I clutch the photo to my heart. This one’s framed. This one I want in my casket to take to the grave with me. Her innocence and her beauty are everything. I knew her then. She was my baby. My little girl. My princess.
I gaze at the other photo. The unframed one. She’s on my lap. I still look…happy. Maybe, I was. I can’t remember. But I was thirty there. Thirty. That’s when my age became more than just a number. It became an inescapable reality. I was no longer the hot thing. I was thirty. Thirty fools you. It catches you between being still wanted—still allowed the mistakes of youth—and being thrown aside and ridiculed for knowing better at her age.
Georgiana’s sixteen now. Sixteen. I’m terrified. I see her as competition, and I hate myself a little more for it. She doesn’t deserve that. She deserves happiness. If she wants Sloane Mason, then she should have him.
I laugh bitterly at the wisdom of my age speaking. That’s the ironic thing. I’m so damn glad to have the knowledge I gleaned through the years. I cringe at some memories, smile or cry at others. But now, for the most part, I know what and what not to do.
But the cost of that knowledge is so steep.
I graze my nipples, touch my hairless pussy.
I can’t share Sloane. Not even with Georgiana. I’ve not had a twenty-five year old…well, ever. He has stamina, power in his thrusts. I want to fuck him every day, all day. I want to have him without my husband’s watchful eyes on us.
I think of Georgiana again. I know my baby girl is lost. I know it. When I see her, I realize I don’t spend a lot of time with her. She’s a defiant teenager, searching for purpose.
She’s lost. Because she has no guidance or direction.
Sloane was once lost, too. I researched him on the Internet. He’s notorious. A womanizer. A brawler. A drug addict. A bad boy.
Instinct tells me Georgiana’s sadness would appeal to him. It appealed to Crowell and that asshole might not be a world-famous rock star, but he’s as bad, or worse, than Sloane can ever be. But he wants Georgiana and he keeps her occupied, away from me. I don’t have to watch her change into my competition.
I just know Crowell’s looking after her.
A knock comes. Georgiana must be visiting me. I haven’t seen her since Friday. I should grab a robe. The child sees me naked more than dressed. Hmmm. I wonder how she feels about that, if she sees it as disturbing as I suddenly do.
“Mrs. McCall?”
Not my daughter. Just a maid. I curl my lip in disgust and stomp to the door, in full immature mode. Cracking it, I glare at the woman. She swallows and I lift my brow, noticing a newspaper in her hands.
“Mr. McCall thought you might like to see this.”
I register it’s the entertainment section of the Houston Chronicle, a moment before I see her. Georgiana. The speculative headline infuriates me. Georgiana McCall Allowed Out of her Gilded Cage? I glance at the three paragraph article, a review of the Phoenix Rising concert and horrible assumptions all rolled into one. Assumptions about why she is rarely seen out. Where I am as she’s being escorted backstage just before the start of the show. Where her father might be.
Weight shifting. The maid’s still there. I slam the article against her chest and shut the door. My head’s pounding. I knew she was going to the concert, but who the fuck pulled strings to get her backstage? Near him. In Sloane’s vicinity.
I’m going to summon her to me and get answers.
Will I address her as her mother or my competition?
Silly question. She is my competition. From his own mouth, Sloane told me he’d pursue her if she were eighteen. If she were out of the picture, I’d still get his cock. But, no…vomit churns in me.
They’ve fucked. I know it. That’s the basis of his determination to stay around her.
What should I do now?
Have him arrested? Georgie will deny it and the scandal will be horrendous. If I could prove it, perhaps, I’d throw them into the fire as revenge.
Georgiana is well aware of what giving up her pussy means. A problem child. A groupie.
A goddamn idiot in school.
She’s nothing but a disgrace…who has Sloane.
My insides feel as if they’re unraveling and I draw in a deep breath. I can’t take this. My head is spinning and something in me snaps. I scream at the top of my lungs. I knock over a rack of clothes—dresses, I note—and scream again. I’m wailing, pitching whatever I get my hands on, knocking over my neat racks.
Arms swoop around me and attempt to subdue me. But I’m in a rage and I struggle. I struggle to catch my breath. I struggle for fairness.
And I struggle with me and my self-perception.
Pinning my hands above my head, Parnell straddles me. He pants, his eyes torn between fury and fear. I buck against him, but, at fifty-five, he’s still in shape. Still strong.
“Enough, Cass!” he roars. “What’s gotten into you?”
I feel like a wild animal. “Get Georgiana in here,” I snarl, my face wet, my body flushed with heat and my nose dripping. “Now.”
His brows draw together. “She’s not here.”