Chapter 2

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Two Weeks Earlier

Ashley couldn’t believe how unreasonable her Father was being. She’d just finished having dinner with her parents and she couldn’t imagine it could have gone any worse.

She’d spent the better part of the last couple of days trying to figure out how to tell her parents, especially her father, about the plans she and her best friend Madison had made. There was a six month tour of Europe being organized by a few of the other trust fund babies they’d grown up with and it had been all she and Madison had talked about for weeks.

Ashley was currently a junior at one of the most prestigious private colleges in the country. Though she’d never admit it out loud, she knew the only reason she had been accepted into the selective school was because of the very generous donations made by her Father after the school had turned down her first application, due to poor grades. It wasn’t that Ashley was unintelligent, just the opposite really, she just didn’t care. Attending college, to her, was just a formality really. She already had a guaranteed once in a life time kind of job waiting for her at her Father’s record company and a huge trust fund waiting for her when she turned twenty-five.

“Have you lost your mind,” her father had yelled at her after she told him of her plans, “Do you honestly expect me to let you embarrass me by not only letting you drop out of school, but by also fitting the bill while you spend the next six months gallivanting around Europe?”  

She tried arguing with him but her Father was a stubborn and proud man and when he made a decision about something that was it.

So here Ashley was making her way up the stairs to the front door of the condo she shared with Madison (a graduation present from their parents), trying to figure out how to tell her friend that their trip was most likely to be canceled.

Opening the front door Ashley was met by an overly excited and jumping Madison.

“Are we all set for the trip of a life time?”