Flawed Page 4

  “Oh. All right.” I gaze at him stupidly for several seconds, at least until it registers that he’s looking me over—and looks less than impressed at what he sees. “Do you want to come in?”

  “Obviously, or I wouldn’t have been reduced to pounding your door down when you refused to answer your phone.”

  “Sorry about that. I was sleeping.” I move back and he steps inside, six feet of silver-haired, Harvard-educated disapproval. He glances around my apartment, his stony gray gaze raking over every visible surface and every nook and cranny. I start to make a joke about keeping the orgy in my bedroom, but there’s something in his eyes that tells me my humor won’t be appreciated.

  Then again, with him it never is. Kind of like everything else about me.

  “Do you want some coffee?” I ask as I move toward the relative safety of the kitchen. As I do, I get a glimpse of myself in the mirror I have hanging on the back wall of the dining area. For the first time since I woke up, I realize what a mess I am. My hair is pressed flat against my head on all sides while last night’s makeup is smeared across my face, pooled under my eyes. Not to mention the fact that I’m still wearing my hot-pink cocktail dress.

  No wonder my father is looking at me like I’m a cross between a stripper and a cockroach that he has the unfortunate task of dealing with. Not for the first time I wonder if he thinks it would be easier for everyone all around if he could treat me like that cockroach and just slam his Brooks-Brothers-bedecked foot down on top of me. I’d be squished, but at least he’d be out of his misery. God knows, he’s never made any bones about the fact that being my father is a huge trial to him.

  “Let me get a pot brewing while I change and then—”

  “Sit down, Victoria.”

  I may have just turned twenty-three, but when my father uses that tone, I sit. It’s instinctive.

  “What’s wrong?” I ask as silence stretches between us. I don’t know why, but suddenly I’m very, very nervous.

  “Judging from your…appearance, I’m guessing you haven’t had a chance to go online yet this morning?”

  “I haven’t, no.” My stomach tightens as all kinds of terrible possibilities start running through my head. “What happened? Are you sure Mom’s okay?”

  “Your mother is fine,” he says for a second time, his tone warning me just how little he likes repeating himself. Not that I need the reminder—it’s been ingrained in me since I was a toddler. “You should be worrying about yourself.”

  He’s being deliberately cryptic today, and for a second I think about heading back to the living room and grabbing my phone from where it’s sitting on the coffee table. But the look on his face warns me against doing just that. It warns me against doing anything, really, besides sitting there and listening to him.

  I start to ask him why I should be worried about myself, but he’s waiting for that question and frankly I don’t want to give him the satisfaction. Besides, it’s obvious now that the only reason he’s here is to give me a proper dressing-down, so I might as well just shut up and take it. The sooner he gets started telling me how worthless I am, the faster he’ll be done and out of my home. It’s a pattern I know well.

  For long seconds he doesn’t say anything, though. Instead he just watches me with those cold, hard eyes. I meet his gaze, refusing to flinch. Refusing to give an inch. It’s a juvenile thing to do—having a staring contest like I’m some pissed-off little girl—but experience has taught me that giving in now only makes things worse later. My father may not respect me, he may not even like me, but he’d respect and like me a hell of a lot less if I just buckled for him.

  In the end, he looks away first. But it’s a shallow victory for me as he follows it up almost immediately with, “How long have you known Alexander Parsons?”

  Every inch of my body goes on red alert. It’s no coincidence that he’s bringing Alexander up now, when I just saw the guy last night. “What happened?”

  He ignores my question. “Alexander Parsons. How long have you known him?”

  “A couple of years. Why?” I start to get up, to go for my phone despite my father’s disapproving look. But he beats me to the punch, pulling out his own and swiping his finger across it a couple of times before setting it down on the kitchen table between us.

  It only takes a second or two before the unmistakable sound of a couple having sex fills my apartment. A few seconds after that I recognize Alexander as being the guy in the film. I have a moment—just a moment—to think that the idiot actually took the less-than-genuine advice I’d given him last night when the woman in the video raises her head and looks straight at the camera. And that’s when it hits me. This isn’t some random sex tape Alexander made with some woman from Kathy and Jim’s party last night.

  No, this is so much worse. Because the woman with the blue hair staring out at me from my father’s phone—the woman who is taking it doggy-style from one of Hollywood’s hottest young actors—is me.

  Oh my God.

  Oh my God.

  Ohmygodohmygodohmygodohmygod. Oh. My. God.

  For long seconds, it’s all I can think as I stare at the screen. As my father stares anywhere but at the screen. As the sounds of Alexander’s moans—and the slap of his hand on my ass—fill the kitchen.

  When he starts with his lame version of dirty talk—and how could I have forgotten how truly lame it was—I lunge for the phone and hit PAUSE before my father hears things no father should ever have to hear being said to, or about, his daughter.

  Then again, judging from the frost in his eyes and the way his jaw is working, he’s already heard.

  Fuck. Is it too much to ask for the ground to open up and swallow me whole right here, right now?

  The son of a bitch. The dirty, rotten son of a bitch. I’m not sure what shocks me more—the fact that he leaked a sex tape of us to the press or that a sex tape of us even exists. Because I sure as hell never agreed to let him record us having sex—I’ve never agreed to let anyone do that.

  I’ve never trusted anyone enough, because—let’s face it—you never know what some pissed-off ex is going to do.

  Today being a fucking case in point.

  I want to say it’s not me on the video, want so badly to tell my dad that Alexander altered the video because he was pissed off at me last night. But it wouldn’t be the truth. I remember the night he recorded this—can pinpoint exactly where we were when this was taken in fact, partly because I only had blue hair a few days before we broke up and partly because Alexander is a missionary guy through and through. We only shook things up a little this night because he’d smoked some weed and had a little too much to drink.

  “I thought you were finally growing up,” my father growls after a minute. I still can’t bring myself to look up from his phone, can’t bring myself to look him in the eye. “I thought you were finally figuring out what it means to be a Reed.”

  “I am. This was taken two years ago, when I was in Paris.”

  “And you think that makes it okay? You let this man videotape you—”

  “I didn’t know.”

  He snorts. “Yeah, right. I don’t know why I’m surprised. You’ve always been an exhibitionist.” He waves a hand to encompass me from head to toe. “I mean, just look at you.”

  “Seriously? Just because I color my hair doesn’t mean I’d let someone videotape me having sex.”

  “Obviously, it does.”

  “I swear I didn’t know. This was Alexander’s hotel room—he must have had the whole thing set up before he brought me in there. This is on him, Dad. He did this. And he’s the one who leaked it because I wouldn’t sleep with him last night.”

  “Why the hell not?” he demands.

  His answer is so unexpected that it takes me a minute to assimilate it. And still I’m stumbling, stuttering a little when I ask, “What do you mean?”

  “I mean, you obviously had no problem sleeping with him before. Why the hell didn’t you do it last ni
ght if you knew he had something like this on you? Jesus, Victoria, how could you let this happen? Do you ever, for even a second, think about anyone but yourself?”

  For a moment I can do nothing but stare at him as I try to figure out if he’s serious or not. He can’t actually be saying what I think he is, right? He can’t actually be telling me that I should have slept with a man to keep him from releasing a tape he made, without my knowledge, of the two of us together.

  Like, in what world does that blatant abuse of power even make sense?

  I can see how my dad would blame me—hell, I blame myself for being so stupid that it never occurred to me Alexander would do something like this. But to blame me for not fucking him to keep the tape private—when I never even knew it existed? How the hell can I possibly be to blame for that? And for the fact that I trusted the man I was dating not to do something like this to me?

  “I didn’t know there was a tape, Dad,” I explain again. “And when I turned him down last night, I had no idea he would do something like this. I mean, really, what kind of asshole does this?”

  “The kind of asshole you constantly get involved with. Don’t you think it’s time you figured out that you’re only hurting yourself?” He leans down, gets in my face, and for the first time the icy mask he’s wearing slips and I can see the rage—and the disgust—that it’s been hiding. It jolts me a little, seeing disgust, for me, so plain on his face. And it scares me even more.

  I’ve always known he doesn’t understand me, that he doesn’t respect the choices I’ve made. And I get it. I do. Hell, even I don’t respect a lot of the choices I made in the past, and that’s why I’m working so hard to turn my life around now. But to see that kind of hate on his face when he looks at me?

  It hurts way more than I want it to. Way more than it should, considering the history of our relationship.

  “You might not have known about that tape, Victoria, but you are still responsible for this mess,” he tells me, his voice all the more convincing for its quiet. “You’ve been running wild since you were fifteen years old, drinking too much, sleeping around, causing as much trouble as you possibly could. Every time I stepped in and tried to stop you, it just made you worse. Made you more wild, more determined to buck my authority and throw your lifestyle in my face.

  “And now here we are, with you the latest punch line in a global dirty joke. Why? Because you never stop to think about who you’re hurting when you do things like this and how your actions reflect on anyone else.”

  “Who I’m hurting?” I ask, for the millionth time glancing down at the image frozen on my father’s screen. “I’m the one getting hurt here. I’m the one who’s being turned into a joke!”

  “And every site that runs it lists your last name—which also happens to be my last name. I have a major board meeting—preceding a major stockholder meeting—later in the week, and I need to inspire confidence in them. I’ve spent weeks trying to figure out the best way to show them that the new direction I want to take the company in is the right one. And now you go and do this? How the hell am I supposed to get them to trust me with the future of my company when I can’t even control my own daughter?”

  His company. His company? I don’t even know why I’m surprised. Of course that’s what this is about. Not me, not my reputation, not how much this might hurt me. No, all that matters is the company and the price of his precious stock. Shame on me for even thinking it might be something else.

  After all, this isn’t the first or the last time his business—or something else—will come before me. But still, that doesn’t mean I’m going to sit here and let him abuse me because of it.

  “Look, Dad, I don’t think your shareholders, or your board, cares about what I do in my private life. All they care about is the money you make them. And that’s not going to change just because some guy screwed me over.”

  “Perception changes at the drop of a hat, Victoria, and perception is everything—I just wish you would learn that and stop getting yourself involved in things like this.”

  “But I wasn’t involved. Alexander is the one who recorded that tape and he’s also the one who leaked it. Believe me, I would never do something like this.”

  “No, you would just prostitute yourself for the man—”

  “It’s just sex, Dad. Not prostitution, not porn. Just sex, between two consenting adults—”

  “I should have known you’d try to spin it that way.”

  “Spin it?” I’m honestly mystified. “I’m just being honest. Alexander and I dated for a couple of months a couple of years ago. Is it really so shocking that we had sex?”

  “I’m done arguing with you about this, especially when you aren’t even sorry it happened.”

  “Why should I feel remorse? I keep telling you, I didn’t do anything wrong!”

  “Of course not. You never do.”

  “That’s not true.” That’s what the whole last few weeks have been about. Making better decisions. Changing my life. Accepting myself for who I am and doing things because I want to do them and not just because I’m angry or hurt or trying to prove I’m worth loving.

  “It is true and it’s time things changed. Time you learned how the real world works, young lady.”

  I want to tell him that I know exactly how the real world works, but we’ve been going back and forth for fifteen minutes all to no avail. My father and I are never going to see eye-to-eye on anything and it’s ridiculous to sit here fighting about it when I have a splitting headache. Which is why I finally just give in and say, “You’re right. I’m sorry. It won’t happen again.”

  “You’re damn right it won’t, because I’m done. I’m finished with enabling you, finished with fixing your messes, finished with smoothing the way for you when all you do is screw up.” He grabs my forearm, pulls me up from the table, and gives me a little shove toward the bedroom. “You’ve got five minutes to pack a bag.”

  “A bag?”

  “You need to learn some responsibility and you’re not going to learn it as long as I’m paying for your mortgage and your car and everything else you have. So go pack a bag. Now.”

  “You’re kicking me out of my condo?”

  “No, I’m kicking you out of my condo.” He deliberately glances at his watch. “You’re down to four minutes and forty-five seconds.”

  “You can’t mean that. I’ve lived here since sophomore year of college.”

  “And now it’s time for you to live somewhere else. Four minutes and thirty seconds.”

  “Dad—”

  “You’re not going to talk me out of this, Tori, and every second you waste is one less thing you get to take with you.” And then he turns his back on me—just one more sign that he’s done with this conversation.

  I don’t know what else to say, what else to do, so I move down the hall to my bedroom. I pull a weekend bag out of my closet and then, for several seconds, just stand there staring blankly at the clothes in front of me as my father’s words run through my head again and again and again.

  But then he calls, “Three minutes,” from the kitchen and it galvanizes me into action. I grab a handful of clothes and shove them in the bag without looking too closely at what they are. I stop by my underwear drawer, grab a couple of bras and panties—plus the two hundred dollars I always keep there for emergencies—then head into the bathroom for my toiletries. I grab the bare necessities, figuring I can buy more when I get to a hotel, and then rummage in my medicine cabinet for some Tylenol because—seriously—my head is going to explode if I don’t do something soon.

  I’m just cupping water in my hands to swallow the two capsules down when my father appears in the doorway. “Time’s up,” he says, reaching for me again,

  “Fine.” I rip my arm out of his grasp. “Just let me change and I’ll be ready.”

  “Sorry. I said five minutes. It’s been five minutes.”

  “Seriously, Dad? I’m still in my cocktail dress! I’ve got last n
ight’s makeup on my face.”

  “Well, then, I guess you shouldn’t have gotten so drunk you didn’t bother to change last night.”

  “Right, because then I’d be in my pajamas and that’d be so much better?”

  He just shrugs and gestures for me to precede him out of the room.

  After a moment of gaping at him in shock, I sling my bag over my shoulder and do just that. But when I stop at my nightstand and try to grab my laptop and put it in the front pocket, my father takes it from me. “I believe I paid for that laptop, which means it belongs to me.”

  “I bought it, with money from my trust fund.”

  “Which came from me.”

  “It came from Grandma and Grandpa.”

  “To be used at my discretion until you’re thirty. So basically, it came from me.” He puts the laptop under his arm and continues down the hall to the family room.

  I have no choice but to follow him. Once I get there, I see my credit cards and checkbook sitting in a neat pile on the counter. As he hands me my purse, empty of everything that might possibly help me survive, there’s a part of me that isn’t even surprised.

  He’s already taken everything else from me through the years—his love, his attention, his emotional support. Is it really so shocking that he takes this, too? A little more warning would have been nice, but beggars really can’t be choosers, can they?

  I know he’s waiting for me to say something about the credit cards, but I don’t. Arguing won’t change his mind—nothing does once my father makes a decision. Besides, it’s very obvious that he’s done with me. Even if his actions didn’t say it—which they do—the look on his face certainly gets the message across.