Chapter 2
Ava
It was another Saturday afternoon spent at the NYU School of Law Library, but it didn’t bother me. It wasn’t like I had a ton of plans for the weekend. I had finished my master’s degree a few years before and knew I was destined to go to law school. Luckily, I had the grades to do it and even landed a partial scholarship to help with the costs. Blair and I had taken over the back table and stacked our books up all along the back. We were studying for the semester finals that were looming over our heads. I hated finals week, and not because I didn’t know the information but because everyone acted like it was the end of the world. Every sixteen weeks, I struggled to get through the hordes of students breathing out of paper bags and working from every café and pizza shop that had Wi-Fi. Personally, I found it much easier to study all year instead of cramming at the last second. Blair was a crammer, but I always helped her the best I could.
I only had two more rounds of this hell to go before I would get to walk across that stage with my degree. Of course, I would have to take the bar exam, but that was done my last semester when my prep class was completed. I wasn’t worried about that either because I had been buying bar exam books since I was a freshman in my graduate program. They all looked like hell with scribbles in the margins and folded corners to mark things I knew I would have to study harder. Blair found it amusing that I was so into it, but I had things motivating me toward graduation.
“Ugh, this history class is going to be the death of me,” Blair said, closing her book. “I can’t wait to get out and go work quietly for some firm in the city. How about you? Are your plans still the same?”
“Of course they are. They haven’t changed since Mr. York decided to steal my father’s company and sell it off piece by piece to the lowest bidder. And all just to spite me and Mason.”
Blair laughed. “You are like the heroine in those cute little movies fighting for the greater good.”
“I want to take the York family down,” I said angrily. “They deserve to feel it when I wipe them clean and take everything they value so much right out from under them. My mom’s slip-up with the press about Mrs. York’s plastic surgery habits did some damage, but I’m going for blood. And the blood of that family pumps right through Mr. York’s veins.”
“You have a lot of anger in you,” she said. “Like postal-killer anger.”
“No.” My laugh that came out might have been a teensy bit darker than Blair’s. “I just want what’s best for myself and my family—something they never had any concern for.”
“So, do you think you’ll find a firm that will back you in this endeavor?”
I sighed. “I don’t know. Maybe, maybe not, but I can always start my own. I mean, I don’t need an office or anything like that. As long as I have my license, I can practice, but it would be nice to actually get paid to take them down. That would be like icing on the cake. I’ll cross that bridge when I come to it.”
“Tell me your plan again,” she said. “You always motivate me when you talk about this kind of stuff.”
“Well, first I have to pass my finals so I can graduate in two semesters.” I ticked each task off on my fingers. “But after that, I’m going to get the boxes and boxes of paperwork that was filed when this thing all went down. I’m going to comb through every piece, every detail, until I can find something that puts them at fault. And when I do, I’m going to nail their asses to the wall.”
“And what if you don’t find anything? They’re a huge corporation with some of the best lawyers in the world, much less the city,” she said. “What if they took care of every dirty detail in case someone like you popped their head in?”
“They wouldn’t think someone was going to come looking,” I said. “They assumed that when my father was forced out with debt up to his eyeballs, he would let it go. And they were right. He let it go, but I haven’t.”
“What about their son? Do you ever think about him? You guys were a thing,” Blair said.
“Mason?” I scoffed. “Absolutely not. Our relationship was the reason his father attacked us in the first place, and he never stood up to him. He never did anything to stop him. He held on to the secret and watched his father destroy my family’s business. Spencer hotels weren’t York hotels, but they were up-and-coming, and they did good things for our family.”
“I know.” Blair put her hand on my arm in a soothing gesture. “And you feel partly responsible for that.”
“It doesn’t matter. I’m going to fix it, and that’s what matters.”
The truth was, I did think about Mason, more than I even wanted to admit to myself. These days, though, it was not in the cutesy loving way I had thought about him a decade before. My hate for him was almost stronger than the love I once had for him. I had seen the papers, heard about his lavish lifestyle, his girls, his money, and it made me sick. Some might have called it jealousy, but that wasn’t the case. I didn’t want his lifestyle. I just didn’t think he deserved to live so damn carefree while his father wreaked havoc on everyone around him.
My mind needed to stay concentrated on my goals, and I didn’t want people questioning my focus because of Mason. I kept my thoughts about him to myself, trying to just get through life without letting on to the fact that he crossed my mind so much. Besides, I didn’t need the pity party my best friend and my mother would surely throw if they knew how hurt I still was after ten years. It was better to keep Mason out of my thoughts altogether. His father was the one I was after anyway.
“So how is work?” Blair asked. “Get any new gigs?”
“Yes,” I said. “Finally. I had been going through a dry spell there and was starting to worry about paying next semester’s tuition.”
“What’s the job?”
“Modeling, as always,” I said. “There’s a new mattress store on Fifth that wants me to do some modeling for their new promotions coming up.”
“Did your agent land you that?”
“No,” I said. “I landed it. I hate paying that idiot part of my pay for jobs I can get myself. That’s why I put it in my contract that any job I get on my own, I keep all wages. They didn’t want to go for it, but they did it anyway.”
“Good,” she said. “How much does this one pay?”
“Five hundred an hour,” I said. “Pretty good considering all I have to do is lie around on a mattress all day and have a photographer take pictures of me. It’s only two wardrobe changes, too, which is nice. It’s a silky little nightgown and then just jeans and a T-shirt or whatever they bring for me to wear. They’re kind of in control of that, but it’s during store hours, so I know it won’t be anything too risky.”
“You have really come a long way since we met,” Blair said. “I’m proud of you.”
“Why? Because I’m not fat anymore?” I laughed.
“No,” she said, slapping my arm. “You weren’t fat before. But you jumped on the health train and just took off. I’ve never been able to be that dedicated to working out and eating healthy. My idea of a diet is no pizza for a week.”
I laughed. “Yeah, and still you’re the size of a toothpick. I just wanted to be healthy. I needed to make money to pay for tuition, and I didn’t want to be the person who worked three jobs. When they told me if I toned up, they would take me at the agency, I jumped right on it.”
“And most importantly, you are healthy,” Blair pointed out. “You take care of yourself, and not just physically. You’ve paid your way through law school by modeling, and you’ve kept your head from inflating at the same time.”
“No one likes a big head,” I said with a laugh.
I was just happy I was on my way toward my goals. Skinny, fat, curvy, thin—it didn’t matter to me. I was headed toward a different road. I was determined to take down the York family, Mason and all.