Page 11 of Grift

A shudder goes through me, as my thoughts turn to Callan. Icy cold Callan Carney. Handsome? Yes. Polished? To a fault. But his remote, strategic demeanor is so evocative of my father and men like him that a small sound of horror escapes my lips.

“Jessica, I know that the Carneys have a certain reputation. Patrick is hardly an intellectual, he can be impulsive, but he’s a decent man,” my father’s voice has the slightest edge of anger like he can’t believe he’s wasting time explaining this to me.

Patrick. Just his name elicits a very different reaction than the thought of Callan.

Heat floods me as I remember Patrick, with his black hair and flashing blue eyes, the dimples, the broad shoulders, and the hint of tattoo I’d seen when his sleeve rolled up. The way his cologne had sent a thrill through my body, and for a few minutes, I’d enjoyed just being a woman basking in the uncomplicated masculine presence of a dominant man.

Just Jessica. Not a Kensington. Not an epic fuck-up.

But marry Patrick Carney?

Hardly uncomplicated.

“I can’t. I won’t,” I hear myself saying. I can’t even process it.

The weight of it all crashes into me then, something I’ve fought so hard to keep at bay: the horrible night when I’d blacked out at college and woke up, unable to remember a thing. What I’d suspected happened, but could never prove. And then the worst parts: a few days later, when my father’s angry call had summoned me to Washington.

There was a video. He said that I’d drank too much and made a sex tape so vile that it would not only destroy his career and his reputation, but any chance I’d have at a normal life. He wouldn’t make me watch them – he’d spare us both that – but there were demands. Expensive demands, demands that put our family – and most importantly, his career – at risk. I’d be dropping out of the expensive, private college I’d worked so hard to get into that day.

That tuition money was being repurposed to pay off blackmail demands. I’d be going to a local school, and live at home in Boston where my mother and her staff could keep a close eye on me. Make sure that nothing like this ever happened again.

The rejection, the fear, the horror. The complete lack of control that I’d had on the direction of my life for the last decade, washes over me in waves. Desperation that despite trying to make myself smaller and smaller, I’ve never been small enough to stay out the way.

Alarmed, my father is on his feet. But there’s no kindness there. He grabs my wrist, his fingers close to crushing the bone. We’re completely alone in the gallery, but still his eyes roam a practiced circle around the space.

It’s always about the optics.

“I’m not giving you a choice, Jessica,” he warns, in a low threatening tone. “In one night, you managed to potentially destroy what generations of Kensingtons have worked for.”

I can’t breathe, and he digs his fingers in deeper. “And the Cabots” referring to my mother’s family, “all that money, land and cache. Decades of my life, your mother’s life. Every ounce of pride, of love, and of respect that I felt for you. All the trust that we’d put into you, everything we’d invested in your future. Gone in a single night and for what?”

His eyes are flashing, almost zealously. “How much is enough, Jessica? Every shred of your family’s legacy. Our family’s peace. My career, your mother’s dignity, the impact of her charitable work, and any chance your brothers have to achieve anything. Never mind your career and your ability to make a good marriage, have a family, and do right by every advantage we’ve given you. And the money: my savings nearly gone, over and over again. Millions of dollars, wasted, trying to buy silence about your depravity. Even my marriage, tested to the brink by what you’d done. How much more do you expect me to give, Jessica? How much was it worth?”

He’s so close I can feel his breath on my skin, but I’ve backed up to the edge of the bench and there’s nowhere left to go.

Nowhere left to go to get away from him, or to outrun this outcome it seems. We’ve reached the end of the road on this issue. Just not the way that I’d hoped or expected.

“Or, you can finally do the right thing and take one simple step to set this right. End it once and for all. Do the right thing and take this burden off your mother and I, and perhaps build something worth having for yourself in the process. But then, you never were good at looking ahead, were you?” He lets me go.

My breaths are coming in fast, frantic gasps as I rub my wrist, raw from his grip and already bruising.

“I need to hear you say it, Jessica,” he sounds resigned.

Tears stream down my face, unrestrained. And he just looks at me in disgust. Who can blame him? As the years go by, I manage to claw my way out of that pit of self-hatred and back to a place where I see myself the way I want to. Smart, determined, occasionally funny. But then one look through his eyes and I’m right back there, right back to that day in DC with every bit of self-worth stripped away as I try to deny that I made any tape. But I can’t recall a single thing from the first time I’d really drank or attended a college party. I am nothing to him. And maybe he’s right. With all I have cost them, maybe I truly am nothing.

“I understand. I’ll do it,” my hand flies out to steady me, but there’s nothing there and I collapse back onto the bench.

He gives me a forced, tight smile. “Good. Your mother will work out the details, but I expect it will be a week or two at the most.”

A week or two? My mind explodes in a rush of confusion, trying to make sense of the timeline.

He moves toward the doors, pausing just before his foot hits the panel that would slide them up. “Oh, and Jessica?”

Some part of me, some hopeful part that I will hate for years after this day, stirs. Maybe, just maybe, I’ll have finally given enough and atoned enough that he’ll love me again. He doesn’t look back. “Clean up before you leave the gallery. There’s a bathroom at the back. You’re a disgraceful mess.”

And then he steps into the hallway to the gala space, leaving me behind, as the doors whir shut with a sterile, mechanical sound.

Patrick Carney totally commanded my attention when we met. I’d felt an attraction to him that I haven’t felt to anyone in years. But like this? It doesn’t escape me that my father called him “good enough” and “impulsive.” My mind keeps going over the rugged lines of his handsome face, the bruises on his knuckles, the way his countenance shifted when his brother arrived.

After a few minutes of staring at the huge painting on the wall, I make my way to the bathroom. Washing my face, I carefully reapply my makeup and smooth my hair. I need to get out of here. Pulling out my phone, I pull up an app and call a car to meet me out front in a few minutes.

But when I step out into the gallery, I’m not alone.

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