I didn’t think twice. I opened the back door and launched myself into the car.

I half-expected my mother to be inside, yelling at me for whatever had happened.

“Are you okay, Miss McClain?” the chauffer asked.

“Yes,” I answered with a shaky voice. It was an automatic answer. I wasn’t okay at all. “Where’s my mother?”

“She’s on her way to the Executive Mansion. She’ll meet you there.”

I nodded and pressed the button to raise the black glass between us.

As the car drove off campus, I leaned back in the seat and looked at my cell phone. Over four hundred messages from Mason, Liana, MaryAnn, and Becca, and fifty calls from them, my mother, and Donnie.

I didn’t check those though. Instead, I opened the internet browser and google myself. Tons of news headlines showed up on my search. I clicked the first one I saw.

Oddly, it was from the Washington Post. The picture caught my attention first: Mason and I getting heavy against a tree. My heart raced as I shifted my gaze to the headline: The Secret Life of Charlotte McClain.

Without reading the rest of the article, I turned off my phone as if I could erase it all along with it.

Charlotte

“I told you this would happen!” My mother threw the newspaper on her desk, making me flinch in my seat. She pushed her chair back and paced. “I can’t believe you did this, Charlotte. I can’t believe you let this happen.”

I didn’t know what to say. I was still in shock from what I had read in the newspaper and several gossip websites. Some of them had more pictures of me, Mason, or us together. Me on my knees, drawing on a sidewalk, my short skirt almost too revealing and my hair a mess. Another, I was roller-skating in an abandoned park. They also had photos of Mason working in shitty bars and around his not-so-great neighborhood.

According to them, Mason had gotten involved with me so he could do this, so he would have pictures of us to sell to the paparazzi for a fortune. It all had started during spring break. He had seen me, recognized me, and seduced me. Then, he arranged the move to Washington so he could start part B of his plan. He found out I was going to the Memorial Day Ball and got a job there. From there, he manipulated me more and more. He was the one who took the pictures to the newspaper, and then later to every gossip blog on the worldwide web.

They also mentioned me. How I had let Mason use me, how I had used him. How I spent my time in dangerous parts of the city, went to raves—really?—and done several other crazy stunts, all because he had enticed me. The press called him my boy toy—disgusting. The boy toy had brought out a crazy-driven Charlotte, and now that she was out, who knew what I would do?

Christ, the shit they invented!

Apart from Mason’s act. That had been an act, hadn’t it? Each time I remembered how Mason had touched me, how he had breathed on me, pulled me close, groaned in my ear, a piece of my heart fell away.

When I first bumped into him in Washington, I thought this was his intention, but he had promised it wasn’t. He had proven it—though I knew it was all an act now. He never liked me. He liked money. And since I didn’t shower him with gifts and such, he came up with a new plan.

I shook my head. This couldn’t be true. By everything holy in this life, this couldn’t be true.

My mother turned to me, her eyes fuming. “Is this his name? Mason. Is this the same guy you were with when you came back to the hotel at 5 a.m.? Please, tell me it is, because I can’t deal with it if there are more of your boy toys out there.”

I sob coursed through me. Boy toy. He hadn’t been my boy toy. I liked him too much for that. In fact, I had already passed that phase. I had fallen for him. Now, he was ripping my heart out.

“Only him,” I muttered.

Sarah sneaked into my mother’s office. “Mrs. McClain, I just talked to the security company. They will send more guards immediately.”

Nodding, my mother stopped by the window behind her desk and pushed the curtains half an inch to the side. My curiosity got the best of me and I stood so I could look out too. A swarm of reporters was stationed outside the front gates—and some had tried to climb over the fence around the back, but had been caught and sent to the nearest police station. The reporters and paparazzi kept asking questions to the guards and yelling our names.

“How am I going to fix this?” my mother asked, her voice strained. “Even if we do everything we’re supposed to, it’ll take years for them to forget this.”

For once, she was deluding herself. She knew that they never forgot. Once she started her next campaign, the opposing candidates would dig this out and hang it over her head.

I had no idea how she would fix this, either, and I felt so bad for having caused this. I couldn’t blame her if she hated me right now.

“First things first.” She let go of the curtain and gestured for Sarah to come closer. Her assistant pulled out a notebook and pen, knowing what this meant. “We need to call a press conference. You will tell them how you were tricked. This guy, this scheming and evil man, made you believe he loved you and you, a kind and gracious lady, fell for him. You’ll cry and show them how much you’re hurt.”

I couldn’t believe my ears. “Are you serious?”

“Excuse me?”

“I was tricked. I am hurting. Really hurting, and you want me to stand in front of dozens of cameras and microphones and use my feelings to save your face?”

“We need to do anything we can to save both our faces.”

“No, Mother, you’re trying to save yours. Your face, not mine.”

Ignoring me, she continued, “Then, we’ll revise your schedule, Charlotte. For a week, you won’t leave the house and we’ll tell everyone it’s because you’re not feeling well after everything that man did to you. I’ll talk to your professors and you’ll finish the summer semester at home. You’ll lie low on a few events, and I’ll ask Tracy to spend a few days here. It’ll be good for you.”

“If you could, you would just erase all of this, because then your reputation would never be tainted, right? You wish you could have kept a tighter leash. Now, you have a rebellious daughter. God, I feel like Prince Harry.”

Apparently, my mother didn’t know much about sarcasm, because she stared at me with pure rage in her eyes. “Don’t you speak to me like that, Charlotte. We’re in this mess because of you. All of this is on you.”

Now I was the one enraged. Yes, I had screwed up everything, but she could try to be more understanding. I thought Mason had been in love with me too. My heart was breaking. And what was my mother doing? Applying more salt to my wound.

The hole in my chest grew and grew. I was tired of how everything was about her, about how I had to behave for her, on how I had to dress for her, on how I had to look for her, what I had to say for her. I wanted to be my own person, to have my own life, to decide my own future.

I raised my chin and stuffed my chest. “That’s enough. I’m done.”

She stared at me as if I was speaking in riddles. “What are you done with?”

“You.”

A frown wrinkled her forehead. “What do you mean?”

“I can’t do this anymore. You can’t rule me as if I were a slave. I’m a person and I have my own wishes, wishes that you never bothered to learn. Hell, you never bothered to know anything about me.”

“But, Charlotte, everything I do for you, everything I chose for you, it’s in your best interest. I would never do something less than stellar for you.”

I shook my head. “Even now, you don’t get it. It’s not about what you want for me, Mom. It’s about what I want for me.”

“Don’t be ridiculous, Charlotte.” She gestured to the newspapers on her desk. “Didn’t you just prove that you can’t decide anything by yourself?”