Kiss the Sky (48 page)

“Tell
me you hit him,” Lo says the moment he sees me.

I
nod once.

“Thank
God.”

“Thank
me
,” I say, dropping to my knees
while Lo just laughs. It’s easy to joke right now. This is the hard part.
“Rose?” I inspect her cheek that swells. Not a shiner, but she’ll have a bruise
on the bone. I can barely breathe without seeing a fist in her face. Her body
falling off the stool. The motion is repeated over and over again. I want to
fucking puke.

“He
hit
me!” she growls, her eyes
flickering hot. She tries to sit up to go attack him, but Lo keeps his hand on
her shoulder, forcing her down.

“I
have her,” I tell Lo, and I swiftly cradle her in my arms. She holds onto my
bicep, not trying to go after the guy. Lo passes her the ice, and she keeps it
to her cheek, silent again.

“How
bad is it?” she asks. “Oh my God, the wedding pictures.” She grimaces. “What an
asshole!” She growls again.

“There’s
such thing as Photoshop,” I tell her with an even-tempered voice. I hate that
she’s hurt, and another guy was the cause. From the sound of it, he wasn’t even
a heckler.

“LET
ME AT HIM!” Daisy screams.

We
all turn our heads.
Ryke
has Daisy thrown over his
shoulder,
beelining
towards the exit. I follow with
Rose in my arms, Lily and Lo behind me somewhere.

Daisy
tries to climb down
Ryke’s
back to go attack the
tattooed guy who’s seated at the bar again. Her head is near his ass until he
pulls her back up on his shoulder.

“HE
HIT MY SISTER!!!”

“Say
it a little louder, Dais!”
Ryke
shouts at her. “The
world can’t fucking hear you!”

She
screams incoherently and then yells, “If someone hit Lo, you’d kill
them!
”

“Someone
did hit Lo, and I didn’t do a fucking thing,”
Ryke
retorts, “so calm the fuck down!”

I
remember that night. It was when they met each other. He didn’t really know Lo
then. I try to concentrate on Rose, who looks murderous at any person who
passes, as though every dancer in the club wronged her.

“You’re
okay,” I tell her.

“I
should have punched him back.”

“You
were on the ground.”

She
huffs. “How do I look?” she asks, her eyes softening as she stares up at me.
Her cheek continues to swell.

“Beautiful,”
I say, and I kiss her forehead before she can refute.

“At
least he didn’t break my nose,” Rose says, pinching the bridge with two
delicate fingers in gratitude.

If
he broke her nose—I think my mind would have truly ejected at the sight of her
blood.

Just
as
Ryke
disappears through the door to go outside, I
glance over my shoulder to make certain that Lily and Loren are following. But
I notice Scott close by, speaking to Brett, both of them laughing and smiling
together.

I
have a horrible feeling.

[ 48 ]

ROSE CALLOWAY

I’ve willfully handed over my pleasure and the
wedding to-do list to Connor Cobalt. I’ve either gone mad or he’s put a spell
on me. I smile at the thought. He doesn’t like when I accuse him of witchcraft.

My
phone buzzes as I finish clipping the buckle to my heel in my bedroom, back in
Philly, cameras positioned overhead.

4 days and I bought new makeup for you
–
Mom

I
head to the vanity just to check my face once more. It can’t be that bad…well
it’s not
good
.
 
A purplish bruise puckers on my cheekbone. It
could have been worse. My eye could have swelled shut and oozed puss—that’s
what Connor told me to lessen my misery. It worked. Now I’m just happy I don’t
have a puss-filled eye to deal with.

And
I can also say I’ve been punched. The bachelorette party hasn’t aired yet, but
if anyone thinks it’s my fault, I don’t really care.
 

 
Connor walks into the bedroom, shirtless and
in a pair of black slacks. His muscles ripple across his abdomen, dipping down
towards a place that I saw early this morning. He’s sexier than he realizes—no,
no
, he definitely knows how hot he
is.

He
holds up two button-downs by the hanger. “White or blue today?”

“Did
you just come out here to show off your body?”

His
eyes gleam with mischief, telling me that’s
exactly
what he did. “I need your impeccable fashion advice, darling. White or
blue?”

But
I like this more than he knows. It feels comfortable and normal. Sharing space.
Sharing each other. I want to wake up and be the woman who chooses what color
he wears for the day, and I want him to be the man who chooses what position
we’ll take at night.

“White,”
I say easily. “I like you in white.”

“Blue
it is,” he replies casually.
 

I
glare and his eyes rake my body, taunting me even more. He loves to make me
mad. He rests the blue shirt on the desk and takes the white one off the
hanger.

“What
are you working on today?” I ask as I head towards the door, my purse hung on
my forearm.

“My
proposal for Cobalt Inc.,” he replies. “The board members approved it this
morning. It will go into effect within the next few months.”

He
still hasn’t revealed what he’s doing to the company.

I
think he just wants to surprise me.

I
slip into the hallway, wearing a dark purple peplum dress. Before I can go
downstairs, Scott ascends them. His ugly gray eyes latch onto mine. Really,
whatever part of him was decently
cute
or
hot
has suddenly become putrid like a
rotten sulfuric swamp.

“Rose,
how are you?” he asks cordially.

“Brilliant,”
I say. “As always.”
What? I never claimed
to be humble.

“Of
course. You’re a member of Mensa, you graduated in the top one percent of your
class, and you know random facts that no one cares about.”

Prick.

He
flashes an oily smile.

And
there goes my future children. Sorry, Connor. My ovaries just withered and
died.

Before
I can combat with something much nastier, he says, “Where’s your necklace?”

I
frown and my heart jumps in fear. Did I lose it? I quickly touch my chest, and
I relax once my fingers find the smooth diamond pendant. I even glance down to
double check. The thin chain is still clipped.

Now
he’s just trying to pointlessly irritate me. “Go annoy someone else,” I snap,
“preferably someone from a different universe. Maybe you’ll reunite with your
ancestors.”

I
try to shove past him, but he sidesteps and blocks me. “I was talking about
your
other
necklace. The one with
more than one diamond.”

“I
have many diamond necklaces, Scott,” I retort, not realizing how bitchy and
snobbish I sound until it’s too late.

“Not
this many diamonds,” he says, taking a step closer to me. “The inside is
leather.” And then he drifts to the left, stuffing his hands into his pockets
and sauntering away.

I
stay frozen, too stunned to force my heel down the stairs.

He
was talking about my collar.
My
diamond
collar.

The
one I only wear during sex.

And
I’ve
never
had sex outside of the
bedroom or anywhere the cameras can film.

Something
is wrong.

I
sense it deep in my gut.

Dread
mixed with paranoia, a nauseous combination, carries my feet downward. I’m on
autopilot, trying to shake Scott’s words and continue my daily routine.

Breakfast.
A vanilla yogurt with strawberries and granola and then I’m off to New York to
introduce myself to the new Calloway Couture staff.

My
heels clink against the hardwood in determined steps. Two stairs down and I
stop, worried thoughts creeping back, despite my urgency to brush them away.

What the fuck are you doing, Rose?
If Scott knows something, I need to
confront him. Or talk to Connor. I almost turn around, but I hear the
television from the living room below. Two more stairs down, and the voice
becomes distinguishable.

“…a
top story. Another Calloway girl in a scandal,” the news anchor says. “
This
time there’s legitimate proof.”

Daisy.

Something
happened to Daisy.

 
I walk hurriedly, reaching the bottom of the
staircase in no time. Loren,
Ryke
, Lily and Daisy sit
on the couch together, their backs facing me. They watch the television above
the fireplace, and I march further into the room to have a better look at
what’s on screen.

“Oh
shit,”
Ryke
says, seeing me first.

Loren
quickly snatches the remote, and the television flickers to black.

I
set my hands crossly on my hips and direct my hostility towards my sister’s boyfriend.
 
“I’m not five-years-old, Loren,” I snap. “You
can turn on the news.”
Especially
if
it’s about Daisy.

“No,”
Lo says, flipping the remote in his hands nervously. “I’d rather not.”

Ryke
runs his fingers through his brown hair—a clear sign that
he’s anxious too.

Lily
and Daisy huddle together on the couch, cupping their hands by their mouths as
they whisper. I frown and scan the area for Ben, Savannah, or Brett, but the
camera crew is nowhere to be seen.

That’s…strange.

And
why are my sisters acting like gossipmongers in front of me?

Unless…

I
refuse to believe what’s right in my face. I don’t want to accept it yet.

I
stomp over to Loren on the couch, my five-inch heels never letting me down.
They keep my body sturdily upright, confident and fucking poised. I try to
snatch the remote from his hand, but he holds onto the other end tightly—as if
we’re about to have a tug-of-war.

I
glower. “Let go, Loren, unless you’d like me to dislocate your arm.”

He
narrows his eyes. “Aren’t you tired of making all these empty threats?”

I
twist his arm, just like Connor taught me in the self-defense “class” and Lo
winces. His grip loosens on the remote, and I take it quickly from his hand.

As
he massages his shoulder, he says, “Bitch.”

“Yes,
but I’m a bitch with
real
threats.” I
power on the television. When the news pops up, I freeze. Again.

Fixed
to the floor. Too cold to move.
 

“Bet
you feel like a bigger bitch right now,” Loren comments.

“Shut
up, Lo,” Lily calls out. “Rose…”

I
wave her off and turn up the volume. But the headline on the bottom of the
screen is vitally clear. Yet, I still have to reread it five times just for the
letters to sink in.

Sex Tape of Rose Calloway and Connor
Cobalt Sold to Porn Site for $25 Million

Porn
site.

Sex
tape.

I
didn’t sell
shit.
That little scumbag
forged our signatures to a porn distributor? The only satisfaction right now is
picturing Scott’s head behind bars because if I imagine the other
thing
—everyone watching Connor fuck me—a
tingling sensation crawls up my arms like thousands of centipedes.

The
news doesn’t even bother to explain who we are. Through the reality show and
blogs, we’re already famous. Now, I suppose, we’re
infamous.

My
head buzzes with all the noise from the television, from my friends and sisters.
“The producer is none other than Scott Van Wright, Rose’s ex-boyfriend.” I
barely catch that line. He’s still my ex-boyfriend? I concentrate on that
stupid lie that’s still being aired. When the real shit hits the fan—Scott
still manages to keep half his mask on. I hate him.

I
have to be stuck in some fucked up nightmare.

Loren
tries to grab the remote out of my hand, and I jerk back and turn the volume
up. “I’m watching this,” I snap. And there I am.

They
play a clip from the sex tape. I’m lying on my bed in this house, naked. Black
bars censor the tape for network television, my breasts and vagina sufficiently
covered now.

But
somewhere online the unedited version is being circulated. And how can I stop
it? Lawyers. Lots of them. But I can’t even bring myself to call my father or
to dial the family’s attorney. I am hypnotized by me. On screen. With
Connor.
 

My
arms are tied to the bedpost with Connor’s belt, and the expensive diamond
collar glints in the dim candlelight. I remember that night. It was right after
the Alps. My second foray into sex and it’s public for everyone to see.