The Anti-Crush by Harper West

Prologue

Amanda

The Fourth of July has never been the all-American fireworks and apple pie for the Sutter family.

At least not since my mother died.

And to be honest, we never had the backyard barbecue thing even when she was alive. We always got out of town—way out of town—to avoid the typical holiday activities. This year is no different. My father and baby sister are hightailing it to the family condo in Napa. It’s only a mere four bedrooms compared to the house here in Los Angeles, but it’s still ostentatious. And the wine community is far too consumed with itself to waste time on trivial things like fireworks and parades.

I’m not saying Father didn’t do the best he could to raise three daughters alone. He loves us. I know this.

But his way to love has always been to throw money at everything. Not that we girls couldn’t get a hug from our father, if we could find him. But he worked constantly, so that he could provide for us. That meant the best house, and wardrobe, and pretty much anything my mother wanted, except more time with him, of course. And after she died, it became even more about giving us the best schools, the best tutors, the best nannies, with his millions. Sometimes money doesn’t buy the best, though. There were a few nannies who pinched, and private schools that felt more like prisons. And all those things made us was lonely.

Father thinks that money can buy love, too. Fortunately, my older sister Margot found real love with a man who also happens to be wealthy and meets my father’s standards for marriage material. Some of the guys Father has picked out for us over the years have been anything but love matches.

Take Kent Jacobs. I’ve known Kent since we were in private school together. Kent is my father’s idea of a perfect future son-in-law: he’s smart, from a wealthy family, and athletic. And he was mostly okay by me when we were in school. I want out on a few dates with him. He was nice enough, handsome too. But there was just no spark. I can hear Father now: “Kent Jacobs is the kind of boy who will become the kind of man who will be able to take care of you, Amanda. Love is a waste of time.” If I brought up Margot or my mother, he would scowl and wave his hand dismissively at me, saying they were the rare exceptions to a very important life rule.

I remain thankful that Kent didn’t follow me to college. He chose Stanford and I fought to go away to Columbia in New York. Father hated that I would be so far away from his protective eye and controlling arm. But he relented when he realized how close I’d be to Wall Street and all those financiers, not to mention doctors and lawyers.

Except, his plan backfired. Because the further into college I got, the more I learned about myself and what I really wanted out of life without the influence of my family. And the more I discovered about my desires, I found myself drawn to art and music and those who created beauty from nothing.

And that’s how I met Damon.

I dove headfirst into the art scene and we ran into eachother at a gallery opening in SoHo. We were both staring at the same modern cubist painting when he began asking me what I liked about it.

He took me by surprise.

No one in my family ever asked me what I thought. Or ever cared what I thought. They had always told me what to think. What to feel. What was acceptable.

But not Damon.

He wanted to know me. To understand the way I viewed the world. And he taught me more about beauty and truth in just a single conversation, than I’d learned in my whole lifetime.

What started as a friendship bloomed into something so much more. Before I knew it, I fell in love with him.

Damon was everything I had never known. He was kind and warm. Intelligent and trusting. And on top of it all, an incredibly talented artist. We spent every second together and as the days turned to months, our love grew. There was no question of if we would get married, only a matter of when.

But I should’ve known better. I should’ve remembered that even though my life may have looked like a fairytale from the outside, the inner truth was much more complicated.

And when I brought Damon home, naively thinking that my love for him would be enough to satisfy my family, I was gravely disappointed.

My father immediately made it clear that he’d never allow us to be happy. And that if I chose that kind of life, I’d never be satisfied and he’d cut me off from the comforts I’d grown accustomed to.

But I didn’t care if he disowned me, or threatened me, because I finally knew what I wanted out of life. And what I wanted, was Damon.

But Grayon Sutter had made a career out of studying his rivals—and he knew exactly how to force my hand.

He told me that if I stayed with Damon, if we got married, he would spend the rest of his life telling Damon how worthless he was by Sutter standards. He’d belittle him, mock him, and never truly accept him. But beyond that, he would punish him. Punish him because he wasn’t worthy in my father’s eyes. He’d take away every opportunity that came Damon’s way, and then he’d ruin him until everything beautiful and good about Damon was destroyed.

I couldn’t let that happen.

So I did the only thing I could do. I broke up with him to save him. But not in the normal it’s-just-not-going-to-work-out-for-us way, either.

Instead, I told him that my father was right—that I could never be happy with a man like him, because I was meant for a better man. A better life. A life he could never dream of achieving because he wasn’t good enough.

Horribly cruel? Yes—but our breakup had to be.

Damon was always a fighter. He fought for everything he ever wanted; and I knew that If I wanted to protect him, I needed to break his heart. I needed to convince him that I wanted nothing from him, and that I was just like my family, because if I didn’t, he’d never stop trying to prove that we could be together.

So I did it.

I broke his heart on purpose…and destroyed my own along with it.

Even now, five years later, I can still see the look on his face when I close my eyes. Still feel the misery of what I inflicted on him as if it only happened yesterday.

“Amanda, where are all of your things? Is that all you’re taking with you?” My father’s voice pulls me from my thoughts and I look up to see him coming down the last of the stairs before pausing in front of me.

“Remember, Father, I actually moved all of my things into storage last weekend. It’s just these two suitcases now.”

“How practical of you,” says Emily. She slowly descends the stairs like she’s making a grand entrance to her own ball. Instead of an evening gown, though, she’s wearing a coral colored romper and a matching hat with a floppy brim the size of Kansas. Her pouty lips are painted in the same shade, and her huge black square sunglasses shroud half of her face. “Have they got all of my bags in the limo, then?”

Of course they have, and she knows it. When I came down half an hour ago, the foyer was full of hers and Father’s luggage. And that’s not counting all the stuff that already had been moved to their new place. They probably made the poor driver retrieve it all from upstairs, seeing as how we haven’t had a live-in staff for years. And I sat on the bottom step and watched him haul all of it to the semi-stretch SUV parked outside the front door.

It’s funny how life changes.

My father, once beyond wealthy, had fallen from grace so to speak. Don’t get me wrong, we were still quite wealthy. But my father’s habits had taken us to a place where we’d had to cut back—a lot.

Not that he or my sister seem to notice.

This is the trouble with my father. He can’t afford to hire a limo like that. And he can’t afford this house anymore, which is why we’re leaving today, so that the hotshot producer and his family who are renting it from my father can move in this afternoon.

Father dear hasn’t been able to afford the lifestyle he leads for the past several years. But he’s in denial, even as we close the front door behind us, probably for the last time. And Emily’s denial about our situation is just as deep. Well, I should say their situation, because the one thing I’ve managed to do over the years that I’ve lived here is to save enough money so that I can chip myself free from the family iceberg before it finally crumbles.

“Are you sure we can’t drop you at the airport?” asks my father.

“No thank you. I’m really fine to drive myself, I’ll park in the long-term lot. Besides, that limo is already bursting at the seams with Emily’s fifty-seven suitcases.”

Emily sticks her tongue out at me.

“Suit yourself,” he says. “Call us tomorrow from Margot’s.”

I wave at Emily as she disappears inside the car and the driver closes the door. I kiss my father on his cheek, and he gives me a stiff hug in return. I walk slowly to my own car as I watch them drive away. I suppose I should be sad that I’m not spending Thanksgiving with them. But they won’t be here, and I have no desire to follow them to Napa Valley. I’ve decided to take my extended vacation elsewhere.