Poor Little Rich Kids: Stealing Back Our Inheritance (A Taboo Erotic Romance)

Chapter 1

My stepfather, Dean Windsor, owner of a quite respectable collection of European sports car dealerships, is always dragging me to his long, boring charity events. It's like he thinks he has to give back to the community in a literal way, instead of just enjoying the money like the rest of us one-percenters. Ugh. And it's not enough that my poor, dear mother has to spend all her evenings not only trying to keep her eyes open at these balls and dinners and fundraisers, but also maintaining the perfect air of a trophy wife.

No, he also feels the need to drag along his daughter, Evangeline, and me (the wicked stepson Carter, for those of you who are keeping track) just to make sure everyone knows what a good family man he is. Gag me.

My mother married him when I was ten years old, and it feels like I've gone to one of these stuffy affairs at least twice a month for the last decade. They last for hours on end, and the crowd is worse than the kind you find at the wedding of your second cousin twice removed – a bunch of old people doddering around, taking up space at the bar and trying to make small talk, as if that's something that anyone in the history of the planet has ever wanted to do with their Saturday night. So conservatively speaking, that means I've probably spent around 40 days (or nearly 1,000 hours) of my life wasting away at charity events, all thanks to my philanthropic bastard of a stepdad.

I'm at another one right this minute, and all I can say is at least they've gotten a little bit more interesting in the last few years. Not only have I discovered that doing a little bump in the bathroom roughly every half hour really helps take the edge off, but I've also found an ally in my stepsister.

When Evangeline was younger she was really an intolerable little daddy's girl. She always wanted to sit at the head table at Dean's elbow, and she loved to help him schmooze donors and give interviews when the press showed up. It took me a while – eight years to be exact – but after significant, sustained efforts (which I rarely put into any project unless the payoff is going to be spectacular) I finally brought her over to my side. Now she's right there next to me in the bathroom, taking hits off my spoon and hiding from all the intolerable people who show up to these sorts of things.

What finally brought Evangeline around was my flawless What's in it for me? philosophy. I have used this so many times I've lost track, and I gotta tell you, if you've never applied it in your own life, you should give it a shot. There are very few problems in life that don't become crystal clear, the priorities clicking effortlessly into place, when you look at the issue and say, "What's in it for me?" If the answer is nothing, then you just go on your merry way and never think about it again. (I should mention that it helps if you have money – while I've never not had money, I have an inkling that it may be a crucial component to this life philosophy of mine.)

Anyway, one night when Evangeline was around 18 and I guess that would have put me at 20, she was sitting at the head table of another one of her father's events with the perfect posture of a finishing girl, her pink satin gown neatly pressed and her hands folded in her lap. She was sitting there alone while Dean paraded my mom around the room on his arm, making the rounds as he called it, and I'd just come out of the bathroom with my head buzzing. I slid into the seat next to Evangeline and asked her what in the Jesus fuck she was getting out of playing into her daddy's perfect family fantasy.

"Is he cutting you a bigger allowance check for every successful outing? Are you getting a bigger inheritance? Is he finally going to buy you that hunter green Ferrari you keep begging for? Is he even paying you any attention? Because it looks to me like he hasn't said a word to you since you sat down, and if I recall correctly, he never spends much time with you at these things ever since you grew breasts and stopped being an adorable little girl."