into. To make her forgive me.
But Georgina isn’t having any of it. And Alessandra follows her lead, looking straight ahead like she can’t hear my pathetic pleas.
The girls march down my circular drive toward my iron gate, where four security guards greet us.
“Hello, Mr. Rivers,” one of the guards says. “Ladies.”
“Hello,” Georgina says brightly, her tone oozing with sex appeal. “My, you look handsome tonight, sir.”
“Thank you.”
“We’re here to wait for our Uber,” Georgina explains.
“That’s fine.”
“Are you wearing cologne? You smell amazing.”
“It’s just soap.
“Well, whatever it is, it smells good enough to eat.”
“Georgie, that’s enough,” I say calmly. “Come inside, so I can explain—”
“No, thank you, Mr. Rivers. I think you’ve explained more than enough.”
Fuck. Begrudgingly, I shut up. If I don’t, it’s quite possible she’ll offer to suck a security guard’s dick, just to watch me commit murder and go to prison for it.
Headlights.
They’re shining on the guards’ faces. And then on the girls’. And then on mine. They’re shining in my eyes. Illuminating the blackness of my fucking soul.
The car stops. The girls pile into its backseat and slam their doors, without looking back or saying a word to me. And off they go, just like that, into the night. Leaving me standing at my gate in the cool night with stinging eyes and a lump in my throat.
I stand frozen as Georgina’s car drives away, watching its retreating taillights and holding my breath. Turn around, Georgina. Flip me off through the back