The flame ignites a paper napkin and a paper plate. Daisy picks up the napkin like it’s a dirty diaper, not a ball of fire. “Whoa, guys, this is pretty warm.”

“Really?” Ryke says, grabbing her wrist and trying to relinquish the burning napkin from her.

“Yeah, really, really. Want to feel?” She smiles playfully, waving the thing towards him. He doesn’t even jerk back.

“You’re hilarious.”

“I thought I was just smoking hot.”

I’d like to say that I am the normal one out of my sisters, but I am frantically trying to grab the pitcher of water that sits on the edge of the coffee table. So much so, that I knock over another candle.

Just lovely.

The cameras are swinging behind us, as wild as the flames.

Daisy has to toss the napkin back down on the table before it burns her hand. And the psychic yells something about her cards, gathering them in a messy stack.

And then a pair of hands peels me away from the growing flames that has eaten our napkins and started for the purple tablecloth. “The water,” I start, but Connor places me by the wall and then brings out a fire extinguisher.

In seconds, my boyfriend has snuffed out the fire. And the psychic has bolted from my house with her purple bag in tow.

The quiet lingers, and all we hear is muffled, “ImsorryImsorryImsorry.”

My heart constricts, and I find Lily mumbling the string of apologies into Loren’s shirt. He has his hand on the back of her head, his features sharpened. When he looks up at me, he says, “Thank God for Connor, right?” He tries to play off the pain that contorts his face.

“God always has a way of stealing my credit,” Connor says.

Loren’s lips curve in a small smile.

I think, in this moment, I love Connor more for lightening the mood than for saving my cedar coffee table. But I am glad this table isn’t burned.

It’s an antique.

Loren lifts Lily in a front piggy-back so she doesn’t have to meet the camera’s concentrated gaze.

Scott turns to me. “Looks like we’ll be seeing that lap dance after all.”

“Excuse me?” I sneer.

The room blankets in tense silence. Scott grins. “You made a bet a few days ago. I saw the footage. If someone cried during the psychic segment, you’d have to give your boyfriend a lap dance.”

Shit. Fuck. Shit…

“Lily didn’t really cry,” I say instantly.

Loren shifts her a little, and I see his T-shirt, wet with her tears. She wipes her cheeks quickly, trying to hide her sadness, but it’s there. I forget that Loren’s not on my side for the bet. Hell, he’s the one who proposed the wager.

I snap at Lo, “You should feel awful for profiting off of her emotions.”

“She was there when you made the bet,” he reminds me. “Lap dance rain check? Lily and I want a front row seat.”

Lily mutters something that sounds like only if she wants to.

“Fine,” I say as Connor’s hand skims my waist. I step out of his touch, anxiety heating my neck more than the small fire ever did. I am going to have to gyrate on him. In public. With millions of people watching later on television. Oh. Shit…

The only upside: the first episode is airing in February, a month from now. So I have some time before people witness my inability to grind.

“I think we missed something,” Daisy says to Ryke.

He stares down at her. “Apparently I’ve been missing a lot of fucking things lately.”

She looks away from him, and when she notices I’m watching her, she just smiles at me. I think Ryke is worried about her. We all are. There’s a small fear she’s going to end up like Lily—sex crazed and compulsive. All this media attention is affecting her at school in ways that no one knows. Daisy won’t talk to us about it. And she could very well blow off steam in a bad manner.

Loren carries Lily out of the living room and up the stairs, her legs wrapped around him. Wiry Ben follows close behind.

I turn slightly, and my arm hits a camera. Pudgy Brett has a big smug grin on his face, as if he won the bet too. Well I guess everyone fucking won but me. “Put that smile away, Brett, before I make it a permanent frown.” My threat does sound serious (it’s really not), but I’m edgy enough that I feel like I could truly cause astronomical damage.

I glance around at the coffee table. White foam. Charred napkins. Burnt food. Dirtied plates. An overturned ottoman. Is that a stain on the rug? Oh…

“I’ll clean it up,” Connor tells me.

“I’ll help,” Scott adds.

Connor gives him a look.

“What?” Scott smiles. “I live here now. Might as well lend a helping hand.”

I have a feeling that a “helping hand” is more than I’ll get from Scott.

Six months. Six months.

If I repeat it, maybe it won’t feel so long.

[ 6 ]

CONNOR COBALT

This is a shit waste of an afternoon.

The thought runs on repeat as I listen to another Cobalt Inc. board member drone on about advertising and angel investors. I have the urge to stand up and let everyone know that they have successfully battered the conversation.

But I don’t.

These are the highest ranked employees in the company. If there’s any hope of taking the reins to Cobalt Inc. without looking like I undeservingly inherited it, I have to bite my tongue. The company owns brands like MagNetic, Smith & Keller paints, and other profitable subsidiaries—things that have lined my pockets since birth.

I feign interest as best I can, but I’m sitting at the head of a long conference table filled with twenty middle-aged men. During these meetings, I’m my mother’s interim—a position she granted me two years ago. It means nothing really.

On paper, I’m still just her son. This is merely a test.

My mother has never been quick to let go of the empire she built from the ground up. In order to be a board member, become the CEO, and acquire her shares, I have to prove myself. Like these meetings or certain tasks she gives me at the least opportune moments. My cellphone is always in my pocket, threatening to go off.

I keep waiting for the sudden demand to entertain her business partners or a family friend. And I’m always grateful when she’s decided to leave me alone for the night.

I type “notes” onto the small tablet in my lap. Really, I’m outlining an assignment I have to complete tonight for one of my business courses at Wharton. I may have graduated from Penn last year, but now I’m in the big leagues. Grad school. I want an MBA. I don’t need it. Not really.

I’ll be CEO of Cobalt Inc. with or without the degree. But the respect I crave won’t be handed to me so easily.

My phone buzzes in my pants, loud enough for Steve Balm, the COO and my mother’s most respected board member, to pause his discussion on finger paints. Steve has been ranting about primary colors and the hearts of children everywhere. He wants to fuck over Crayola. Not his words, but I read between the lines.

“Are we interrupting you, Connor?” Steve asks, his gray brows furrowing critically. Steve and I have a long history. I suppose it began at birth—when he was dubbed my godfather.

I don’t make a move for my phone. “Did I say anything?” I refute. I hit the mute button before it can vibrate again.

“Aren’t you going to answer that?” Gary Holmes, a stocky-built board member asks a few chairs down. “Could be Hollywood. You’re a movie star now, aren’t you?”

Light chuckling filters across the room. They jest because they knew me when I was seven years old, when my mother carted me through the hallways.

I am a boy in their eyes.

I won’t win them over by arguing, by pounding my fists against my chest and demanding to be taken seriously. So I turn to Steve. “If you’d like to drive this company into the ground, by all means choose to spend millions of our research fund into finding an unpatented health-friendly finger paint.”

Steve doesn’t reveal whether he agrees or not, his face as blank as mine.

“Katarina wants to expand.” Steve directs the statement to the boardroom. “She’s giving us a week to propose viable options to take Colbalt Inc. to the next level.”

“We could just get in bed with Fizzle,” Gary says, “Connor’s already a quarter of the way there.”

Before the room can erupt in another wave of laughter, I ask, “And what would we do with Fizzle? We’re a paint and magnet company. Should we poison consumers with our magnetic soda cans?” Everyone remains quiet, eyes flitting between one another. I keep my gaze pinned on Gary as he reddens and sinks lower into his chair.

I straighten, silently reminding everyone who’s not a child in the room.

“It was a joke,” Gary says in defense. He looks to Steve for support, but my godfather never offers him a life vest. If you’re drowning, you fucking drown.

“Unless they involve productive opinions, keep your jokes to yourself,” I say sharply. Now I slip my phone out of my pocket. It was a text…

Virginia Woolf, Jane Austen, Anne Brontë – Rose

My lips threaten to rise, and it takes all my strength not to smile. I begin typing and speaking at the same time. “Katarina just notified me that she’s on her way,” I lie. Though after reading a quick email this morning, I do know she’s coming later.

Fuck. Kill. Marry. I type back and hit send before pocketing my phone.

“Any other fabulous ideas, Gary?” Steve asks. And there it is. His opinion. I meet his eyes and he gives me a small nod, letting me know he agrees with me. I don’t let out a breath of relief. This is just one meeting of many.