Page 25 of Tempt

“I could ignore that,” Ava said. “Maybe with a nice gag in his mouth?”

Luis agreed. “Absolutely. Money solves many problems. I can always find love somewhere else.”

Something tugged at my heart. Was it always one or the other? Was no one allowed to have it all? It seemed everyone was meant to struggle for happiness, some more than others. You could have money and the security that came with it, or love and struggle to put food on the table. Or there were some that seemed to hide from it altogether.

Love was supposed to be unconditional and beautiful, but more often than not it seemed to be an excuse to use and abuse, an opportunity to strike at the vulnerable. I guess, if I were to step back and look at my own life, that was what I saw underneath the good intentions and hopes and dreams. Maybe that was why I was running from my family business and determined to make this my big break. Underneath it all, my family expected me to put love aside. Love was silly and frivolous, unlike money. Money was safe. Money was consistent. They expected me to find a man who would bring intelligence and financial stability to the table. My destiny was to take over Riley Cosmetics and build another generation of success.

Love or money.

Not both.

I brushed aside my thoughts and plastered on a fake smile. “I suppose I’ll keep that as my backup plan then. Marry rich and hide my paramour in the basement.” Or attic.

I could keep Theo hidden away forever.My secret.Peel him back layer by layer until I knew the man underneath all the armor and protection. He could know me, too. I’d be his secret. We could each have our stability and money on the outside, while we hid away everything else in bed with each other.

But not love.

I was starting to believe neither of us was destined for love.

“Besides,” James said. “You wouldn’t want inside the Sutherland family.” He visibly shuddered.

I’d sworn off digging into Theo’s life unless needed because it didn’t seem right. Maybe it made me naive or old fashioned, but I wanted to get to know Theo by talking to him, not snooping around the internet. I wanted to look in his eyes and see the emotion when he told me who he was. “What do you mean?”

Everyone exchanged a glance and my stomach sank a little. I immediately regretted my question.

Ava spoke first. “The Sutherland’s are quite scandalous. For starters, his mother ran away from the hospital after she gave birth to Nicole.”

Nicki.“Ran away?”

“Mmmm…” Ava took a sip of her beer. “Apparently Donald, the father, only married her because he knew he could control her. It was a Cinderella story. Rags to riches. He plucked her out of obscurity,true love, blah, blah, blah.” She rolled her eyes. “They were media darlings. Until she ran away, of course. Then it came out that Donald had been abusing her all those years and terrorizing the poor girl. She saw the hospital as her one chance to escape.”

“What happened to her?” I couldn’t stop now. The questions would crush me now that I’d started.

“No one knows,” Ava shrugged.

“What do you meanno one knows?” I looked around the table.

James bit first. “She surfaced in Paris and did an interview about, what, a month later?” Everyone nodded. “Since then, no one has seen or heard from her.”

“When you sayno one?”

“Well not normal people,” Ava said. “I’m sure the Sutherlands’ know exactly where she is.”

A chill raced down my spine as I thought of Theo, naked and looming over me. He was so sexy and assured when he was with me, but there was so much more to him than that. “Is Donald really that bad?”

“Probably. He’s a tyrant for sure.” James made a face. “Theo has an older brother, Michael, who moved to America five years ago, disowned the family and has sworn never to return.”

Luis leaned in like we were gossiping over some scandal in high school. “Donald is a big believer in survival of the fittest. He put all the kids in the best schools, of course, but he also rode them to be the best at everything. That’s why Theo started iON Innovations and Michael left. Both boys were required to start their own companies. Whoever was more successful would inherit Sutherland Industries. The other would get nothing.”

I knew everyone suffered some level of pressure and expectation, but the Sutherlands’ were a whole other level of the rich and insane.

“So yeah, I think Donald really is as bad as they say.” Luis sat back in his chair again.

“Oh, and don’t forget about the lost years.” Ava said.

This was sounding more and more like an evening celebrity gossip episode than someone’s actual life. If I didn’t personally know people with lives this fucked up I’d laugh and say they were being ridiculous. But I was, unfortunately, keenly aware that all of this was probably true.

James bounced his eyebrows like this was particularly juicy. “Oh, yes. The lost years…” He turned to me. “No one knows where Theo was or what he did from sixteen to twenty.”

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