I had ninety days to prove to my parents I was more than hair extensions and acrylic nails. Three months to convince them I was responsible, resourceful, resilient. A quarter of a year to figure out what I couldn’t in the last twenty-five. Or, I’d lose my inheritance—all 10.2 mil.

Max entered the kitchen dressed in Armani. The sound of his black wingtip shoes tapped across the marble floor like a ten-key on tax day.

I reached into the cupboard and pulled out two plates. “Blueberry or strawberry?”

“Cinnamon?”

“Nope. The cinnamon is mine, mine, mine.”

He picked up the cinnamon and held it above my head. It wasn’t often Max let his inner child out to play. There wasn’t room for fun and games in the world of finance. But I knew his weakness. He was my best friend, and I’d been tickling him since he was a tot.

Six feet tall, six-figure income, six-year-old boy in a grown man’s body.

One poke to his ribs and it was over. What was mine was mine.

I plated up the Pop Tarts and grabbed two ceramic mugs from the counter. “What am I going to do?” Veruca Salt’s whiny-heinie voice slipped from my mouth. I wasn’t asking for golden goose eggs or a lifetime supply of chocolate. I asked for advice and was given an ultimatum.

“First, breakfast and coffee.” He swiped the Financial Times off the counter, pulled his favorite knife from the butcher block, and joined me at the kitchen table.

“It’s insulting to put a Java Bean triple black in a recycled paper cup.” I lifted the plastic lids from the cups and transferred our morning brew into heated mugs.

“A cup's a cup.” With the precision of a surgeon, he dissected his Pop Tart into twelve symmetrical pieces.

I chewed around mine until the toasted crust was gone and only the soft center remained. “I’m unhappy. I need a plan for my life.”

“How can you be unhappy? People would kill to have your lifestyle. Hell, people do.” He looked past me to the wall of windows that overlooked the beach. “Do something you love. I love what I do. Turning dimes into dollars is nirvana. Someday, I’ll earn enough to live next door, and we’ll have more time for our morning ritual of bad food and worse topics.”

“Bad food?” I looked down at my plate. “These have seven essential vitamins. They contain everything you need to get your day started.”

He stacked his food like a staircase and ate his way to the top. “They don’t contain happiness or the path to your inheritance.”

“No, but they contain sugar, and I’m not feeling sweet enough on my own.” I plucked a bite from his plate and plopped it into my mouth.

“You can package anything up and make it look pretty. That’s good advertising. But in the end, it’s never more than what’s inside.”

His words whirred in my head like laundry on a spin cycle. “You’ve just described me. I’m a human Pop Tart—packaged pretty and advertised to deliver, but in the end, I have nothing essential.” Once sweet and satisfying, my last bite stuck in my throat and became as hard to swallow as my parent’s disappointment. “Oh my God, Max, I’m less than a plain Pop Tart. And that’s why my parents are being so mean.”

Max leaned forward and thumbed my chin up so I was forced to look at him. “What exactly did they say?” Max was numbers and ledgers and straight neat rows. Every detail important.

I choked the words past the tightness in my throat. “They said I suffered from entitlementitis. I’m rich because they’re rich. I wasted my education on an art degree I don’t use. I have a job because they gave me one. And to prove their love, they fired me today. Should I go on?”

“No need. It’s clear. You’ll be crashing on my couch by the end of the summer.”

“Oh, so now you’re a comedian.” I pulled up my bunny-slippered feet and tucked them under my flannel-covered legs. “This is serious. I. Need. A. Plan.”

“What did you have in mind?”

“I don’t know.” I picked up my coffee to warm my hands. Monotony ate at my insides like a tapeworm. It nibbled. It chomped. It devoured. Until one day, the Nik Stone I knew had been gobbled up.

Max tipped his chair back on two legs. “Did they actually say your inheritance lay in the balance?”

“I made a mistake and conference called them. I felt empty, unhappy, and two minutes later I heard their words. Life changing words. Soul crushing words. If you can’t find happiness rich, we can make you poor.”

“Call them back and tell them you were kidding.”

“I can’t. They made it clear they’d closed the complaint desk.”

“Are they still in the Middle East?”

“No, they’re somewhere in Europe. Apparently, the local government wasn’t keen on such a controversial film being shot there.”

“You need to talk with them.”

I unfolded my body, laid my cheek on the smooth, cool, surface of the table, and looked at Max. “Talking to my parents is like wearing a new pair of Louboutins—always stiff, and uncomfortable. You know me better than anyone, including them.” He’d invested the time in our relationship. They hadn’t.

“They weren’t all bad, they did provide for you.”

“They weren’t helicopter parents that hovered around to make sure I was all right. They only swooped in when something affected them. They were more like drones that did requisite flybys.” I was a surprise. A gift they couldn’t return. They provided for me, but would never love me more than they loved themselves. “Can you believe I have to submit my plans to their lawyer?”

“That’s because they don’t want another Ft Lauderdale on their hands.”

“I didn’t know I was being filmed?”

“You’re always being filmed. You’re the Paris Hilton of our generation.” Max let out a slow whistle. “But that was a fabulous weekend.”

“Short of the front page shot of my boobs, and the overnight stay in the slammer for indecent exposure, it was epic. But, that was a moment in time. Now what?”

“You know, when some people feel lost, they go to church. I can take you.”

I popped up from the table like a groundhog looking for sun. “You go to church?” Laughter bubbled inside me. “When did you become an altar boy?”

“I don’t go to church, but I thought it might be good for you.”

A vision of Max bursting into flames as he touched the holy water made me laugh. Trying to hide my amusement, I rose from the table and strolled into the living room. I settled myself on the overstuffed sofa where he joined me.

“Church isn’t the answer for me unless I become a cloistered nun, and then we have a bigger problem. I don’t look good in monochromatic colors, and I could never wear a wimple.”

“What about volunteering somewhere?”

“The closest I’ve ever come to a community event was when the neighborhood decorated for Christmas and made me hang lights.”

“If I remember right, you hung one single strand from your bathroom window.”

I pointed to the wall of glass in front of us. “It’s criminal to obstruct that view. And can you believe I could lose all of this because of one pithy comment?” I looked out the window at the waves that tossed and churned in the same way my stomach did. “This isn’t my problem. It’s my parents’.”

When I turned five, my nanny rented the zoo for a private party. Mom and Dad were on set in London. My tenth birthday was spent in Australia while they were in Morocco. At sixteen, I got a nose job, while they got a tan—in Brazil. For my eighteenth birthday, it was a boob job while they were in Toronto.

“Earth to Nik.” Max waved his hand in front of my face. “What’s got your thoughts?”

“My boobs.”

“What?” He shot me a look of surprise.

“Seriously, I was thinking about my life. The biggest decision I’ve ever had to make was whose nose I was going to copy, and how big I wanted my breasts to be.”

“Whoa, wait a minute. Your boobs aren’t real?” You would have thought I’d told him the stock market crashed.

I looked up and asked the universe for patience. “You want to talk about boobs? All men are the same. Singularly focused on their tasks until the mention of boobs. If you can’t tell, then Dr. Cordell was successful.”

Max shifted back into the cushions and took a long appreciative look at my chest. It was a look I recognized. Not the kind of look a guy gives a girl he likes. But the kind of look Max gives when solving a difficult equation.

“I would have bet my 401K you grew them yourself.”

“I’d bet most of the boobs you’ve fondled have been the work of a plastic surgeon. Hell, most of my friends are patients of Dr. Cordell.”

“No way. Andrea’s aren’t real? What about Tori’s? Rachel’s? Bethany’s?” Max rambled off names as fast as he could parse prime numbers.

“All enhanced, my friend.”

“I don’t believe it.” He slapped his hand to his chest, pledge of allegiance style. “You’ve shattered my world.”

“Forget the boobs. You’ve only got ten more minutes. You’ve got to fix my life.”

Max gave me an I-feel-for-you look. “You’ve got eighty-nine days to do that yourself.”

The air rushed from my lungs. Was Max on their side? This wasn’t my life. My life was spa days, Tiffany’s, couture, not dime store, off the rack, common.

“Everything is backwards, Max. White is black. Wrong is right. Everything real feels phony.”

“It’s all real, Nik. The only thing that’s changed is your perspective.”

Panic seized my heart. “What about my friends … are they really my friends? Do they like me for me, or am I the goodtime girl with money?” Tears built beneath my eyelids.

“Your friends are your friends because they love you. Besides, you’re not that fun.”

I gulped hard, hot tears slipped down my cheeks.

This was not the time for tears.

It was time for action and decisions.

I sucked in an unsteady breath. “My parents’ are teaching me a lesson.”

Max smiled with brother-like affection. “Yes, they are. Stop being an observer in your life, Nik. A canceled manicure doesn’t count as a crisis. A trip to Nordstroms on Black Friday doesn’t qualify as an adventure. And although hanging with me every morning for coffee is great, it can’t be your everything.”

“I’m open to suggestions.” I flopped against the cushion and crossed my arms over my chest. “I have to secure my fortune. If I lose it, I’ll have nothing. I’ll be nothing.”

Max leaned in and wrapped his arms around me, giving me a tight squeeze. “Come up with something fast, Nik. Change your life or your parents will do it for you.”

He pushed himself to the edge of the sofa and stood. “I need to get to the office, or we’ll both be living in a refrigerator box tucked in a back alley.”

“That isn’t funny.”

He leaned in and kissed my cheek. “No, it’s not, but it’s a possibility if you don’t get your shit together and fast.”