Free The Inheritance (Volume Two) by Zelda Reed Page A

little brother doesn’t want to go to college or work, and my dad’s ranting about the apocalypse every time I call home and I just. You can see why I couldn’t go back there.”
    Every few moments her cell phone goes off. New message. New message. She glances at it before shoving it in her purse; she’s too polite to answer it at dinner.
    “Who keeps texting you?”
    “Chris,” she says, a faint blush crawling across her cheeks. “He wants to hang out but I’m not…”
    “You’re not ready to date.”
    She nods. “It’s really unnerving how everyone assumes I should be over it by now. But I don’t think I ever will be.”
    “I understand.”
    She shifts in her seat. “I thought so. Who is he?”
    “I’m sorry?”
    “The guy you can’t get over. The one who won’t let you give into Neal.”
    I shake my head. “There’s no guy.” A flash of Justin’s face lights up in my mind. “I’m just not that into Neal.” It’s a lie I swallow along with my vegetables.
    “I don’t believe you,” Ashleigh says.
    “There’s nothing I can really do about that.”
    A small smile tugs at the corners of her mouth. She pulls her phone from her purse and swipes at the screen. “There’s a party tonight,” she says. “That’s what Chris is trying to get me to go to.”
    “Didn’t he do enough partying last night?”
    “Apparently not. It’s at this club downtown. Really exclusive but he says they’ve got their own table with bottle service.”
    “They?”
    Ashleigh grins. “Him and Neal.”
    My lips press together tightly. This morning I began the process of tucking Neal away, resigning myself to the fact that we would never cross paths again. He’s probably moved on. Plucking through a buffet of girls to bring with him to the club. All of them tall and pretty and willing and uncomplicated. Unlike me.
    “That sounds like fun. You should go.”
    Ashleigh leans across the table. “ We should go.”
    I shake my head. “I have too much to do around the condo.”
    She rolls her eyes. “You aren’t selling it for three months.”
    “But I’m leaving on Friday.”
    “Which is why you need to make the most out of your stay. I promise to help with the condo and we’ll get everything done by the time you leave. But tonight? I need some fun and you need some fun, spelled N-e-a-l.”
    I take another drink.
    What’s the harm in going? Neal sees me and decides he would rather not speak? Fine. I can find someone else in the sea of people, someone who doesn’t remind me of my father and whose lies I care less about.
    “Fine,” I say, popping a piece of chicken in my mouth. “But once again, I have nothing to wear.”

Nine
    “We’re with them,” Ashleigh says pointing over the bouncer’s shoulder.
    The broad chested man wears a single diamond earring sparkling beneath the low purple light of the club. He guards the VIP section like a statue, his body blocking off the second floor balcony.
    The dance floors are packed. Three rooms of alternate music styles - techno, hip-hop, and retro pop - filled to the brim with sweating, dancing twenty and thirty-something's, flinging their neon colored drinks in the air, dousing one another in alcohol, cackling when they're confronted. The atmosphere is thick with the smell of booze and sweat and perfume, an odor that's both sweet and sickening.
    The bouncer swipes down on his electronic tablet. “What's your name again?”
    “Ashleigh Monroe,” she says, flashing a sweet smile. For a moment the bouncer is distracted.
    Ashleigh's stunning in her short dress, hair down in loose barrel curls she whipped up in less than an hour. On our trek through the club she shrugged off the grabby hands of men, eyes fixed on the second floor.
    Chris and Neal lounge on the farthest side of the balcony, backs pressed against the black leather couch as other well-dressed men surround them. They're all young and mildly handsome - Neal light - with the same ambitious glint in