For Love or Money

For Love
or Money

A Novel by Tara Brown

Copyright 2014 Tara Brown

http://TaraBrown22.blogspot.com

Amazon Edition

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not
be resold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book
with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If
you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for
your use only, then please purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the
hard work of this author. No alteration of content is permitted. This book is a
work of fiction, any similarities are coincidental. All characters in this
fictional story are b
ased entirely on the crazed mind of the
author and are not based on any human. Any similarities are by chance and not
intentional.

This book is dedicated to my readers—thank you so much. The
interest and support has been amazing. I also must thank my husband and
children. You supported me, even when I was in my writer’s frenzy.

Cover Art by Mae I Design

Cover art copyright held by Mae I Design

Edited by Andrea Burns

Other Books by Tara Brown

The Devil’s Roses

Cursed

Bane

Witch

Hyde

Death

The Born Trilogy

Born

Born to Fight

Reborn

The Light Series

The Light of the World

The Four Horsemen

Imaginations

Imaginations

Coming soon – Duplicities

The Blood Trail Chronicles

Vengeance

Coming soon - Vanquished

Blackwater Witches

Blackwater

Coming soon – Midnight Coven

The Single Lady Spy Series

The End of Me

The End of Games

Coming soon – The End of Tomorrow

White Girl Series

White Girl Problems

Coming soon – A White Girl Wedding

Coming soon – A White Girl in Love

My Side

The Long Way Home

The Lonely

LOST BOY

First Kiss

Sunder

In the Fading Light

For Love or Money

Under Sophie Starr

Cinder Ella

Coming soon – Lost and Bound

Co-authored with Erin Leigh

Coming soon - Second Chances

Why
do the hot guys always have poor shoes?

Lana

My reflection in the bathroom mirror is paler than
normal. Cambridge is murder on a West Coast girl’s tan. I haven’t missed the
beach more—ever. Considering I am on a coastline, it’s almost ironic.
It’s just the wrong coastline.

Nance’s eyes dart to mine like she has something
sinister to tell me. I almost want to know what it is as she smears the coral
gloss across her perfect pout. She rubs it together before she smacks her lips
once and says the thing that was obviously brewing in her mind. “I believe in
God, for sure. I know he’s up there laughing his ass off every time I fall for
a guy, and THEN it hits me. I remember where I saw his shoes—Costco.”

“YOU went to Costco?”

She looks like I asked her if she went to prison. “My
cousins like to go. To them everything bigger is better.”

“Yikes.” I don’t even remember what it was we were
talking about before we started applying makeup, but as usual she makes me
laugh. In this overly intellectual haven for nerds and pompous assholes that is
the most important thing. If you can’t laugh you will cry. The weather is shit
compared to LA and the people are too smart for their own good, always trying
to argue about everything and be top know-it-all. It’s exhausting.

She is refreshing and she reminds me of every one of
my friends back home. She doesn’t try to be anything but what she is—a
trust-fund kid whose dad bought her way into Harvard. The best thing about Ivy
League dads like ours is them getting us rejects (people who couldn’t get in if
we were normal peasants) into the schools they went to. Not only do we have to
go to a school we don't want to attend, but we also end up with teachers who
put us up to the same standards as our family members.

Nance and I are exactly those types of rejects.

I blink and realize she’s still nattering on.
“Remember that kid you dated last spring? Every time I saw him he had on
something I swore he had stolen off a homeless man. He was so beautiful but he
smelled like patchouli. That just isn’t right—hot guy, hot body, great
smile, no money . . . Why? Why can’t we ever have nice things?
All the guys in our financial league are out of shape or gross. Yay, you have
money now spend some of it on getting that hideous mole removed. Like really.”

“It’s all about balance. We have money, looks, awesome
lives—apart from this hellhole, so every sexy guy we meet has to be the
balance and be poor or ugly as sin. So either we need to be poorer so we can
randomly end up meeting the next JFK or do some good deeds to earn something
back from the universe. I read up on this. It’s called karma. If we worked in a
homeless shelter or volunteered, we would meet a rich hottie with a killer
body. It’s like God would owe us for our goodness.” I’m joking but I can see
her adding the sum up in her head.

She points the lip gloss at me in the mirror and
nods. “You are so right.”

I narrow my gaze, wondering if she actually believes
it, not that it matters. My palms are burning for some action and the girls’
bathroom isn’t the place to get it. I need to party tonight—hard.

Nance smears her second coat on. She’s so addicted to
plumping lip gloss it’s frightening, although I do enjoy that tingle too.

“That makes perfect sense.” She’s still going on
about the comment I made like she’s stuck on repeat. God to be that clueless,
just floating through life. No amount of drugs taken or tests failed has
managed to make me that free intellectually. I actually have to work to keep up
with her.

I chew my lip, contemplating the fact I have to dump
Chad later, as she continues to over process my lame comment. “I need to do
some volunteer work. I have the worst luck. Remember Brooklan—that guy I
dated who was the quarterback? I was actually faithful to him, only to find out
he’s a scholarship kid and his parents have a farm! Like, what? A farm? You’re
kidding me right now? No. No. I don’t think so. Gross. I wasted my new European
lip gloss on him. You know the Botox in a bottle stuff that makes your lips
fatter? My aunt had it flown in for me.”

I smear lipstick across my bottom lip and dab the
pout perfecter in the center and wink at her. “God was laughing that day. That
guy had a perfect six pack and hockey-player ass.”

Nance points at the mirror. “Hockey-player ass IS a
real thing. I was telling Darcy about it the other day and she was all like ‘no
way’ and I was like ‘yeah.’ It’s a real thing. Have you seen Georgia Collins’
brother? He plays at Notre Dame and his ass is epic. He’s like Nikki Minaj but
a dude. I want to squeeze it like I’m juicing a grapefruit.”

I freeze, mid-smudging of my pout and give her a
disturbed look. She laughs but I know she means it. She wants to squeeze his
ass cheeks.

Creepy.

“Anyway, that Botox in a bottle is super sweet. I
need more. This crap I bought last week at the mall is making my lips peel and
they don’t even really tingle. Why am I cursed with skinny lips? Why does God
hate me?”

I roll my blue-gray eyes at her in the mirror. “You
have a sweet ass so you get skinny lips.”

She moans like I told her I was cutting up her credit
cards. “I guess. If it helps to stop kids being hungry everywhere, I can be the
balance and have skinny lips.” She dabs the pout perfecter on her lips and
scowls. “Still seems unfair though.”

I run my hands through my dark-blonde hair. “Unfair
is how fast this shit is getting greasy.”

“Dry shampoo. It changed my life.”

I cock an eyebrow at her reflection. “What?”

She yawns and walks to the bathroom door. “Yeah,
stops the grease.”

“Hmm.” I pull my cell phone from my pocket and text the
desperate need I have for dry shampoo. Henry will have his butt at the store
getting me some of that. We walk out of the bathroom, and I swear the ugly kid
in my history class gives me a look, like an ‘I want you’ look. I sneer at
Lana. “Did you see that? That weird kid, who never wears deodorant, just gave
me the ‘wanna do it’ look. Like, as if.”

She
makes a face and looks back through the hall for him. “Creepy little stalker.
Why doesn’t he wear deodorant? Like is it a protest? He’s probably one of those
earth-science weirdos. He smells rotten. I have art history with him and he is
always smelling up whatever corner he’s in.” She blows me a kiss and leaves the
building to trek across the cold-ass grounds to her next class while I go back
to my room for my nap.

When
I get there, I close the blinds and take my new sleep aid that I got for myself
from a friend last week. The old one wasn’t working as well. The thought brings
back the argument Henry and I got into over my ‘addiction’ to sleeping pills
when he brought the new ones he said were less addictive. I roll my eyes and
settle in with my mask and click my remote to start the soothing sounds of the
beach in front of my dad’s place in Malibu. It’s the only thing that can lull
me into a restful sleep.

The
feel of the ocean starts to become part of my dream—I’m rocking with the
waves. The room is transformed and peaceful, with its soft sounds and swaying
bed.

A
grunt finds its way into my dream, startling me. I look up and down the beach
but there is nothing that would grunt.

The
effects of the sleep aid try to hold me in my dream as my feet start sinking
into the warm sand. At first they’re being lapped at by the tepid waves, but
then a second grunt startles me to the point I can feel my lashes blinking against
the mask covering my eyes. I know I’m dreaming which means I’m waking up and
the grunting is real. It makes me panic, trying to see where the grunt is
coming from. My lashes scratch at the satin, desperate to open completely, but
the thick fog of the sleep aid has me in its clutches. My toes on my right foot
get caught in the sand and something grabs them as my dream drifts into a
nightmare.

I
tug to free my foot, but the sand has it and it’s not letting go. My body jerks
with the waves and the grip as I hear a loud moan. Somehow my hand gets loose
from the thick haze and rips my mask from my eyes as I lift my heavy head.

I’m
in my room, not the beach.

A
thin strip of light has found its way in between the two blackout curtains, and
in the dark I see a hooded figured at the edge of my bed. He’s moving the bed
and gripping my foot. He shudders and sprays something hot on my shin.

My
foot is freed as I hear a zipper and a scream. The zipper is his and the scream
is mine.

Light
floods the room as the door is ripped open but the figure has gone out the
window onto the ledge. “LANA!” My roommate screams but I am stuck staring at
the warm spot on my lower leg.

What
the hell?

When
I realize what it was he sprayed on me, I jump from the bed, staggering into
the bathroom. My shoulder hits a wall and I trip because technically my body
thinks it’s still sleeping, thanks to the short-term sleeping pills I took.

“Lana,
are you okay? What happened?”

“Someone
was in here! Someone was in my room. He was touching—oh God.” I shudder
and stumble into the shower. The hot water and soap can’t come fast enough. My
heart is racing, my mouth is dry, and my brain is attempting to process the
unsettling feelings I have about what exactly I comprehend about the last five
minutes.

“Lana,
girl, don’t wash it off. The rape thingies always say don’t wash it off.” Este
taps on the textured glass.

My
eyes are closed, my head is twitching, and hot tears are seeping from my eyes.
I have no control over my body’s choices at this point.

Words
spill from my lips, “I have to. I have to wash it off. I have to. He fucking
came on me, oh my God. He was touching me.” I gag as my desperate fingers mix
with the soap to scrape him off. I heave and fight the urge to purge as a
thousand busy thoughts wreak havoc on my brain. Mostly they consist of two
words—Who? Why?

When
I notice the heat of the water it’s too late, my skin is burning. The
temperature’s so hot I’m red and aching everywhere like a sunburn, but all I
can think about is the feel of—gross.

I
don’t remember how I got out of the shower or how I got my robe, on or even how
I got to the police station. Everything is a blur of fast moving lights and
people talking over me. There were cops and ambulance attendants and kids from
down the hall.

At
the police station, Este, my roommate, is beside me holding my hand. Her dark,
satin skin is so soft compared to my inflamed, welted hands. Every bit of me is
flushed and tender.

“The
sleeping pills muted the pain of the hot water on your skin. You should never
shower under the influence. You’re lucky it’s only second degree on your arms
and stomach and legs. It could have been worse.” I look up to see the face of a
lady cop staring down on me. She looks like the chick from I Dream of Genie,
like hard core. That summer spent watching TV with my grandma will never
actually leave my mind. It was the year I stopped doing the one thing my father
loved about me, so he left me with her while he worked.

I
shake my head. I don’t know what the lady cop is talking about, but ‘no’ feels
like the right answer.

She
smiles and looks at Este. “What did she say when it happened? What were her
first words?”

I
glance at Este too. What did I say?

She
rolls her dark-brown eyes and bats her lashes. “I already told y’all this. She
said some nasty ass was in her room and came all over her when he was touching
her. Y’all need to be looking for this creep. This is like the third rape on
campus.” Her Southern accent is awesome. Sometimes I try to copy it but it
doesn’t work for me. The West Coast accent is so plain. “If I wanted to be
stalked by some creepy rapist, I woulda done college in Atlanta. I wouldn’t
have worked my ass off to come to Cambridge if I knew this shit was gonna
happen.”

I
twitch my head. Rape. That sounds wrong. It wasn’t rape, I remember that much.
I wince and push my hazy mind backward. The words sort of tumble from my lips,
“He didn’t rape me.”

I
Dream of Genie gives me a confused look. “He didn’t? We found semen on scene and
lubricant. Everyone for a hundred yards heard you screaming.”

I
gag, remembering the feel of the oil on my foot and his—don’t go there
brain, don’t go there. I shake my head, burping back my bitter taste. “He was
doing my foot. It was my foot—my toes.” Oh God.

I
Dream of Genie is stunned still—frozen in horrendous shock as she
processes the words I’ve said. I can see it on her face and I know exactly how
she feels.

But
Este looks unimpressed. She cocks her head to the side and closes her eyes for
a second. “Your feet? You screamed ‘cause one of your man hoes was banging your
toes? Girl, we thought you were being murdered up in that shit.”

My
face is on fire, and not just from the water burns. “I—I don’t know who
it was. I went for a nap. I didn’t have anyone over.”

Este
rolls her eyes. “You are crazy. You screamed like he was cutting you up.”