PLAYBOY PRINCESS (gxg) ✓

32. Rory Preston

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                   HAPPY FUCKING BIRTHDAY TO ME.

                   Rory was turning twenty-three today. 

                   She hated January 1st—not just because it was her birthday, but because of what had happened on her birthday. First, her mother had left.

                   Second, Declan had died.

                  A skydiving accident in Mount Everest, Nepal. 

                  Why was Rory here now? She didn't know.

                  But she was sitting in a damp, dark bar at ten in the morning. Outside, the lush snowy scenery of South Asia awaited her. The Himalayas. 

                  She didn't know what she was doing here.

                  It had been two months since she had touched a drink.

                  Happy, happy fucking birthday to me, she thought. In the corner of the room, just above the mirrored wall of expensive wines, a news channel was playing.

                  Rory didn't know why she was here.

                  But she did have an expensive ticket. At two in the afternoon, four hours from now, she would be on a plane, skydiving over the snow-capped Himalayas.

                  "Ma'am?" said the bartender. 

                  Rory glanced up.

                  He gestured to the array of vintage bottles. "Are you going to have a drink?"

                  Sober—eight weeks sober.

                  Hadn't she promised Paris that she would keep trying, no matter what it took? Hadn't she made a vow, sworn to herself that she wouldn't succumb?

                  Too bad, she thought.

                   Her promises meant shit.

                  "I'll have a glass of vodka," Rory said, and her leg began to bounce.

                   This past week, she had been traveling around the world. Doing stupid, dangerous things to forget about everything that had happened.

                   Dhonielle's death.

                   Amanda, putting a gun to her head.

                   If the police hadn't arrived in time, Rory would have seen her kill herself. There would have been blood on her hands.

                   And Paris. 

                  Paris. 

                  Rory hadn't wanted to make the damage worse. The things she had said to Amanda—Shoot her. I don't care—had been false bravado.

                  If Amanda had shot Paris, Rory would have asked to go next.

                  But when Paris had confronted her in the ambulance . . . when Paris confronted her, she wasn't ready. Rory knew that having other people around her made her better, helped her heal, but . . . this time, she couldn't.