Betrayed, I Rise novel · Chapter 3 of 32

Chapter 3: Declined

Carly's fight for the coat ends with Vincent's hand on her wrist, her card declined, and her father ordering her to apologize to Skylar on camera.

"Take it off," I said.

Skylar tilted her head at the camera.

"Guys, she's upset about a raincoat. In a rainstorm. While I'm the one standing in it."

"It was my mother's."

"And now it's keeping someone warm." She did a little pout. "Isn't that what she'd want?"

The man with the ice bucket shifted his weight.

The couple from room four had stopped pretending not to watch.

I walked toward her.

"Take it off, Skylar. Right now."

"Carly." Vincent finally got up. The camping chair tipped over behind him. "Don't."

"She's wearing my mother's coat."

"It's a coat."

"It's my mother's."

"You don't even wear it!" Skylar said. "It just sits in a bag like a creepy little shrine. I'm literally giving it a life."

I reached for the zipper.

I never got there.

Vincent's hand closed around my wrist.

His palm was rough, the way it always had been. The rugby scar on his knuckles was pale and shiny under the motel light.

He squeezed.

Not the way he held my hand crossing streets.

He squeezed until the bones in my wrist ground together and I made a sound I'd never heard myself make.

"You're embarrassing me," he said, very quietly, right by my ear.

Skylar kept filming.

"Let go of her."

It was Troy.

I hadn't heard the truck door. He was just there, at the edge of the awning, with water running off his hair.

He didn't raise his voice.

He didn't have to.

Vincent looked at him, then at the dog, then back at him.

He let go.

"Who's this?" Vincent said. "Did you pick up a trucker, Carly? That's new."

"He drove me here."

"Nine miles," Troy said. "On account of your map."

Vincent laughed and put his hands up.

"Okay, cowboy. Thanks for the delivery. We've got it from here."

My wrist was burning. I held it against my stomach.

There were four red marks on the inside, already going dark.

"I'm getting my own room," I said.

"Babe, come on. Get in the RV, take a shower, we'll laugh about this tomorrow."

I walked past him into the motel office.

The clerk was an older woman with a crossword. She'd seen everything through the window. She didn't say so.

I slid my card across the counter.

"One room. One night."

She ran it.

She frowned and ran it again.

"I'm sorry, hon. It's declined."

"That can't be right. Try this one."

I gave her my other card.

Declined.

Through the window, Skylar was turning in a slow circle in my mother's coat, narrating something to her phone.

My own phone buzzed.

Dad.

He never called me. He texted, or his assistant texted.

I answered at three percent.

"Dad."

"What is this?"

No hello.

"Do you know what I'm looking at, Carly? Do you know how many people have sent me this?"

"They left me on the highway. In the storm. For a bet."

"Vincent called me an hour ago," my father said. "He told me you stormed off in a sulk because Skylar got the front seat."

I closed my eyes.

"That's not what happened."

"The board saw it. My board, Carly."

"Half of them sent it to me with laughing faces. The Wexford heiress chasing a camper down US-19 like a lost dog."

"Dad, he grabbed me. He just grabbed me in front of..."

"I've frozen your cards."

I opened my eyes.

The clerk was very carefully filling in her crossword.

"You can't do that."

"I did it twenty minutes ago. Vincent has the company card. He'll handle your expenses for the rest of the trip."

"If you need something, you ask him."

"I'm not getting back in that RV."

"You'll do what you're told for once in your life."

My father's voice was tired. I was a leak he'd been patching for years.

"Your mother couldn't find her own car in a parking lot either," he said. "At least she had the sense to stay home."

The phone beeped. Two percent.

"There's one more thing," he said. "Wexford Hotels signs Skylar tomorrow. Brand ambassador. It's already done."

"Dad."

"So you'll apologize to her."

Outside, Skylar caught my eye through the glass and waved with the long yellow sleeve.

"On camera," my father said.

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