Page 1 of The Good Girl Effect

Prologue

Jack

“Everyone’s here,” I say as I find a seat in the back of the dimly lit bar. “Did you all get the email too?”

“Yep,” my best friend Phoenix replies next to me.

“Sure did,” Weston adds while scrolling on his phone.

At the corner of the booth, Julian and his sister, Amelia, sit in silence. Julian is doing so as a form of defiance, while Amelia is silent most of the time anyway. She’s chewing on her lip, looking more uneasy by the second.

Neither of them wants to say anything about this mysterious email their father sent everyone yesterday asking us to meet at Geo’s bar promptly at eight. Ronan Kade co-owns the sex club where I’ve been working for the past seven years. He’s also my godfather, and his son, Julian, has never been my biggest fan.

The feeling is mutual.

It grates on my nerves to see the pretentious, haughty expression on his face. Julian and I might have grown up together, but it doesn’t change the fact that I find him to be infuriatingly snobbish and full of himself.

“So do you think he’s coming?” I ask, scanning the group around me.

“Yeah, right,” Julian snaps. “He’s not coming. He’s probably on a yacht halfway across the world right now. He sent this email to trick us all into meeting here.”

To trick us all into talking to each other, I think without saying it out loud.

“And what about your sister? She’s on the email too,” Julian says as if it’s a weapon to use against me. He’s cruelly pointing out that my own sister isn’t speaking to me. She won’t return my calls, let alone step foot in the same room I’m in.

My younger sister, Elizabeth, took my wife’s death last year as hard as I did. She looked up to Em like a true sister and even lived with us during Em’s brutal passing. But when she needed me the most, I went to a dark place for a long time. I should have been there for my sister and my daughter, but I just couldn’t. I could hardly be there for myself.

And now, my only goal is to get my four-year-old daughter out of Paris and go back home where we belong. If this email from Ronan means what I think it means, I might have my opportunity.

“We don’t need to wait for Elizabeth,” I mutter under my breath, assuming she won’t show.

“We should wait for everyone,” Phoenix says, softly placing a hand on my arm. I can’t make eye contact with her because I know she’s right.

Just then, the heavy door swings open, and I turn to find my sister slipping into the room. She doesn’t make eye contact with anyone as she approaches our table, sliding into the empty seat silently. Her black hair is pulled tight into a bun at the back of her head, and her expression is harsh like it’s filled with pain. The sight guts me.

No one speaks—the six of us stationed around the table in the back of a dark speakeasy as if we’re awaiting our grim fate.

“Now what?” Phoenix asks first. I look at her, our expressions mirrored. She’s been my best friend for years. She followed me to Paris after college and is currently the only person at this table who I think actually likes me.

As for the others, Julian and Amelia were raised here, although their parents are American. My sister came for a ballet program. And Phoenix and Weston came out here to work for the club a few years ago.

I’m starting to feel restless as the awkward silence engulfs the table. My hope is that Ronan is about to announce his official retirement, naming his son his successor, which would mean I’ll be free to leave. There’s not a chance in hell I’ll work for Julian Kade.

Just when I’m about to suggest we call Ronan, my phone buzzes.

As does everyone else’s.

We all look down in unison.

“It’s an email from Dad,” Amelia says softly with a smile.

Julian rolls his eyes without picking up his phone.

“I’ll read it,” I say, clicking the notification.

“Dear Kids,” it starts, as if we’re a bunch of teenagers and not a group of fully grown adults in our twenties and thirties.

“This message is for all six of you: Julian, Amelia, Jack, Phoenix, Elizabeth, and Weston?—