Page 120 of Unwritten Rules

?Chapter 31

Fallon

Just pretend everythingis normal for one night.

I didn’t even want to celebrate Halloween this year. My life felt like a fucking horror movie. Costumes would be scarier since I knew the monsters that lurked underneath them.

Kelly picked out costumes for us while I tried to hide away in my room, hoping she’d forget I was there. No use, because she barged in with her eyes covered. “Are you decent? Is there a naked man in here?”

“Ha, ha, very funny. I want nothing to do with him,” I lied. I sent him that text yesterday.

And he never replied.Go figure.

“Well, he’s going to want everything to do with you when he sees you in this!” She pulled out an outfit from behind her.

I groaned at the lack of material on the hangers. “What are those?”

“Sexy devils,” she said, throwing one at me.

I held up the small piece of red fabric, wondering how I would even fit into that thing. “Tell me this is a joke. I can’t go out in public with my ass and boobs showing at the same time. This is a thong! Where are the straps? Why do you do this to me?”

She giggled and flopped on the bed, pulling a couple of packages out of her hoodie pocket. “These are the stockings to hold your butt cheeks in.”

Hold my butt cheeks in...“No way I’m wearing this.”

My thoughts were racing with the boardroom briefing. Not only was I supposed to be prepped for my meeting with Augustus Vaughn, I also had to deal with the fact that my abuser had been trying to take everything out from under me for years. How was I supposed to juggle a meeting about illegal business ventures and a greasy family member wanting a piece of the pie that wasn’t theirs?

There were too many documents forged in my name to even attempt to go through in a single day. Evans had a preliminary list of employees involved in dealing with Sylvia—they had meetings and secret dealings. Her pockets were consistently lined with money; she also had multiple sketchy boyfriends she went out with. Who they were, I didn’t know, but I wanted to know now. Those men could be heavily involved in her schemes, or worse, leading her down this dangerous path to wealth because she was so blinded by dollar signs.

Augustus expected me to be my mother, just as he mentored her to be. It was probably the assumption that she filled me in before she died, but she didn’t, and I had no letters or documents from her to help me out. Brent’s warnings and the board had to be enough.

I felt nauseous again.

“Hello?” Kelly waved a hand in front of my face, trying to snap me out of my trance. “Are you putting these on or no?”

With a sigh, I snatched the stockings from her hand, feeling the silky fabric slip through my fingers. I could already sense the thrill of another reckless decision washing over me. But if I was going down, I was going down in style. I had the perfect touch to add to the already daring outfit waiting for me in my closet.

She scrolled through her phone while I slipped into the stockings, shimmying them up my thighs and butt. How women used to wear these daily back in the day was beyond me.True boss babes. I hastily grabbed the barely-there bodysuit and pulled it over my chest, zipping it up my back—though it barely made it halfway.

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