Page 43 of Tempt Me

Splash!

Panic hit my veins, the cold water swallowing me. Taking that first deep breath as I broke through the surface, I inhaled too much. Sputtering and choking, I began to tread water with the damn weed floating around my face. After a few deep breaths, I glanced up. There she was, standing there with quite a satisfied look on her face.

Fuck, she was beautiful, even now, staring down at me from the boat. That sassy smile was a beacon in the dark night, and I couldn’t stop staring. It was almost enough to distract me from the fact the water was rising, higher and higher and like so much of my fucking life...I couldn’t keep my head above the waves.

Sixteen

Regret: feeling of remorse for an action committed.

But how do I make it right?

I smiled smugly when the giant ass man went into the bay. My sister shrieked and ran toward the railing, her hair falling over as she leaned forward, searching for him.

Trying to see past the blinding lights on the boat, I finally saw the professor. He was doggy paddling in the deep with his disgusting marijuana floating around him. He was spewing profanities at me.

He didn’t look all that comfortable in the water. He looked more akin to a cat being thrown in a pool. That thought made me smile more.

“Not so high and mighty now, are you?” I hollered down to him.

My sister yanked my arm. “Fallon Jane. What the fuck did you just do?”

I rolled my eyes.

“Sorry to ruin your purchase, Sis.” She looked away, her face completely soured.

“You don’t know what you just did, Fallon,” she said finally, reaching to collect her bag. “There are things that have gone on that no one has told you about, princess. Things people have had to do for you to remain the esteemed little betrothed.”

Okay, I was sincerely confused. What the fuck did she mean?

“Mom and Dad are a fucking joke. You know this. All they do is spend money and use all of us to make it. I needed to get out.”

I still didn’t understand what she was getting at. Why would getting out make her buy weed from a low-life professor? Why would she even want to waste money on pot? I didn’t know she got high. Ever. Even when she was a teenager.

Hell, Noah practically lived on a bag of weed as food, so much so his buddies had tossed some bud in his burial site the day of his memorial service.

My mother would have lost her shit had she actually been there. Of course, she hadn’t bothered to attend Noah’s funeral. It was me and my sister. We were all there ever was, and without Noah, our broken family had become even smaller.

“It was mine,” she said softly, her anger cutting into her proper tone. “That man wasn’t selling me anything. He was buying it from me.”

My mouth fell open. Professor Masters was covering for her? Why?

“Why would you be dealing drugs?”

The thought was obscene. Where she even obtained that nasty crap had to have been in the sewers of the city with the rats that vacated it. I was suddenly concerned for her freaking safety, my anger dissipating.

“We’re not all the princess of the family, Fallon Summers. Some of us have no recourse when the curtain falls, and I, for one, can’t afford to sink with the ship when our parents finally go down.”

I shook my head.

“Francis, you’re no better than dad if you’re resorting to dealing drugs. That’s what got him in so much shit. It’s why he hides away from the millions of enemies he’s made during his stupid career.”

Francis wasn’t speaking to me anymore. Instead, she was staring into the dark night at the too-still waters.

Pharaoh was still cursing at me, and the words were beginning to fade. He was babbling something about the water being fucking cold. Ignoring him, I pushed past my sister and walked back toward the crowd of partygoers.

There was a buffet that zero people had touched. I began stuffing my face with cheese and downing glasses of chartreuse until a big belly blocked my view.

It was Hannah. My heart squeezed at the sight of her beautiful sorrow. She was off to the side, faking smiles to people and scribbling notes in a notepad she balanced on her belly.