“She knows. Eight months ago, I bought her a sports car for her birthday. If I didn’t love her, I wouldn’t have spent so much money on her.”
“So the amount of money you spend on her equates to how much you love her?” That’s fucking sick. Fuck, it’s easier not to have love at all. Material possessions are no substitute for love. Of course, dickhead doesn’t realize that. He might be a bald-faced womanizer, but he spoils the shit out of his wife. I got sick of listening to all the shit he’d given her and intended to give her.
Guilty conscience. Guilty fuckhead.
Not a stretch he’d use the same tactics with his daughter.
“How old’s Georgiana?” I ask, curious. I wonder if her dipshit father is picking up on my change of voice when I ask about her.
“Sixteen.”
Nope. His nonchalant answer tells me if I’m around her I have to police my own dick. He bought her story about being in the house easily when she’s in street clothes, so why would I believe differently about his attitude toward her for anything else?
I scrub my hands over my eyes. “Tell you what? I’ll send a car for her and let her come hang out with me and the rest of the band—and legions of groupies—before and after my concert tonight. I’ll even choose a special spot where she can watch me from stage,” I add, the coupe-de-grace.
He looks skeptical. “I can buy her concert tickets and send her to my suite. Guitar lessons from you are better. She’ll think I’m cool.”
“Does she even want to play the guitar?”
Parnell shrugs. “Don’t know. She’s always listening to your hideous music. I’d think she’d want to learn just to emulate you.”
This shit pisses me the fuck off again. “Raise your fucking daughter yourself so she can emulate you. She doesn’t need to copy a drug-using, unsettled, rowdy, man whore, like me.” Fuck, I know what I am. The press knows that much. My friends and family knows it, all the better to hold over my head. Even if I wanted to lie to myself, I couldn’t.
It’s always thrown in my face. Instead of crying over it, I own it.
“We’re raising her,” he protests.
“Are you? Then why the fuck was she so hopped up when she walked in here? And where the fuck was she coming from after midnight?”
Another infuriating shrug. “From somewhere in the house.” He sighs. “Georgie drinks a lot. I know it and so does her mother, but we drink, so we can’t very well tell her not to.”
Of all the bullshit. I’m not listening anymore. I stalk to the wooden and glass entry door. “See you Monday,” I toss over my shoulder and slam it behind me.
I halt. My rented Harley’s not parked where I left it on the circular, red-bricked driveway. Servants are nowhere to be seen. Fuck, if asshole’s letting his wife get her freak on with another man, he could have the courtesy to keep staff around to get their vehicles.
Fuck it. I’ll find the bike on my own. I’m in a state, anyway. I need to walk off my agitation. The whole Georgie encounter has upset me. She’s young and gorgeous and headed for catastrophe if someone doesn’t rein her in.
I tell myself she isn’t my problem. I have a fucking tour with my band and the album to complete...Begin. My first full day in Houston and I’ve already managed epic debauchery. The last thing I need is a link in any way to a fucking sixteen-year-old. What the fuck could I do from a jail cell? Not to mention I’ve just spent hours fucking her mother while her father watched.
Jesus Christ, what kind of family is this?
Nice, Sloane. I’m one to throw fucking stones about family.
A brick pathway eases my search, cutting through a swath of green grass. As I follow it, I come upon a small embankment that backs onto a ravine to my left. On my right, a high, stone wall hides the house to anyone on this side.
“Fuck.” It would’ve been wiser of me to find the road leading to the fucking garage, rather than subjecting myself to a McCall Mansion tour. Breaching a stand of trees, I ignore a double-seated swing and a hammock and continue on, tempted to retrace my steps and return to the house so Parnell or Cassandra can summon someone to bring me the goddamn bike.
Perhaps, Georgie might answer the door and…No.
She’s sixteen, I remind myself, the stars glittering in the black sky as untouchable to me as Georgiana.