Vain (3 page)

I’d just graduated, which meant I had four years to earn a degree of some kind then move out. I would retain a monthly allowance of twenty thousand a month, but I had to earn my degree first. That was my father in a nutshell.

              “Keep appearances, Sophie Price, and I’ll reward you handsomely,” my father said to me starting at fifteen.
              And it was a running mantra in my home once a week, usually before a dinner I was forced to attend when he was entertaining some competitor he was looking to buy out or possibly a political official he was trying to grease up. I would dress modestly, never speak unless spoken to. Timidity was the farce. If I looked sweet and acquiescent, my father gave the impression he knew how to run a home as well as a multinational, multibillion-dollar business. If I did this, I would get a nice little thousand-dollar bonus. I was an employee, not a child.
              “Sophie Price,” someone yelled outside the big steel door that was my cell. I could just make out the face of a young cop in the small window. The door came sliding open with a deafening thud. “You’ve made bail.”
              “Finally,” I huffed out.
              When I was released, I stood at a counter and waited for them to return the belongings I had walked in with.
              “One pair of shoes, one skirt, one set of hose, one set of...,” the guy began but eyed the garment with confusion.
              “Garters,” I spit out. “They’re garters. God, just give them to me,” I said, snatching them out of his hands.
              He carelessly pushed the rest of my belongings in a pile over to me and I almost screamed at him that he was handling a ten-thousand-dollar outfit like it was from Wal-Mart.
              “You can change in there,” he said, pointing at an infinitesimal door.
The bathroom was small and I had to balance my belongings on a disgusting sink.
              “Well, these are going in the incinerator,” I said absently.
              I got dressed sans hose, returned my ridiculous jumpsuit and entered the lobby. Repulsive, dirty men sat waiting for whatever jailed fool they bothered to bail. They eyed me with bawdy stares and I could only glare back, too tired to give them a piece of my mind.
              Near the glass entry doors, the sun was just cresting the horizon and I made out the silhouette of the only person I would have expected to come to my rescue.
              Standing more than six feet tall, so thin his bones protruded from his face, but with stylish, somewhat long hair, reminiscent of the nineteen-thirties, clad in a fitted Italian suit, stood Pembrook.

“Hello,
Pembrook,” I greeted him with acid. “I see my father was too busy to come himself.”

             
“Ah, so lovely to see you too, Sophie.”
              “Stop with the condescension,” I sneered.
              “Oh, but I’m not. It is the highlight of my week bailing you from this godforsaken pit of bacteria.” He eyed me up and down with regret. “I suppose I needed to get the interior of my car cleaned anyway.”
              “You’re so clever, Pembrook.”
              “I know,” he said simply. “To comment on your earlier observation, your father
was
too busy to get you. He does want you to know that he is severely disappointed.”
              “Ah, I see. Well, I shall try harder next time not to get caught.”
              Pembrook stopped and gritted his teeth before opening the passenger door for me. “You, young lady, are sorely unaware of the gravity of this charge.”

“You’re a brilliant attorney,
Pembrook, with millions at your disposal,” I said, settling into his Mercedes.

He walked around the front of the car and sat in the driver’s seat.

“Sophie,” he said softly, before turning the ignition. “There’s not enough money in the world that can help you if Judge Reinhold is presiding over your case again.”             

“Drive,
Pembrook,” I demanded, ignoring his warning.
He’ll get me off
, I thought.

My house, or I should say, my father’s house, was built a year before I was born, but it had since been newly renovated on the outside as well as the inside so although I may have grown up in the home, it barely resembled anything like it did when I had been small.

It was grotesquely large, sitting on three acres in Beverly Hills, California. It was French Chateau inspired and more than twenty-eight-thousand square feet. I was in the left
wing, my parents were in the right. I could go days without seeing them, the only correspondence was out of necessity, usually to inform me that I was required to make a dinner appearance, and that was usually by note delivered by one of the staff. I had a nanny until fourteen, when I fired her for attempting to discipline me. My parents didn’t realize for months and decided I was capable of caring for myself after and never bothered to replace the position.

Freedom is just that.
Absolutely no restrictions. I abandoned myself to every whim I felt. Every want I fulfilled and every desire was quenched. I wanted for nothing.

Except attention.

And I got that, I’ll admit, not in the healthiest of ways. I won’t lie to you, it felt gratifying...in a sense. I was rather unrestrained with my time and body. I wasn’t different from most girls I knew. Well, except the fact I was exponentially better looking, but why beat a dead horse? The only difference between them and myself was I kept them wanting more. I used many, many,
many
boys and tossed them aside, discarding them, ironically, like many of them did to so many other girls before me.

             
This is what kept them baited. I gave them but a glimpse of my taste and they tasted absinthe. They were hooked by
la fée verte
as I was so often called. I was “the green fairy.” I flitted into your life, showed you ecstasy, and left you dependent. I did this for fun, for the hell of it, for attention. I wanted to be wanted, and my word, did they want me. Did they ever.

CHAPTER TWO

Pembrook
wound through the cobblestone drive of the palatial estate.

“Drop me off at the service entrance,” I told him. I wanted to avoid running into my father if possible.

He snorted. “I have to see your father.”

“Oh,” I said.

Pembrook had his own parking space in the last of the twenty ports off the carriage house. That’s how often he visited our home. As much as it pains me to say it, Pembrook was like an uncle to me. Whenever I filled out paperwork for visiting physicians, as it was considered beneath us to visit an office, under the tab “who shall we contact in case of an emergency,” I always, always,
always
put Pembrook.

He was the only reliable one. He was my father’s attorney and yet the only adult in my life that had any interest in what I did with that life. He was
Pembrook.

Pembrook
was English, but had lived in America for close to thirty years. He specialized in international law as well as got me out of my minor legal tiffs. Standing freakishly tall at six-foot three, he was lean, bordering anorexic-looking. If I were to guess, more than likely hadn’t had more than maybe an ounce of fat on his entire body at any given moment of his life. His cheeks were a bit sunken and he reminded me so often of one of the rare, gaunt and goth creatures who attended my prep school, but his look was natural. I suppose that’s what leant him additional intimidation factor as an attorney. I believe he played it up when possible. I also believe he was a virgin. For one reason: He lived and breathed his job. For another, I couldn’t imagine a single woman taking pity on the poor man. Then again, he was rich, who was I to say?

“
Pembrook, who do you visit when you return to London?” I asked, suddenly struck with the interest to know what went on there when he left here.

He eyed me strangely. “You are odd.”

“Pembrook, answer me.”

He rolled his eyes at me. “I visit my sister and her family.”

I checked my shocked expression as best I could. “You have a sister?” I asked in disbelief.

“Why is this so hard to imagine, you daft girl?”

“I’m not entirely sure, Pemmy. I cannot conjure a female version of you, I suppose? What does she look like? Another Bram Stoker character inspiration?”

He sarcastically looked
at me with pity. “What an astute observation coming from someone who couldn’t hear the sirens blaring down the street of her latest conquest.”

“Point,
Pemmy. Point.”

“You are sorely in need of guidance,” he said more to himself than to me.

“I am fine,” I spit back, folding my arms across my chest as the gravel crunched beneath our shoe-clad feet.

“Clearly,” he added sarcastically.

We approached the service entrance nearest the carriage house and Pembrook opened the door for me.

Inside were members of the staff. Gerald, our head chef
, stood at one of the giant Viking ranges experimenting with sauces no doubt, but the remaining crew sat strewn about the large industrial kitchen. The kitchen, aside from our everyday, more personal one, was where the food was prepared for more formal dinners and I knew then just why my father was truly disappointed in me.

I looked around me wondering why there wasn’t more fire beneath their asses.
The staff sat reading, listening to music or just staring into space. I suppose it was too early to do prep work. They paid no immediate attention to me either as I was often seen entering my father’s abode at that hour. I used the service entrance to access my wing of the house in order to avoid my parents. They wouldn’t say anything to my father and neither would I. It was an unspoken agreement we all had. They looked up briefly for confirmation, but when their gazes swung to the figure behind me, they began scrambling around. Pembrook was certainly not expected and I almost burst out laughing.

“Oh, cease this incessant buzzing,”
Pembrook told the seemingly aimless help, his hands raised above his head, giving him a luring feel. I waited for fangs but none came. “Calm yourselves, fools. I am not your boss, and I couldn’t care less if you st with a knife in your hand or a magazine.” But the staff continued on as if they’d not heard a word. “Very well,” he sighed, gesturing for me to continue.
“Carry on, Gerald,” I said, saluting the head chef. He smiled and waved me on.
Gerald was the only member of our staff I could stand and that was more than likely because he was mute.
When we reached the grotesquely large foyer, I made a move for the winding stairs.
“Ah, ah, Sophie,” Pembrook said and I cringed into myself. “Come with me.”
“You never said I had to accompany you to see my father.”
This was highly unusual and made my heart beat wildly in my chest.
“I never said you didn’t. Come,” Pembrook said as he made his way toward my father’s office several doors into the first floor west wing. He expected me to follow, so I did.
Knock. Knock.
Pembrook’s bony fingers rapped on the door of my father’s office.
“Come in,” I heard my father say.
When I walked in, my father was nose deep into a stack of paperwork on his desk as well as on the phone.
“No! How many times have I told you?! That is unacceptable, Stephen! I refuse,
refuse
to acknowledge their desperate attempt to hold the upper hand. Tell them I said the offer stands until midnight tonight and when it expires, the offer will not present itself again.” His crony must have been acquiescing and my father nodded curtly once as if the man could see him and promptly hung up.
He looked upon me and I very nearly vomited onto the carpet at my feet. I was scared of very few things but of those few things, my father stood atop the list.
“Ah,” he said, drinking in my appearance. “I see you’re alive.”
I nodded once succinctly. I was standing in the doorway and Pemmy prodded me forward. I glanced behind me briefly to scowl before fixing my expression ahead. Pembrook was on the verge of laughing.
Sod off!
I wanted to yell, to borrow a phrase from his people’s vernacular, but I kept my mouth shut instead not wanting to wake the dragon before me any more than he was already awake.
“Let’s see,” he said, settling into his creaky, leather office chair. He began to stuff his pipe. “A second drug offense, Sophie Price. I’m not exactly sure how I plan to keep this out of the media this time. PR has their work cut out for them, it seems. I can barely stand to look at you, so this will be brief. You are required to attend a formal dinner tonight. I expect you to get some sleep, remove those hideous bags from underneath your eyes, dress properly and entertain the son of Calico’s CEO. Do you understand?”
“Yes, sir,” I squeaked out.
“Do you? By entertain, I mean show the boy the house, make conversation. I do not mean offer him anything illegal.”
“I would never—” I began, but my father cut me short.
“Wouldn’t you?” He eyed me harshly.