.jpg)
“You know, I never would have thought it,” Connor says with a leering grin. “If I had to guess which of you would be into the dirtiest sex, I’d have said you.” He points at Danna and she grabs his finger as though she wants to snap it off.
“Keep your fucked up opinions to yourself,” she says as he snatches his hand away.
“Maybe your friend should have kept her fucking to herself, too.” He stares right at me and raises his eyebrows and immediately, my heart flips with panic. What is he talking about?
“What the fuck are you talking about, Connor?” Danna steps right up to shout in his face and he takes a step back, holding his hands out by his sides.
“Haven’t you see the news today?” he asks smugly. “There’s a sordid sex scandal all over the gossip pages. That family, the McGregor’s, and your friend here.”
“What?” Danna hisses, glancing back at me. I feel as though all the blood has drained from my body. My legs feel like jello.
Sex scandal.
My hands are fumbling as they reach into my purse to seek out my phone, typing McGregor into Google. Surely this is some kind of mistake.
But, as Connor watches with glee, my world comes crashing down.
25
I don’t know what to do. I read the headline, ‘McGregor heirs group-sex scandal’ and my stomach clenches as though it wants to bring up everything I’ve eaten. I swipe down and there’s a shadowy picture of three figures surrounding one woman. They’ve blurred out the nudity but it still blatantly obvious what is going on.
The pool is in the background. The picture was only taken yesterday and it’s already everywhere.
My hand is shaking as I try and scroll through the article, desperate to know what Connor has already read.
A witness has come forward with evidence. It names me and my mom; Nora Winters, fiancé of Roderick McGregor and her daughter Laura, engaging in orgies.
Orgies.
I can’t swallow.
I glance around, taking in a few groups of people who are looking at phone screens and then back at me. I want the ground to swallow me and spit me out somewhere away from all these prying eyes.
As I read further I can see that the article is not there to expose me but to bring down the McGregor construction empire. I’m really a nobody from a news perspective. Just a vessel for the McGregor boys to use. This is because Roderick built his reputation on family values. Everything about the bolded sublines is hammering the point that the McGregor sons are more interested in sordid sex than the business. Roderick has made an enemy somewhere, or maybe it’s his competition who have boosted the story to epic proportions.
I look up at Danna and she can obviously see that what Connor is saying is true.
“Fuck off,” she says, pushing him in the chest and then turning to grab my arm. “Walk,” she barks.
I allow her to drag me across campus as I try to read what they’ve said about me.
NEW STEPSISTER INVOLVED IN GROUP SEX IN PUBLIC SPACES WITHIN THE HOUSE. They mention my college, my father’s name. There’s a picture of me with Danna at our prom that they must have found on Facebook. Oh my god. This is worse than I could ever have imagined.
Danna doesn’t deserve to be bought into this.
There’s even an image of Donnie’s painting of me, legs spread for the world to see, a blurred area so that it’s not too explicit for the news readership.
I want to die.
Tears well in my eyes but Danna tells me to take a deep breath. “You need to hold it together until we can get you out of here,” she says. “You don’t want people to see you upset, okay. Hold your head high.”
Faces are turning to look at me; people trying to work out if I’m really the girl they’ve been reading about, the one who’s been used and abused by her stepbrothers like a fuck-toy. Nausea wells again and I swallow hard, knowing that Danna is right.
“I don’t understand,” I say, my voice revealing my panic.
“Did anyone see you?” she asks.
“We were in the pool area,” I say.
“It’s someone on the staff,” she says. “A scandal like this. . .they could have sold it for thousands.”
“I don’t know what to do,” I say.
We’re almost at the car and she turns and grabs both my arms. “You listen to me. You’ve done nothing wrong. The world might see it differently for a while, but sex isn’t bad. It isn’t wrong. You had a good time. They had a good time. No one was hurt. You’re just going to need to lay low for a while.”
“But I’m getting so behind,” I say. “All that time I had off for my leg.”
“You can’t worry about that now. The college might be able to send you what you need so that you can keep up. I’ll give you my notes but you need to just go home.”
Home. I don’t even know where that is anymore.
I look over my shoulder at the college I’m unlikely to see again for a while. This is my life being destroyed. Everything I knew being wiped out in one go.
Roderick and his stupid plan. How did he not consider how this was going to look to the outside world, or was he planning on keeping it all a secret? Maybe he would have married me to one brother and the rest would have shared my bed only behind closed doors.
But closed doors haven’t remained closed.
He must be raging like never before over this. A trusted employee has brought his family to its knees. His precious company is going to be impacted. All his conservative friends will not take kindly to this kind of thing. My life might be damaged but Roderick has a lot more to lose; the very thing he was trying so hard to protect could be on the verge of implosion.
Danna pulls me into a fierce hug and I finally cannot hold the tears back anymore. They spill from my closed eyes onto her shoulder as the shame becomes overwhelming. I don’t know what to do or where to go. As I draw away and swipe at my eyes a huge truck pulls into the lot.
“I think we have company,” Danna says. “Isn’t that Casey’s truck?”
Just as she finishes her sentence Cameron jumps out of the passenger side. “Laura,” he calls, jogging over. “You need to come with us.”
I look at Danna questioningly, need to know if she thinks this is what I should do. “You need to go and speak to your mom,” she says taking hold of my hand. “They can protect you.”
“Good job they’ve done so far,” I say.
“This isn’t something they’ve done, honey. You can’t blame them. Just get out of here and call me soon, okay. Let me know what’s happening. I’ll keep my mouth shut and blast anyone who dares to ask me anything about any of this.”
Cameron reaches us and says hi to Danna. His expression is so worried. “You know?” he asks, seeing my tear-stained cheeks and puffy eyes. I nod and he pulls me into a fierce hug. “We came to get you. Dad has called us all back home.”
“I don’t give a fuck about your dad,” I say angrily. “This is all his fault.”
“He knows,” Cameron says. His eyes are regretful and soft, such a contrast to the toughness of his appearance. In work boots and combat pants he’s an imposing figure.
“I just. . .I don’t know what to do.”
“So let us figure it out,” Cameron says. He takes my hand and squeezes it.
“Go,” Danna urges. A few people have gathered about ten feet away and phones are pointing in our direction. That’s the last thing we need; frat boys looking to capture footage to sell.
I squeeze her hand and walk hurriedly to the truck. Cameron is close by. He rips the rear door open and I pile in as fast as I can. Casey is in the front seat and Aaron is next to me in the back.
Great. Just who I need to be around to see me break into a million pieces.
His face is grave, though. His usual smug expression is nowhere to be seen.
“Laura,” Casey says, reaching back to squeeze my knee.
“Oh my god,” I say with a quivering voice. I close my eyes, frustrated with myself. I do
n’t want to break in front of them. I hate that this situation is bringing me so low. I feel the same sense of dread I felt when my dad left; let down, broken, humiliated, hurt. I didn’t ever want to put myself in a situation like this again where all those same horrible feeling invade my heart.
I could blame myself. I could believe that I had choices here and what I’ve done is made the wrong ones and brought this on myself. I could, but I’m angry, too. Angry at the McGregor’s who have put me in this situation. They were supposed to take away all mom’s worries and make our lives more stable. Roderick was Mom’s knight in shining armor, or at least that’s what she told me, but it hasn’t turned out that way.
He’s the evil villain. The storybook monster. The one who sets out to ruin the princess’ life, and I let him. I feel into his trap. I was tempted by his gifts and his promises, and now look at me. I’m left with nothing. No honor, no reputation. No home because I can’t carry on as though nothing has happened. This is a fucking disaster. I’m going to need to move state to get away from this gossip. As I think all of this my blood boils. This is terrible and I’m furious. “I just. . .WHAT IN THE ACTUAL FUCK!” I shout.
Aaron puts his hand out to take hold of mine and I slap him away. “Don’t touch me. How. . .how has this happened?”
“One of our staff members didn’t turn up to work today,” Aaron says gravely. “We think it was him who sold the story.”
“But how did he know. . .?”
“I guess we aren’t always as conscious of who is around us as we should be,” Casey admits. He puts the truck into gear and swings it out of the lot. I grip onto the edge of the seat and reach for my phone again, starting to read the article in more detail.
“Maybe you shouldn’t,” Aaron says.
“Why? What are you trying to hide from me?”
“Nothing. It’s just. . .I don’t want to see you get more upset,” he says. His voice is sincere, his eyes pleading almost, and I want to listen to him, I want to trust what he’s saying and let these men protect me from whatever is going on in the outside world, but I can’t. I have to know. I have to see how bad it is so that I can decide what I need to do next.
“I just need to know,” I tell him.
My eyes scan the screen. This article is a little different. There’s a paragraph about my time with Grant. The article mentions that Grant was the first and was devastated when I disappeared with his brothers. They paint me as a gold digger who’s desperate to get my hands on the McGregor fortune and that I’ve cast my net wide, trying to ensnare as many brothers as I can. My hand goes to my mouth. The boys don’t come off unscathed either. The article talks about past issues, like a bar brawl that Casey and Cameron had that landed them in jail for the night, and a sex scandal involving Ford and two call girls in Vegas. There’s insinuation that, although I’m a gold digger, that they have taken advantage of such a young girl, making me do sordid things that I could only have been induced to do by drugs or alcohol. The whole piece is filled with judgment and exaggeration.
“I just…I can’t…” I say. “Has my mom seen this?”
“Yes,” Aaron says. “And your dad has been at the house, too.”
My dad.
I don’t know whether to laugh or cry. He’s been too busy to have anything to do with me and now he appears out of the woodwork to chastise me. To rub my nose in it. I don’t even know.
“Is he still there?”
“No, your mom told him to go. He wasn’t exactly helping things.”
“Yeah, that sounds just like my dad.”
I swallow passed the huge lump in my throat, still clutching my phone. The blurry picture of me on my back in the pool area is glaring back at me. “What are we going to do?” I ask. “What are you going to say about all this?”
Cameron turns, his jaw set in way that makes him look completely determined. “We’re going to tell the newspaper to fuck off,” he says with so much malice that I get a shiver.
“Maybe not quite in those words, though,” Aaron says.
“It’s none of anyone else’s business, is it?” Casey says with anger that matches his twins.
“That doesn’t seem to have stopped it becoming everyone’s business, though, does it?” I say. My voice is small and defeated and Cameron reaches out to put his hand on my leg reassuringly.
“I guess we’re used to being the focus of the gossip columns,” he says. “There’s always been interest in what we’re doing because of how high profile our company is, but I understand it must be hard for you to deal with.”
“It’s not your image that’s all over the news, today, is it?” I say.
“No, but it’s my brothers and it’s yours and you are all people I care about very much,” Casey says. “It hurts me as much to see you guys affected as if it was me or Cameron.”
I nod because I appreciate what he’s saying and want him to know that. They’ve immediately come to find me and take me to safety and that means something, even amongst all of this chaos. If they didn’t care, it would have been easy for them to leave me at college to face the music alone.
I imagine what that would have been like; all those laugh people. How long before more would have been like Connor and made lewd comments? It would have been hideous.
They’ve saved me from that humiliation at least.
It doesn’t take long for Casey to drive us all back to the McGregor mansion. Not only are the gates firmly closed but there’s four huge security guards on the inside, and I can see why. There’s two vans with reporters and cameras outside. I recognize one from the local news station. Thank goodness the windows are tinted and I can cower behind the black glass without fear of exposure. As we pull up the cameras are turned on us. The gates begin to open and the security guards move to prevent anyone other than Casey’s vehicle passing through. As we draw near to the house the door to the multivehicle garage opens and we are swallowed into its safety. When Cameron brings the car to a standstill and switches off the ignition we sit for a moment in the darkened silence.
“It’ll be okay,” Aaron says softly.
“I don’t think so,” I reply.
I’m the first to open the door. The first to want to face the music.
There’s a determination in me now that comes about only when things are so bad there is no room for deliberation or procrastination.
It’s time to deal with the biggest crisis of my life.
26
By the time we get into the house I am angry.
So damn angry that my jaw is pained with clenching and my breathing is fast.
Before I stepped foot in this house my life was okay. It might have been a little boring and there were probably more days when I was short of something I needed than I would have liked, but things were good. Then I moved in with this family and everything has gone to shit.
I’m angry with Roderick but especially angry with my mom. What the hell was she thinking with all of this? How could she move us in here knowing what he was planning and the impact it could have on my life.
She’s just left me floundering, trying to find my feet and making a whole heap of bad decisions that have led to this.
I know these are good men but this is wrong. So wrong. And the newspapers have ended up being judge and jury on all of my actions.
Aaron leads the way and Casey and Cameron follow on.
We reach the den and everyone is there.
I guess McGregor Corp is running without its management team today.
All eyes turn to us. Mom is there sitting by herself. She’s perched on the edge of the sofa as though she feels like she might need to spring into action at any point. Roderick is pacing and the rest of the boys are sitting around looking at their phones or watching whatever is playing silently on the television. There are also some other people in the room who I don’t recognize. A man at a desk with a large briefcase next to him and a woman in a purple dress and pink stilettos, scribbling on a pad like crazy.
“There you are,” bellows Roderick. “You took your time.”
“No we didn’t,” Casey says frostily. “We were there and back without any delays.”
Roderick glares at him and that’s enough to set me off. How dare he be lashing out right now? How dare he be chastising us for taking time to get back here when none of this would be happening if it wasn’t for him.
I stand in the middle of the room and glare at him. All eyes are on me. It’s as though everyone can tell that what happens next isn’t going to be pretty.
Ford stands. “Laura…” he says, taking a step towards me. I put my hand out to stop him coming closer. I don’t need his compassion or his platitudes right now. Any kindness will only break my resolve and crying in this room full of people isn’t something I’m prepared to do.
“Why are you having a go at us?” I spit. “This is all your fault.”
Roderick puts his hands on his hips and Mom stands. “This is a DISASTER,” he roars. “Do you know what happened to our business, today?”
“Your business?” I say incredulously. I can’t believe what I’m hearing. “Do you know what’s happened to my life?”
Roderick glares back at me but says nothing. I can tell he doesn’t give two fucks about anything other than the money and his associated status. His fixation on it is grotesque. “Your life is not my biggest concern.” His voice is cold and low. “There are people’s jobs on the line here. Our whole future could be rocked because of this.”
“Well, you should have thought of that before you pressurized your sons into this ridiculous situation. Didn’t you consider that it was going to get out sooner or later?”
“It wasn’t,” Roderick says. “You would have chosen one of my boys to marry officially. You could have been seen in public with just him. Everything else would have been dealt with behind closed doors.”
I can’t believe the naivety of this man. Everything I did with the boys was within the confines of this homes. It’s their home that has been infiltrated and exposed.
“Dad. This isn’t helping,” Aaron says. He comes to stand next to me, and glances in my direction as though he’s checking it okay for him to be there. It’s a surprisingly considerate gesture from someone I’d previously written off as arrogant.