Chapter 5: Let Her Send It

Lydia lowered the phone and looked at the screen.

"Beautiful," she said. "Wallace will want a print."

"Delete it," Sutton said.

"Withdraw from Tidewater by Friday, Margo. Tell Philippa it's your health." Lydia smiled. "Or I send this to Daddy and Mommy with a lovely caption."

She sauntered away down the hall with her cane tucked under her arm.

The closet went silent.

Sutton's hand was still fisted in the front of my dress.

I had not noticed that I was shaking until she looked down at it.

"She'll send it," I said. "Your father just married my mother. He'll lose it."

"Let her send it."

I stared at her.

"Eunice kept him alive," Sutton said. "He'll survive a photo."

"Your career."

"Mine, not hers."

She took my wrist and pulled me out of the closet, past the voices in the living room, through the kitchen and out a side door into the cold.

The garage smelled of oil and cold concrete.

A grey coupe sat under a bare bulb.

She backed me against the driver's door and put both hands flat on the metal either side of my head.

"Tell me to stop," she said.

"No."

"I hate you."

"I know," I said. "Do it anyway."

She kissed me like she was trying to prove it.

Her mouth was hard and then it wasn't, and her tongue slid against mine while her hands got busy with the zipper at the back of my dress.

It slid down my spine.

The cold air bit my skin, and then her palms were on it, hot, dragging up my back.

"I've wanted to put you on your knees for two years," she said into my neck. "I've wanted to make you cry."

"Try it," I said.

I pushed her dress off her shoulder and bit the bare skin there, and she hissed.

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