Page 375 of Double or Nothing

“Jesus Christ, Jack. Things really have changed.”

Bryce laughs. The sound loosens something inside me, and shows me the obvious.

Yes, things really have changed.

The joker wants to charge into battle on a great white steed with a yee haaaaa. The gambler wants to raise the stakes, higher and higher at all costs. Instant gratification.

But the man sitting beside Bryce at home this morning understands that Alice doesn’t need yet another person making decisions on her behalf. Pushing her down their own road and not hers.

It’s all down to her now.

Her life, and her choices.

I just hope Soul Girl has enough soul left to come home.

CHAPTER FIFTY-FIVE

ALICE

I’m sitting in my usual seat at the dining table for our nightly dinner ritual, rife with the fakery that’s crushed my personality to dust over the past fortnight.

My pledge of loyalty to my family has been nothing but a proverbial millstone around my neck, carried for the sake of obligation and the need to protect the man I’m truly in love with.

One of them.

Now the bile is almost spewing from the depths. My facade is paper thin, rage and hurt burning, but nobody seems tuned in enough to sense any difference.

Christopher is talking about the Maldives. A private villa over the water. A secluded terrace. A glass floor in the bedroom through which we’ll be happily watching tropical fish swimming beneath us.

He scrolls through photographs while Mum admires each one, not me.

“It’s exquisite,” she says. “Great choice, Chris. Perfect.”

Perfect, my fucking ass.

“The resort understands privacy,” Christopher tells her. “Nobody will be there to invade the Parker Otley union. Such a wonderful opportunity to enjoy each other’s company.”

Fuck you, asshole. I want to enjoy his company as much as I want to eat my own shit for dinner.

Dad nods at him, a proud glow on his face. So proud of the Otley fuckwit that it’s nothing but a joke.

“You’ll need reliable facilities for business calls, remember that.”

“Already confirmed,” Christopher says. “I’d never let Parker Capital down, you know that.”

What a charade. There’s only one decent person who has committed his career and loyalty to both Parker Capital and my father for the past decade, and that person has bailed.

No doubt, with damn good reason.

I move a green bean around my plate. Weeks of being the perfect Parker daughter have led me here, faded and ignored.

Jack’s voice has been inside my head all day.

Bryce has resigned.

People want my work. My work. My actual soul on canvas.

Oh, and Dad and Christopher are lying.