Page 29 of What's Left of Us

“Daddy, I couldn’t go through with—”

“With what?” he booms. “The Carbones are a well-known and well-off family. They have connections, Georgia. Connections you do not want to be on the bad side of. I would know.”

Dread cools my skin. “I don’t understand.”

“And you never will,” he says in a low voice that I’ve heard him use on people he works with when he’s about to fire them. It’s cool and indifferent, like he’s stopped caring about them and their actions. “If you want to see what life is like without me and everything I have done for you, then so be it.”

“Daddy—”

“Get out.”

The words leave me gaping. “W-what?”

He waves his hand in the air as he storms toward his study. “This is what you wanted, is it not? You wanted to choose, and you did. You did not choose wisely, my dear. You did not choose your family. Your mother. Your future. You serve me no purpose now that the Carbones and their affiliates will back out of the deals I struck for the sake of our future. So I’d suggest you get out of my house before I disown you completely.”

Mrs. Ricci pales, our eyes finding each other as the study door slams closed behind my father, who is no doubt doing whatever damage control he can to salvage his relationship with the Carbones.

Swallowing, I say, “Mrs. Ricci…”

Her face is still red from the impact of my father’s hit, her head shaking to quiet me. “I can’t help you right now, Georgia. You made your decision. I told you there would be consequences based on what you chose.”

Leani’s eyes roam over my face, but she can barely look at me. “I thought you would change things,” she says quietly. “But not like this.”

She walks upstairs, no doubt locking herself in her room like she always does when my father is upset. Soon, she’ll drown her sorrows in a bottle of wine until Mrs. Ricci has to help her.

All I can say to the only person who has ever truly been on my side is, “I’m sorry.”

Mrs. Ricci closes her eyes, wincing when she touches her face. “You wanted out, and you got it. But I have a feeling you have no idea what you just started. I don’t think any of us truly do.”

What does she mean? “I didn’t know he would do this…” She has to believe me. “I couldn’t marry him. Not Luca. Not anyone unless it’smychoice.”

The only thing she does is nod with a pinched smile on her face. She reaches out and touches my cheek. “I know, dear. I know.”

Dipping my gaze to the floor, I take a deep breath. “I’ll get some of my things.”

She murmurs, “Be quick,” before disappearing into the kitchen, leaving me in the silent foyer all alone.

*

The smell offresh hair dye burns my nostrils, making me shift on the bed, where I watch Millie apply the new pink color to her strands over the bathroom sink. “You should do something fun with your hair now that you don’t have people breathing down your neck,” she calls out, rubbing in the color with the gloves that came with the box. “We can bleach it. I’m sure it’ll be fine since you have virgin hair.” She giggles. “It’s about time that’s the only virgin thing about you.”

Lips twitching, I touch the ends of my hair and toy with the strands. “God’s favorite,” I murmur more to myself than the girl who befriended me on my first day of private school. She told me she hated wearing skirts and wanted to start a petition to get the girls to wear pants like the boys. She never did, and eventually, she loved the skirts as she got older. She’d even got written up a couple of times when she made them shorter and violated the school’s strict dress code.

My best friend puts her hair up and covers it with a clear cap to contain the mess while the color sits for thirty minutes. “Okay, maybe not his favorite-favorite considering everything that’s happened, but the Del Rossis are stuck up anyway. You’re better off without them.”

She’s clearly forgetting that I am one, not that my father seems to acknowledge that. It’s been five days since he told me to get out, and I haven’t heard a word from him, Leani, or Mrs. Ricci. I even checked my phone to see if it was still working. It was.

He’s proving a point.

That I need him. That the mistake I made was going to cost me. I can feel it already working, no matter the number ofdistractions Millie tries offering me since I showed up on her parents’ doorstep with a suitcase full of clothes.

I hug my knees to my chest. “Are you sure your parents don’t mind me being here?”

Her mother owns a clothing boutique in New York City that theNew York Timeshas written about, and her father is a divorce lawyer in Tribeca. They used to wine and dine with my father and stepmother at the country club where they met, so when I showed up holding nothing but a Gucci bag with only enough clothes for a week or two at their doorstep, they didn’t look as happy as I’d hoped they’d be to see me.

In the short time I’ve been here, there has been whispered talk and forced smiles whenever I pass by the couple who told Millie I could stay for a few days.

The girl in question waves it off, wiping off the access dye from her forehead with a wet washcloth. “It isn’t like they’re ever around. I’m pretty sure my dad is sleeping with his secretary, and my mother found out about it. If they’re not busy fighting about him always being at work, they’re out pretending to be the perfect couple around their friends.” She makes a gagging noise, doing a full-body shiver. “It’s honestly disgusting.”

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