Unhinged (Unhinged #1) Read online

“What’s the party for?” Aaron asked, his hands behind his head, his long, lean body draped across my bed. He really was a good looking man. Blond hair, blue eyes, tall and trim, not bulky, but definitely well-built.

  “Don’t know. Mr. Trovato just invited me. I didn’t ask what it was for.”

  “Maybe the mechanic will be there,” Chloe said when she returned a second later, a pair of silver closed-toe heels dangling from her fingertips.

  I snatched the shoes and glared at her. “He won’t be there.”

  “How do you know?” Aaron asked, his blond eyebrows launching into his hairline.

  “Because he’s the mechanic,” I offered, sounding not so sure of myself.

  “Well, I’ll cross my fingers for you.” Chloe winked at me and then dropped onto the bed beside Aaron while I slipped the shoes on.

  I continued to primp in the mirror while my best friends laughed and joked behind me. I lifted my hair up, let it drop down, wondering just how I should wear it. The entire time, I was thinking about Sebastian.

  What if he was there? What would I say to him?

  A renewed sense of nervousness overcame me. Could this be the shakeup that my life needed?

  Or was I just getting my hopes up for nothing?

  Chapter Nine

  Sebastian

  Dinner was a nightmare, just as I expected.

  I should’ve gone out, or possibly nuked a frozen dinner at my house. If I had, I wouldn’t have had to endure Conrad’s wrath in front of my sister and my stepmother. Not that they weren’t already familiar with our unique blend of dinner conversation.

  Conrad was still harping on the fact that I’d sent Payton on her way without helping her to retrieve his cell phone. I found it amusing: both sending her on her way and listening to my father bitch about it.

  Mighty fucking funny.

  But, the fact that I wasn’t taking him seriously had led to a conversation involving plenty of other transgressions that he wanted to call out until I could no longer taste the food I was eating.

  Same story, different day.

  I was a glutton for punishment. That was the only logical reason for why I put up with his shit. Sometimes I just didn’t get it.

  Ever since my mother died, I’d been going through the motions. Eleven years was a long damn time to muddle your way through life without having any particular reason for doing what you do. But that’s where I was at in my head — lost. Completely and totally at the mercy of all the people around me.

  Not that I wanted anyone to feel sorry for me. I’d made my own bed so to speak. By the time I was thirteen, I’d done time in juvie, and since then I’d talked my way out of a shitload of trouble, as well. My motto was that rules were meant to be broken, and I had always aimed to be the best I could be, so that’s what I’d done. Ignoring the rules had become my benchmark for success. The more rules I could bend or break, the more successful I was.

  Growing up, I didn’t have much. My mother and I lived in a one bedroom apartment, which was sparsely furnished with mostly hand me downs from her older sister. My mother busted her ass to take care of me, even though she was incredibly young — only seventeen when she had me — and barely able to take care of herself. Her parents kicked her out when she told them she was pregnant, and they didn’t offer to help even when we needed it most. We lived paycheck to paycheck and the worst part about it all, I had never been old enough to get a job and help out before she died. I’d tried though, working in a couple of mechanic shops for cash, but I never brought home enough money to make a difference.

  Child support was nonexistent. In order to get child support, your mother had to do something to make that happen. Rachelle didn’t want to have anything to do with Conrad Trovato. The most she’d taken from him was his last name when she put it on my birth certificate. And she’d regretted that every day after.

  And as a way of saying thank you for not fucking up his entire life, Conrad pretended I didn’t exist. He pretended my mother didn’t exist.

  Good ol’ Conrad Trovato. My mother had been head over heels for him, and the bastard had turned his back on her. Then again, he’d been married to his first wife, Judy something or other, at that time and he was already making a name for himself. It wouldn’t have gone over well if he admitted to having an illegitimate child with an underage girl.

  Yep. Conrad had been twenty-six and married when he impregnated my seventeen-year-old mother. Needless to say, the two of them hadn’t been all that concerned with morals and values when they decided to get together. Or protection, obviously.

  Not only had Conrad built a company that afforded him the luxuries he had today, but he also came from old money. Money on top of money. I would never understand it.

  But when Conrad attempted to pay my mother for her silence, Rachelle told him to go to hell and kept his secret for free.

  That’s where she and I differed. I would have taken the asshole’s money and exploited him. Break the rules; that was the name of the game.

  Every damn time I looked at him, I wanted to break his nose.

  Tonight, after putting up with his tirade for a couple of minutes, I had hurried through the meal, excusing myself without his permission and hiding out in the garage attached to the guesthouse. This one was mine, the one place I spent hours and hours alone. It gave me time to think, which wasn’t necessarily a good thing sometimes.

  As though they knew I didn’t need to be left to my own devices, ten minutes after I’d started tinkering with my Camaro, Leif and Toby showed up. My two closest friends tried to convince me to go out to the sports bar that we generally went to on Thursday nights, but I declined. I had too much shit to do — which translated to: I didn’t want to be around people.

  They were my closest friends and it was true, when I wasn’t working, I was usually hanging with them. That’s what friends did.

  After I had refused to go out, Leif and Toby decided to stick around, snatching two beers from the refrigerator and planting their asses on the tailgate of my truck. We were talking about the new big block engine I was working on when my father made an appearance.

  Standing to my full height, I put my hand on the edge of the Camaro’s open hood and stared at him.

  “I wanted to make sure you were planning to be at the party tomorrow night,” Conrad stated in that authoritative tone that he generally used on his employees.

  He almost made it sound as though I had a choice. I knew better.

  “Busy. But y’all should have a grand ol’ time,” I replied sarcastically, glancing back at the engine.

  “You will be there.”

  That’s more like it. I knew it hadn’t been a request.

  “Why? Why the hell would you even want me there?” I turned my full attention on him then, noticing out of the corner of my eye that Leif and Toby were watching us intently.

  “I want to unveil the new concept car.”

  “It’s not ready,” I informed him, as though he didn’t already know that.

  “But it will be.”

  “Not by tomorrow it won’t,” I argued.

  “Maybe not. But it will be soon. I want to announce it, see if we have any potential buyers.”

  I should have been used to this shit. It wasn’t the first time Conrad pushed a deadline on me. In return, he should have realized by now that the harder he pushed, the harder I pushed back.

  “I’m busy.”

  “You’ll be there,” he repeated more sternly.

  I could see the discomfort on Leif’s and Toby’s faces and I knew that I needed to chill. My father and I were notorious for going to blows whenever we engaged in conversation and more than once, my friends had been caught in the crossfire. I knew how uncomfortable it was. Hell, I lived this life. No one knew it better than me.

  “Fine,” I snapped, dropping the hood on the Camaro as a punctuation mark on my temper.

  “Black tie. Seven o’clock.”

  I nodded, keeping my mouth shut
for fear of what I might say. I didn’t want to go to one of his stupid fucking parties. I didn’t want to be anywhere near the assholes that he called friends. A few people knew who I was, but the rest of them had no clue. How Conrad had managed to do that all these years, I still didn’t know. I didn’t want to know.

  If I had to guess, he had paid them off the same way he paid me off. At fourteen, when they were laying your mother in the ground and throwing dirt over her casket, you did what you had to do to survive. You see, my mother died in a car accident. She was T-boned by a drunk driver, or so the story went. Since the driver had fled the scene, no one really knew that to be true. She died on impact, and after losing her, I hadn’t been right in the head.

  Still wasn’t.

  I survived the overwhelming grief of losing the only person who loved me by blackmailing Conrad Trovato.

  A paternity test proved that he was my father, although part of me had always hoped my mother had been wrong. Considering he was the only man she’d been with before I was born, it was a little difficult for her to make that shit up.

  I’d been backed into a corner with only two options. The state would take me, or my father would. I chose option B, which at the time seemed like the lesser of two evils. I still questioned my decision sometimes.

  Conrad hadn’t been happy with the threat, but he eventually saw the light. That didn’t mean that he didn’t hate me. I was pretty sure he did.

  I didn’t fucking care.

  “Awesome. You get to put on the penguin suit.” Toby’s roaring laughter yanked me away from my negative thoughts.

  I darted my eyes toward the door, but my father was gone.

  “Fuck off. Shut your face or I’ll make you come with me.”

  “Bullshit.” Toby recoiled as though I’d hit him with a cattle prod. “You ain’t gonna get me anywhere near those people. What if that shit’s contagious?”

  “What shit?” Leif asked, sipping his beer and peering over at Toby.

  “That hoity-toity shit. Man, I don’t wanna walk around like I’ve got somethin’ stuck up my ass, thank you very much.”

  “Too late for that,” Leif offered, amused.

  I laughed. I couldn’t help myself.

  Toby was a country boy to the core. He didn’t have an issue speaking his mind. He was polite as hell around most people, but when it was just the three of us, he didn’t hold back.

  “Will his assistant be there?”

  I snapped my head over to look at Leif. “What are you talking about?”

  “I saw her on television, man. She’s pretty fucking hot if you ask me,” Leif replied.

  “No one asked you,” I snarled, remembering that my father had mentioned a spur of the moment press conference he’d held earlier that afternoon. That had to be what Leif was referring to.

  “Defensive much?” Toby asked with a bellowing laugh.

  “Fuck off.”

  “Man, you need to get laid. You keep making offers, but ain’t no one here taking you up on them.”

  I flipped Leif off as I headed to the refrigerator and grabbed a beer. Dropping onto the couch in the corner, I crossed my legs at the ankle and reclined against the armrest.

  As I closed my eyes, my mind drifted back to Payton, thanks to Leif’s comment. I wondered whether she would be at the party. That snotty bitch Jasmine had always been invited to the parties my father threw. Didn’t mean Payton would be there, but hell, it gave me something to look forward to.

  “Why’s your old man releasing the car now?” Leif asked, his voice coming closer to where I was sitting. I forced my eyes open, watching as he made his way to the sofa across from me. Toby wasn’t far behind.

  “Shit if I know,” I answered. “He’s been harping on me for a while now. I think he’s hoping for seven figures on this one.”

  “Holy fuck,” Toby exhaled sharply. “Seriously, man?”

  “Yep. The last one went for just shy of a mil.” Personally, I thought it could have gone for more, but my father caved at the last minute, accepting the highest of three offers.

  I had to admit, the guy was pretty damn smart when it came to business, but his bargaining abilities needed some work.

  “Did he let you take the car out?” Leif questioned, resting his big, beefy arm along the top of the other couch after planting his ass down on the leather.

  “Nope.” I had been willing to show them just what that car could do, but Conrad had refused, just as he always did.

  No one knew that I took the car out anyway. Topped that motherfucker off at two-oh-nine on the track. Too bad no one had been there to see it. Not even Toby or Leif. As much as I wanted to brag about it, I never did. That was my thing, and if someone found out that I raced every car I worked on, I was pretty damn sure Conrad would put a tracking device on me just to keep tabs.

  So I kept my mouth shut.

  “Speakin’ of racin’,” Toby said in his good ol’ boy drawl, leaning forward and resting his elbows on his knees as he pinned me with bright blue eyes.

  “No one said anything about racing,” I mumbled, smirking around my beer bottle.

  “We’re always talkin’ about racin’, man. Get with the program,” Toby retorted. “There’s a race. Two weeks from Saturday. Two large to get in, winner takes all.”

  “How many?” I inquired.

  “Three so far. They’re waitin’ to see if you’re game.”

  “You in?” Leif asked, as though he didn’t already know the answer.

  “I’m in,” I assured him.

  “Hot damn!” Toby yelled, grabbing his cell phone from his back pocket and shooting off a text.

  It had been almost two months since the last race I was in. So far, over the course of the last two years, I’d gone unbeaten. To be fair to the other drivers, I used the Camaro mostly although I had a couple of other options. I’d dropped a fucking fortune in that car as it was and so far she hadn’t let me down.

  I took a long swallow of beer as I stared at the ceiling. I hadn’t told Leif or Toby about the dream I’d had. The one that ended with the Camaro in a fireball with me trapped inside. I didn’t think that was a subject anyone would want to talk about, so I’d kept it to myself.

  Did it freak me out that I might die in one of the street races where there were no rules?

  Sure.

  Did I care?

  No, not really.

  I’d never had a reason to.

  Chapter Ten

  Payton

  “Girl, we better get a move on,” Aaron yelled from the living room.

  I was standing in front of the full-length mirror in my bedroom, my eyes glued to the woman staring back at me. I recognized my dark hair, my dimpled chin, and my high cheekbones, but that was about it.

  I looked… different.

  Good different, but still different.

  It was hard to believe that was me staring back from the glass, but the longer I stood there, the more I convinced myself that it was.

  My hair was piled into some intricate design on top of my head thanks to Chloe and her wondrous abilities. A few pieces hung down, framing my face, which had been painted. I wasn’t one to wear much makeup, so when Chloe offered to “do me up” as she put it, I’d been leery.

  Surprisingly, she hadn’t overdone it. My eyes had a smoky shadow on the lid, a thin black line along my lashes and black mascara on them, and a clear gloss on my lips to top it off. Nothing outrageous and I actually liked what I saw. I looked older, or at least I thought I did.

  Silver hoops dangled from my ears while a silver chain hung around my neck, coming right above the swell of my breasts — made to appear bigger thanks to the push-up bra that I’d dug out of my drawer. I had forgotten all about that trip to the mall so long ago. I don’t even remember what had prompted it, but I do remember spending an obscene amount of money in a lingerie store. Not that I’d ever had anyone to wear lingerie for, but at the time, I think I’d needed the boost of knowing I had something
pretty on beneath my clothes.

  It was certainly working now.

  The sheer black thigh highs had been Chloe’s suggestion. Personally, I thought they were an elegant touch, but I feared that if I sat down, the tops would be visible beneath the hem of the short black dress I was wearing. Chloe informed me that wasn’t an issue. Whether she meant that they wouldn’t show or that they would, I didn’t know.

  The closed-toe pumps were a nice touch, much classier than anything I owned.

  “Here,” Chloe said as she walked into my room holding out a small black clutch.

  “Thanks. I’m not sure what I’d do without you,” I told her, grabbing my cell phone and my lip gloss from my dresser and tossing them inside.

  “Well, tonight you’d be going to a party naked.”

  True. I laughed, sparing myself one last look in the mirror.

  “Here goes nothing.”

  I walked into the living room to find Aaron leaning against the wall and Mark fiddling with Aaron’s bowtie. I stopped, momentarily stunned by how handsome he looked in his tuxedo. Sure, he’d been hot in high school, and had actually caused plenty of women to have heart palpitations at our senior prom, but this Aaron — older and wiser — was devastatingly handsome.

  “Wow.” The single word barely coming out.

  “That’s exactly what I said,” Mark added. “Doesn’t he look fucking hot?”

  “I’ll say.”

  Aaron offered me a sideways smirk before wrapping his hands around Mark’s wrists and pulling him closer. I looked away when the two men kissed, not wanting to invade their privacy.

  “Come on, you two. You can play kissy face later,” Chloe told Mark and Aaron. “You kids are gonna be late,” Chloe declared, urging me farther into the room. “I suggest you get going.”

  I glanced at the clock on the wall. It was already seven and we still had a forty-five minute drive ahead of us. That would put us at the party at the perfect time to be fashionably late. That is if I didn’t stall any longer.

  “Don’t keep him out too late,” Mark whispered to me as he offered a brief hug. “I’m going to take him home with me tonight and ravish him until dawn.”