2. Hannah

Hannah

September

I hate the tramps at these fucking parties.”

“Missy,” I scold, surveying the people around us to make sure none of them heard. “Keep your voice down.”

She shrugs. “Look at them.” She nods to where the three Carpenter sisters are laughing, completely oblivious to my sister’s death glare from across the room.

Must be nice. Laughing with your sisters. Mine always seems to be pissed off or sneaking out.

A waiter passes by with flutes of champagne, so I grab two and hand one to Missy. She’s not normally in this bad of a mood, but lately, she’s been in a constant state of I hate everyone and everything and I have no idea how to help break her out of it.

I’ve tried the mani-pedi route. The movie night. The twin sister gossip trick.

Nothing works.

“They’re so happy to wallow in Daddy’s money. Ignore the world’s problems, so long as they don’t affect them.”

“Isn’t that what we do?”

She shoots me a dark look, brown eyes like two little laser beams aimed at my head.

“God, how are we so different?”

I shrug, forcing a smile on my face. Mom’s watching. “We weren’t . . . until you decided the world was out to get you and started keeping secrets.”

“Maybe I had to grow up quicker than you.”

I resist the urge to roll my eyes and down my flute of champagne, sipping it instead, like I’m supposed to.

I’m going to need a whole keg if she keeps this attitude up.

“You forget we’re twins?” I chuckle, though the declaration is clear. She’s literally two minutes and fifteen seconds older than me. “We even share the same birthday.”

“I’m still older,” she murmurs, still deadlocked on Bailey, Savannah, and Mila Carpenter. “More mature. I’ve done things you wouldn’t dream of.”

I hate when she says things like that. Like she’s going on world tours every night, only to slip quietly back in her bed before anyone notices she’s gone. Can’t be that exciting because she still lives at the LA mansion, and I can’t think of anywhere else I’d rather be less than this city.

“Dramatic much?”

In a lot of ways, Missy and I are almost exactly the same. We’re the same height, shoe size, and we used to be the same dress size until I grew hips and boobs and she grew more elegant and thin.

That’s where the similarities stop, though. Where my hair is a lighter, cool red, hers is a darker fiery chocolate, appearing brown in regular lighting, but filled with red highlights in the sun. Not that she ever goes out in it from sleeping as late as she can every day.

Her eyes are brown. Mine are green. She has a dimple in her cheek. I don’t.

Where I’m constantly trying to see the good in the world—sometimes to my own downfall—Missy’s hate couldn’t be more apparent if it danced naked in the center of the room.

I guess, that’s why we grew apart over the years. The old stories about twins are true. You can sense each other’s presence. Emotions. You share in their pain.

Of course, that’s only if the other half is willing to let you in.

“Look at them, Hannah,” she says quietly. She steps closer and the scent of her Chanel No. 5 washes over me like a haze. It’s Missy’s signature scent. I don’t know that she even owns anything else. It used to comfort me. Now it just makes me sad. “They’re happy to be controlled by men.”

She says it so vehemently, for a moment, I can feel her loathing seeping through my veins like poison.

“Don’t you want to be in control of your own life?”

“I am,” I argue, though it sounds meek even to my ears. Missy just chuckles darkly

“No, Mother’s in control of your life. Just like she’s in control of mine, or so she thinks. Until the day we’re married off to the highest bidder to be controlled by another boring, unfaithful man to further her political agenda.”

“Mom wouldn’t do that.”

“Are you sure?”

The way she says it makes my stomach turn.

Of course, I’m sure. I hope. She may be running for governor, but our mother’s not the arranged marriage type. Not now, in modern-day America. That’s something that happened hundreds of years ago.

Missy’s just being cynical, as always.

“Could you at least try to be happy for them? It’s Bailey’s engagement party. She’s marrying Drew.”

Missy pauses, inspecting me and that fake smile threatens to crack.

And . . . now I’ve pissed her off.

“Fuck you.”

And then she’s gone.

I watch her storm through the crowd, toward the back of the venue where the gardens sit beyond the double French doors. All the while, the stepfather of the bride-to-be watches her, quietly sipping his own flute of champagne.

Ew.

I’ll admit, I don’t know much about the Carpenter sisters, save for what they show the outside world and that Marcus Parker, their stepfather, is one of my mother’s biggest supporters.

Oh, and that their brother is the hottest man alive.

I thought he might be here. I mean, it is his sister’s engagement party, but we’ve been here an hour and I’ve yet to see him and let me tell you . . . he sticks out in a crowd.

It’s not just the height—he’s practically a tree—but the glimmer of darkness that coats him like an invisible second skin. The pinnacle “bad boy” your mother doesn’t want you to bring home. The rough, blue-collar man that every woman from eighteen to ninety-nine can’t help but notice. It could be the tattoos on his arms and the way he doesn’t say anything more than is absolutely necessary. The body built like a machine, trimmed with muscles I didn’t even know existed.

It could also be the eyes like a hurricane rolling in off the coast and the growly voice that sends shivers down my spine.

I’ve yet to meet another man like him.

Unfortunately, I’ve also yet to meet him again.

I don’t actually want to do anything about my little . . . crush on Mason Carpenter. Mom would lay an egg.

I just want to . . . look at him, I guess. It’s been a couple months, so I’m sure he’s all but forgotten about me and my pitiful dress soaking his truck’s interior, but I haven’t.

Too bad he’s not here.

With some guilt, I realize, I should go after Missy and see if we can be excused. I’ve had enough fake smiling for one night.

“Let her go.” My best friend, Michael and practically the only person I can talk to about Missy steps up beside me, holding out his hand. “Come on. Dance with me.”

Across the room, my mother is watching, smiling while in conversation with another woman. She nods to me, encouraging it.

I don’t like her ulterior motives.

In that moment, I feel the piercing gaze of everyone in the room, even the ones not looking at me. Part of me feels guilty for upsetting Missy. The other half feels guilty for refusing Michael’s subtle advances . . . again.

All’s not well in friendship paradise. Especially since my mother seems hellbent on playing Cupid.

Michael comes from a wealthy family, and I have my suspicions that Mom has had her sights set on him for me for a long time.

Joke’s on her. I could never be intimate with Michael. He’s too much like the brother I never had.

“Just let me go check on her.” I wince at the exasperation he hides well behind a colorful smile. “I’m sorry.”

I should change my name to Hannah Running Gaines. It seems to be my solution to every awkward situation.

Run from the uncomfortable position my mother is putting me in with Michael. Run from Missy and her bad attitude. Run from Mom and her political BS.

Run from a party hosted by the Carpenters because I caught my boyfriend cheating.

I hurry through the crowd, away from Michael and Mom and everyone’s prying eyes.

A few people stop to speak to me—only because of my mother—but I just smile politely and wave before hurrying on toward the terrace and gardens beyond. I don’t know that I have it in me to spread Mom’s political jargon tonight and God knows I don’t want to screw up and say the wrong thing.

Mom’s tantrums make a nuclear meltdown seem like a minor inconvenience.

And then Missy’s words ring in my ear.

Don’t you want to be in control of your own life?

I grit my teeth, ignoring the prying thoughts at the back of my mind and press through the double doors to the sprawling back gardens of the Pleasant Hills Country Club.

One thing Missy isn’t wrong about? The Carpenters have money. Money-money. Like so much money, you could swim in it. Mom’s wealthy, but I guess I’ve never really recognized the wealth that surrounds me until right now when it’s staring me in the face.

Sometimes I feel guilty. Other times I don’t because I know Mom worked her way up from nothing. When Dad left us, Missy and I were only seven and Mom became a single parent. We moved from Virginia to California, Mom started her political climb at the ripe old age of thirty-three and now, she’s become the governor of California.

For a lot of reasons, I admire her perseverance.

For others . . . I hate her.

Stepping through the hedge maze where I’m sure Missy must have gone, I hear the sound of hushed voices. I follow them, but when I round the corner, my heart bottoms out in my chest.

Marcus Parker is standing in front of my sister, his lips locked with hers in a fevered embrace. He’s got her dress hiked up, her knee over his arm as he thrusts into her.

I fall back a step and just when I think I can’t move, a hand wraps around my mouth and I’m hauled back before I can even get a peep out.

Strong arms envelop me and though I try to fight them off, the person they belong to isn’t at all swayed as they drag me back out of the hedge maze.

When I’m finally set to my feet, I spin around to unleash on whoever the hell grabbed me when I’m struck, yet again.

Hurricane eyes. Hard jaw. Broad shoulders.

So, he did come . . .

“What the hell are you doing?” My voice is breathier than usual as my heart feels like it’s going to high step out of my chest.

“Saving your ass,” Mason Carpenter says, lighting the end of a cigarette. I’ve always hated the scent of cigarettes and maybe it’s just my schoolgirl crush on the titan of a man, but now, I find it . . . attractive.

Cue the internal eyerolls.

And then my cheeks burn when I remember the old flannel he loaned me that I never gave back.

“Again,” he adds, drawing on the end of his cigarette.

Because I’m a glutton for punishment, I reach for the cigarette, plucking it out of his fingers and raising it to my lips. I feel like a toddler, mimicking the actions of an adult. Especially when he watches me, gaze as dark and all-consuming as it was four months ago when I put my lips to it and pull. The moment the nicotine-filled smoke hits my lungs, my throat closes and I cough.

Great, Hannah. Really cool .

I don’t miss the amusement in his eyes when I hand it back to him and for some reason, I’m surprised when he raises it back to his lips, pink lipstick stain and all.

“What are they doing?” I ask quietly, wrapping my arms around myself. It’s chilly in September at night, despite the warmth of the daytime weather in SoCal, but I refuse to ask him for his leather jacket.

I’d probably end up keeping it and sleeping in it every night, anyway.

Mason cocks a brow, taking a long drag and billowing out a puff of smoke. “You really have to ask?”

My stomach twists painfully. My sister, having an illicit affair with a married man.

No wonder she hates the Carpenters so much.

“That’s horrible,” I murmur bleakly.

“Thought you only date older men?” At the time, my little joke seemed funny, especially because I was drunk and he was both older, as well as the most attractive man I’d ever seen. Now, I’m embarrassed. His eyes travel over the blush on my cheeks and neck, his jaw twitching before he looks away.

“I would never date a married man.”

Mason shrugs. “Takes two people to commit adultery, little doe.”

“Don’t call me that,” I stammer, my cheeks blazing like the surface of the sun. Little doe. What does that even mean?

He ignores me completely.

“Though, I can’t imagine having the infamous Marcus Parker grunting and sweating all over you would be the desire of any woman your age.”

I roll my eyes, crossing my arms over my chest. “You act like you’re so much older.”

His eyes flash with something dark before it’s quickly replaced with a look of indifference.

Is everyone going to be cryptic tonight?

“Congratulations, by the way. Bailey and Drew seem really happy together.”

He chuckles sardonically.

“Seems that way, huh?”

I don’t have either the brain power or the desire to understand what that means, right now.

“I take it you don’t like him.”

“Dislike isn’t strong enough a word.”

I shrug. “He seems nice enough.”

“You’ve got a lot to learn about the world, Hannah. And the people in it.”

“Please,” I shoot him a glare. “I don’t live under a rock.”

“No, but you do live under Mommy’s thumb.”

“As if you don’t.”

“I made my own way. Do I look like a frequenter of country clubs to you?”

Right now, he looks like he could be a model for sexy, blue-collar men.

“Okay, you got me there.”

“Look at this place. People surrounded by their wealth. They’re so shallow they forget to see each other for who they really are.”

“And who do you think I really am?” I ask quietly, regretting it the moment it’s out of my mouth.

Mason studies me for a moment, tossing the butt of his cigarette. His eyes flash with something dark and repressed and when he takes a step forward, my heart skips a beat.

Careful not to touch me, he places both hands on either side of the wall behind my head, caging me in. He smells like leather and sin and everything that makes my mouth water that shouldn’t.

My mother would kill me if she could see me right now. Practically salivating for this man.

He reaches up and I freeze in place, blinking up at him while he gently brushes a stray lock of hair off my cheek. It’s intimate, like a lover’s caress and my skin tingles where the backs of his fingers brush against it.

“Men like me break girls like you, little doe.” A shiver moves down my spine and my heart stalls in my chest when I force myself to meet his eyes, like a storm at sea. “I would shatter you. Watch you crumble from my fingers, my mouth . . . my cock. Then when I was finished with you, I’d put you back together again, so you’d be mine to do with as I please.”

I let out a breath, though it shakes as my chest tightens, my body growing hot with a desire I’m not sure I’ve ever experienced before.

Mason presses forward until his front is barely brushing mine. He leans in, his stubble on my cheek sending electric shocks through my veins and all the way down to my core.

“What do you think your mother would say if she knew I could make her sweet little daughter’s pussy wet with just a few words?”

“I’m not wet,” I lie. I definitely am. “I just think you’re crude.”

He chuckles darkly, lingering against my skin for a moment longer. His breath is warm and I fight the instinct to tilt my head to grant him better access to the pressure point there.

“Run inside to your mother before they come back,” he murmurs, pulling away and leaving my skin cold and tingling at the loss of him. His eyes burn with intensity as he pulls out another cigarette and lights the end. With the flame of the lighter burning in his eyes, he looks like the devil.

If the devil were as hot as Mason Carpenter.

Then again, isn’t he meant to be a fallen angel?

Mason leans back against the stone railing of the terrace, facing the building. His eyes sweep over the huge country club, filled with disdain and something black as night.

He hates this place.

“Why do you hate your stepfather?”

His eyes flick back to me and I take a single step backward. I never realized how much bigger than me he was the last time I saw him. Now, I feel like a toddler in comparison.

“Besides the obvious.”

“What makes you think you’re at liberty to ask?”

I’m so taken aback by his sudden harshness, my mouth actually falls open.

Still, he doesn’t look like he regrets it. Not with the harsh set of his jaw and the way his shoulders stiffen.

“Okay . . .” I start, but he cuts me off.

“We aren’t girlfriends. We aren’t sharing our darkest secrets. I helped you once because my sister would have wanted me to. That’s it.”

I stare at him for a moment, shell-shocked at his outward rudeness. He seemed like such a nice guy. A man among all the boys I’ve been dating.

Guess I was wrong.

“Have a good night, then.”

I turn to march toward the door, cheeks burning hot and hands vibrating with either anger or adrenaline. I don’t know which, yet.

“Oh, and by the way.” I pause at the door, turning back to him watching me with a darkness in his eyes I’m not accustomed to. “I would have rather walked.”

Missy is quiet while our mother berates me on the way home.

“That boy is trash ,” she slurs and some of the ash from the end of her cigarette lands on the leather seat of the limo. It seems someone had a little too much fun at the party. “He’s a thief and a drug dealer.”

Mason doesn’t seem like a thief or a drug dealer. In fact . . . he seems to be one of the only sane people I’ve spoken to in the last six months.

My mother doesn’t know about Mason taking me home a couple months ago. Somehow, I convinced Michael to say he left early to drive me back to the university, only because I knew this was how she would react.

Mother doesn’t like anyone different than her. Case in point, Missy and me and her affinity for harsh punishments and cruel assessments disguised behind that fake Virginian accent.

Laura Gaines didn’t grow up in Virginia. She was born in fucking Wisconsin.

“Why do you dislike him so much?” I actively work to keep the annoyance out of my voice, but Laura is a bloodhound. She can sniff out any sign of disrespect.

Like right now. Her eye twitches when she blows out a cloud of smoke, eyeing me like she’s inspecting me before a big benefit or an event where my presence is required.

“You like him, don’t you?” I pause, my heart nearly stopping in my chest. Mason Carpenter is handsome, but that’s where the attraction stops. He’s crude and an asshole. His fingernails are stained with motor grease and he’s covered in tattoos.

Tattoos that make him hotter , my brain chimes at the worst moment. And the callouses on his hands that felt good against your skin. The way he says your name. Almost like he’s growling it.

Okay, shut up.

My cheeks flame and, of course, Laura picks up on that.

She sneers behind her cloud of smoke. “You do.”

“I’m indifferent toward him.”

“Oh, please.” She rolls her eyes, laughing sardonically.

I glance at Missy beside me for a little backup. I mean, she’s sleeping with Marcus Parker. Mom’s business partner. A married business partner. Unfortunately, though, she’s got her head leaned against the window, her eyes darting back and forth as she watches the buildings pass by on our way back to the Bel Air mansion.

Is she high?

“You were practically fornicating with him in the garden,” Mother grits, disgust dripping from her tone. “I didn’t raise you that way.”

“You didn’t raise me to be judgmental and cruel, either,” I retort and I know as soon as it’s out of my mouth, it was the wrong thing to say. “We were just talking.”

“The problem with you, Hannah dear, is you’re too na?ve. You think he wants to talk to you? He doesn’t even like you. He just wants what’s between your legs.”

My mouth fills with saliva at the sick feeling brewing in my stomach. I know it’s of my mother’s design, but the sad part is, she’s probably not wrong. Mason’s the same as any other guy that comes to call. They all want the same things. Sex. A good time. Some claim to fucking the governor’s daughter because it’s a fun little story to tell their friends.

I’m an idiot if I don’t accept that he’s not just like the others.

Mom points the glowing red end of her cigarette at me.

“I want you to stay away from him.”

My stomach clenches, remembering the way he’d looked at me in the garden. Like I was something special to him, and he hated it.

“And if I say no?”

She narrows her gaze, finishing the last of her cigarette and smashing it out a little too aggressively in the limo’s ashtray.

“Try me.”

The way she says it, it’s more of a threat than an actual warning. Like she’s hoping I’ll slip up.

A shiver rolls down my spine when I think of that dark, dark place.

“Fine.”

She watches me for a beat as if she’s trying to read my mind and see if I’m lying or planning to sneak out to meet the bad boy in the middle of the night.

“Good.”

We pull through the gates of the Gaines’ LA mansion moments later, after the car falls into an awkward silence of Mom replying to emails, Missy on the trip of her life, and me . . . thinking about my conversation with Mason.

Am I really that different from the rest of my family? Is he?

I suppose he is. The pinnacle black sheep.

Mom answers a call as we pull up to the house and Missy and I climb out. She stumbles away from me, but I race to keep up with her.

“What did he give you?” I ask quietly, grabbing her hand to stop her before she climbs the stairs. I can hear Mom on the phone outside, complaining about the Carpenters.

Missy’s eyes dart to mine and her brow furrows, but I can see in the way her pupils are nearly completely dilated and the way she licks her lips, she’s definitely on something.

“Stop it, Hannah,” she snaps, ripping her hand out from mine. She climbs the stairs in a huff, but I follow after her anyway.

“Missy, he’s married.” She stops at the top of the landing, turning back to me with a smile.

“To a whiny old bitch with no ambition,” she says sweetly and my stomach turns when the fake smile falls off her face, being replaced with a dark scowl. I take a step back at the look on her face, almost toppling back down the stairs. In the dim lighting of the upper floor, she almost looks demonic. Terrifying. “He’s making me a partner at one of his companies.”

“It doesn’t mean it’s right. He has a family.”

She regards me with dull indifference as if I’m nothing more than a doorknob in a department store.

“You’re so na?ve, it’s almost pathetic, Hannah.”

Okay, ouch.

Unfortunately, Missy takes a step forward and I can’t take a step back because the stairs are right behind me. In a rush, she lifts her hand and I actually jump as if she might hit me. Instead, she brushes the red lock of hair off my cheek, the same one Mason had.

“My poor prudish sister, pining after Mason Carpenter. As if he’d want a girl like you,” she coos, and acid turns in my stomach. “A word of advice, Hannah. You’ll never be more than Mom’s little doll because you refuse to fight back. Marry Michael and have boring sex with the lights off every Saturday night and raise two boring children because that’s all you’ll ever succeed at.”

Tears burn in my eyes and just as one is about to fall, Mom walks through the door, still on the phone and completely oblivious to what’s happening at the top of the stairs.

“Of course, Hannah would love to come with me.”

Missy cocks her head, a sinister smile tugging on her lips.

“ Boo .” She jumps forward, almost knocking me down the stairs and I clamber for the railing in my heels. Missy just chuckles and goes to her room, shutting the door behind her with a final click.

“I said carnations!” My mother screeches from downstairs and I jump, again nearly toppling down the stairs and ending it all.

I go to my room, taking a shower and thinking about tonight’s events. Missy. Mom. Mason. The dark side of my sister I never knew existed. The words Mason murmured in my ear that should have sent me running in the other direction.

Men like me break girls like you, little doe.

Somehow, I know he’s right.

Still, as Mom screams from somewhere downstairs, barking orders into her phone like a deranged dictator and Missy cuts on some heavy screamo music like a teenager going through a “phase”, curling up in that old flannel, surrounded by the scent of leather, smoke, and something else that must be him , I find I feel the safest I’ve ever felt.

And I sleep through the night.