Do Not Disturb by Christie Ridgway

Author:Christie Ridgway [Christie Ridgway]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780061743399
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2007-03-24T16:00:00+00:00

PART TWO

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

LOLA CARTER PULLED her trench coat more tightly around her and struggled vainly with her crappy drugstore umbrella as the rain started to pour in earnest.

She loved London, even though it had rained pretty much ceaselessly since she’d moved here in January. The same week that her father’s affair had hit the press and her home life had come crumbling down around her ears, she’d discovered she’d been offered a place at the prestigious St. Martin’s School of Fashion. At the time she’d been too distraught to give the idea much thought. It felt like years since she’d filled in the application, along with a slew of others, behind her father’s disapproving back, and her long-cherished dreams of becoming a designer seemed frivolous and stupid when she thought about what her poor mom was going through. But as the weeks rolled by and the tension at home went from bad to utterly unbearable, escaping Boston began to look like a more and more attractive possibility.

It was now March and officially spring, but the monsoon season seemed far from over. If anything it was getting colder. Lola could feel the wet tips of her toes growing numb through her loafers as she splashed along King’s Road, jumping in and out of puddles like a naughty five-year-old.

So much had happened in the last six months, good and bad, that in a way it felt appropriate to be in this strange, sodden city, starting again. Already the events of last summer felt so distant they might as well have been someone else’s life.

Devon’s affair with Honor had changed everything. Initially, one of the worst things was knowing it was Lucas who’d exposed it. Despite the way he’d blown hot and cold with her over the summer, Lola had left East Hampton still nursing a serious soft spot for him. She knew he didn’t love her. But she had thought he at least liked and respected her. The idea that a man she’d willingly shared her dreams and fears and body with could throw a nail bomb of pain into her family like that…it shook her. For one thing, it meant she must be a pretty terrible judge of character. She’d honestly thought Lucas was a good guy at heart, but he’d turned out to be a snake of the lowest order. As for Honor, whom she’d come to look up to almost as an elder sister, she was even worse: a lying, calculating bitch. And her father? Even now Lola couldn’t really get her head around it. Sure, she and her dad had never gotten along, even before this bombshell. But deep down she’d always believed that he, too, was a decent, honorable, upstanding man. That he practiced the strict morality he preached, not just to her and her brother, but to the world at large. Underneath all the teenage tantrums, she’d respected him. But now that respect was shredded.

It was harrowing, having to stand by uselessly while her mom crumbled like a stale piece of wedding cake.

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