Total pages in book: 88
Estimated words: 84676 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 423(@200wpm)___ 339(@250wpm)___ 282(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 84676 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 423(@200wpm)___ 339(@250wpm)___ 282(@300wpm)
“Some things leave a mark,” Bennett says. “No matter how long since the initial hurt.”
And that sums it up. What Caroline did is scorched into me like a tattoo.
My father warned me that I was making a mistake when I told him Caroline and I were getting married, and I couldn’t help him in the bakery anymore because I was moving across the country to be with her. My mother cried as I left with my backpack and two hundred dollars, thinking I was about to start my life with Caroline in California. We loved each other, and not even the width of an entire country would keep us apart.
When I turned down his ten-thousand-dollar bribe to stay away from Caroline, Frank Hammond sent his daughter to Berkeley to tear us apart. But I knew we were stronger than all those external forces. We were in love. We were going to spend the rest of our lives together.
The first time I saw Caroline in California was also the last. I turned up at her dorm and she looked at me, amused. The image of her condescending smile, offered like I was some doll she’d outgrown, has never left me.
But the memories refocused and sharpened this summer when I discovered the woman I was dating was using me. Not to annoy her father, like Caroline had, but to try to bring down my friend. The deception sliced sharp into my skin just like it had all those years ago, and it opened the coffin of feelings I hoped were dead and buried.
“I want to go to this ceremony and look like I don’t give a shit, like I can’t even remember Caroline’s name let alone recall how she used me as a way to get back at her overly controlling father.”
“Hell yeah,” Fisher calls out. “Fuck them. You’re a good-looking dude who’s at least as rich as any of us. You rule Manhattan real estate. Any woman would be lucky to have you.”
“Right,” I say, grinning at my overenthusiastic friend group.
“So call Tom Ford, get a new tux,” Fisher says.
“I have a Tom Ford tux that’s almost brand-new,” I say. “The tux isn’t the issue.” Then what is? I don’t need Caroline to find me attractive. I don’t expect her to turn around and tell me how she realized rejecting me was the biggest mistake of her life. We were eighteen. She was never in love with me. I understand that.
“I don’t want her to think she’s had any impact on my life whatsoever,” I announce.
“You’re a goddamn billionaire,” Fisher says. “And you’re freakishly good-looking, or so my sister tells me.”
“She told you I was freakishly good-looking?” I ask. “She used the word ‘freakishly’?”
“I’ll bring up the text if you like?” he asks.
I shake my head. “You’re right. I have nothing to prove. So why does it feel like I do?”
Bennett pulls in a breath. “What you need is the right woman on your arm.”
Things slot into place in my head. He’s right. I can’t go to the awards ceremony on my own. I don’t want to. I don’t want there to be any aspect of my life Caroline can point to and think, “I did better than he did.”
I know it’s ridiculous. I was just a pawn in Caroline Hammond’s game. No doubt plenty followed me to the same fate over the years. She probably doesn’t even remember me. But if I’m going to see her again, I need every piece of armor I can gather. From the outside, I need it to look like I have the perfect life. Like I’m entirely grateful that she dropped me like a brick on fire because things are so much better without her.
Fisher pulls out his phone. “I can call Vivian Cross. She owes me a favor.”
“She’s married,” I reply. “The entire world knows she got married last year. Why would I want to take a married woman to an awards ceremony as my date?”
“She’s actually married to Efa’s brother-in-law,” Bennett says about his soon-to-be wife.
The entire group groans at the mention of another one of Efa’s brothers-in-law. She seems to have about three thousand of them.
“Of course she is,” Fisher says. “Someone else famous, then. What about Jada De Lune? I’m just about to sign her. She’s up and coming.”
I shake my head. “No, I don’t want someone flown in to be my girlfriend. That’s just weird.”
“So, you need a date who isn’t famous?” Fisher says. “This is easy.” He squints as he thinks.
“Wait—you want someone to pose as your girlfriend?” Bennett asks.
“I don’t want to go without a date. And I don’t have a girlfriend…” I see a couple of women semi-regularly. As soon as anything feels too familiar, I tend to withdraw. I’m not interested in having a relationship. And I don’t want to ask one of them to come with me to the awards, because it will give them the wrong idea.