I should swat her hand off my shoulder. I should denounce the improper behavior of my campaign manager touching me in this way. Or maybe I should play it cool like she was picking a piece of lint or fuzz from my jacket to save us both a slice of dignity.
But instead, I’m sucked into a strange fantasy where Iamher favorite person in the world, like she’s my person—the one who sees the man behind the mask and still chooses to love him. The me I have to hide to be accepted by society. I believe for a moment that the smile illuminated on her face is one hundred percent real.
And I smile back.
The table erupts in a chaotic cacophony of questions.
“What’s going on?”
“Isn’t she your campaign manager?”
“Mr. Marshall, what’s happening here?”
“You can’t date your campaign manager.”
“Get it, bro.”
And then one voice rings above the rest. One word. A question and a statement.
“Darcy…”
My head snaps, following Priscilla’s voice. Our eyes connect from across opposite ends of the long table, and for one split second, I notice the pained sadness in her eyes and the tight pull of her lips—the same expression she would wear when I would stop our chaste kisses from deepening or when she would get upset with me for having too many meetings and not enough time to spend with her. But then, she controls herself and looks down at the food in front of her.
I glance around the table, not hearing the noise as mouths continue to move while pointed in my direction. Cameras continue to flash. The image of my campaign manager and me, looking like a couple, is solidified for eternity and will appear on every news station come morning. My hands grip the wooden table, and I stand up. The chair flies behind me due to the abrupt force, and the porcelain glass dishes in front of me rattle. Mouths no longer move, but I need to escape the stares and implied accusations from Hayden touching my shoulder for everyone to see.Stupid, stupid girl.She hasn’t said yes to me. If she says no, I have a massive mess to clean up. I wanted to draw up contracts first. My heart beats quickly. Too quickly. My breathing grows shallow and my head spins.
I’ve got to get out of here…
Without another word or glance at the people gathered around me, I flee the room.
The hallway narrows as I stumble over my feet. The walls cave in, and I find myself leaning against something hard as I struggle to leave. I’ve been in this house a million times, but I’m so turned around that I’m trapped—held hostage by the ever-shrinking walls. I stumble along for an eternity before I find an open door and hurl myself through it, kicking it closed as I collapse to the ground.
I hug my knees and try to focus my breaths like my old therapist taught me.
Right when I finally feel a smidge of relief from the tightness in my chest, the doorknob rattles and I can’t breathe again. I close my eyes.
“Darcy-kun.”
Ren’s hands find my shoulders and begin massaging, working their way across the back of my neck and over the muscles in my upper back. My lungs open, and my breathing becomes deeper and longer, a drastic change from the short and shallow breaths from only moments ago.
“I’ll give you two more minutes, but then youwilltell me what you’re feeling. No excuses.”
I nod.
By the time I can breathe fully again, I’m ready to talk to Ren. He’s the only person I wouldevertalk about my feelings with.
“I feel betrayed. Not because I loved Priscilla, but because she knows what my father did. She knows he cheated on my mother.”I pause to not let the hurt consume me all over again. “There is no way she wasn’t seeing Marcus behind my back. Not if they’re engaged. And even if what we had wasn’t love, I trusted her. I trusted our mutual connection and our years of friendship.”
Ren stops massaging my shoulders and back and sits down beside me. We both sag against the wall.
“You weren’t prepared to see her with another man. But I have to ask, you didn’t fall into this panic attack right when you saw them. So what happened?”
I mull the recent events over. Priscilla walking in with Marcus. Marcus introducing himself to me. The loving exchange between the two. Hayden touching me…
“Hayden. She—”
“Touched your thigh and shoulder,” Ren finishes. I look at him, and he smirks. “Yeah, I saw that.”
I laugh because it’s the only thing that makes sense to do at this moment. “She created a whole new mess that will involve a ton of wordplay and political finesse to clean up if she doesn’t agree...” I take a few steadying breaths and try to corral my scattered thoughts. “When everyone looked at me and began shouting questions and accusations, I heard her voice above the rest. Priscilla said my name like it pained her… Something inside of me broke. It was the very expression she wore when I wouldn’t do things she liked. It reminded me of those moments, reminded me that we were never in love. But that doesn’t mean she should have cheated on me. What gave her the right to…”
