SCANDALOUS

He sounded concerned, and maybe he was, but not about my wellbeing.

“Father.” I wiped my face with my arm, hating that I had to call him that just to please him. He hadn’t earned the title. “You’re not here to talk about ‘the Protsenko kid’. How can I help you this morning?” I jammed the surfboard into the sand and leaned against it, and he reached to touch my face, before remembering I was wet and withdrawing his hand back into his pocket. He looked so human in that moment. Almost like he didn’t have a hidden agenda.

“Where did you hide your acceptance letters to Boston University and Columbia?” He parked his hands on his waist, and my jaw almost dropped to the sand. He was not supposed to know that—obviously. I’d been accepted to five universities. Harvard, Stanford, Columbia, Brown, and Boston University. My GPA was 4.1, and my last name was Van Der Zee, meaning these people knew my father would donate a couple million dollars and a kidney to the fine institution that would unburden him from my presence. Unfortunately, I’d never had much interest in attending an out-of-state college. The obvious reason was my surfing. It was my oxygen and air. The sun and the open sky were food to my soul. But the main reason was that the only person I cared about in this world was in California, and I wasn’t moving away. Not even to Stanford up north.

Jordan knew that damn well.

“I didn’t hide them. I burned them.” I stripped out of my wetsuit, the latex slapping my flesh punishingly as I revealed my small purple bikini underneath. “I’m staying close to him.”

“I see,” he said, knowing we were not talking about Bane. The whole reason why my father had decided to have this conversation at the beach and not at home was because he couldn’t chance my mother overhearing us. Lydia Van Der Zee was in a fragile state, her sanity constantly hanging by a thin thread. Shouting was a hard limit for her, and this topic was volatile enough to bloom into a massive fight.

“Just say it.” I closed my eyes, a sigh rolling from my throat.

“Edie, I think I’ve failed you as a father, and for that, I apologize.”

I was shuddering. The adrenaline from surfing had long subdued. I was standing practically naked and exposed, waiting for the stingy sun to come out and caress my skin.

“Apology accepted.” I didn’t buy it for one moment. “So what’s your next scheme? Because I’m sure there is one. You didn’t come here to check in on me.”

“Since you are not going to go to college this year—and let us be clear that this does not mean you will not be attending next year—and since you’ve officially graduated from high school, I think you should come work for me.”

For. Not with. The devil is in the small details.

“In an office? No, thank you,” I said flatly. I taught kids how to surf three times a week. Now that it was summer break, I was trying to pick up more work. Yes, I was also mugging on the regular ever since my father cut off my money stream. I tried to pay for my gas and insurance and clothes and life and him, and wasn’t going to apologize for stealing the cash. When I wasn’t stealing—I was pawning stuff from my father’s mansion. The one he’d purchased in Todos Santos the minute he shoved himself into the Three Comma Club. Jewelry. Electronics. Musical instruments. Hell, I’d pawn the family dog if we had one. I had very little limits when it came to keeping the dude I loved happy and content. And, yes, stealing wasn’t a hard limit. Although I only stole from those who could sustain the financial hit. I made sure of that.

“It wasn’t a request. It was an order,” my father said, tugging at my elbow. I dug my heels deeper into the sand.

“And if I refuse?”

“Then Theodore has to go,” my father enunciated, unblinking. The ease with which he said his name broke my heart. “He’s been a constant distraction in your life as it is. I sometimes wonder how much further you’d have gotten if I’d done it years ago.”

Chaos brewed within me. I wanted to push him away, spit in his face, and yell, but I couldn’t because he was right. Jordan did have power over me. And co

“What’s the job?” I bit the inside of my cheek until the metallic taste of blood rolled in my mouth.

“Whatever there is to do around the office. Mainly legwork. No filing or taking phone calls. You need a good dose of reality, Edie. Getting accepted to several Ivy League universities and turning them all down so you could spend your days surfing with a pothead? Those days are over. Time to apply yourself. You will come with me every morning at seven a.m. and open the office—and you will not leave until I tell you to, be it seven, or eight at night. Understood?”

My father had never gone this far to try to punish me, and I was already well over eighteen, but that meant absolutely nothing. I still lived under his roof, I still ate his food, and most importantly—I was still at his mercy.

“Why are you doing this to me? Why here? Why now?”

His left eyelid ticked again, his jaw tensing. “Please, you brought this on yourself with your thoughtless lifestyle. It’s time you lived up to your name. There’s no need for these theatrics.”

Then he turned around and stalked to the Range Rover waiting on the curb of the empty boardwalk. The engine was purring, his driver shifting his eyes between us and the time on his phone. A thin smile found his lips. My father had taken less than ten minutes to put me in my place.

I stood there, rooted to the ground, like an ice statue. I hated Jordan with the kind of passion people usually reserved for love. I hated him like hate was supposed to be felt—it tainted my soul and poisoned my mood.

“I’ve a feeling you’re now regretting not taking my advice to tell him to piss off,” Bane muttered beside me as he dug the sharp edge of his board into the sand and collected his wild blond hair into a man bun. I didn’t answer.

“Sounds like your ass has been served.” He elbowed me, plucking a Budweiser from his backpack lying on the sand, because who cared that it was seven in the morning?

I clenched my seashell necklace and gritted, “You have no idea.”