I’ll kill her.
I’ll fucking kill her.
“What?” Curt’s tone spikes with equal parts surprise and panic. “No. I—” Giving up, he lets out a soft sigh, I hear the creak of a desk chair. Like me, he’s undoubtedly at work in his high rise, corner office, diligently adding to his family’s insurmountable fortune. “Look, I usually take Paige to these things but… to be honest, she’s radioactive right now and I don’t want to deal with the fallout of being seen with her.”
“Okay.” For some reason, his pragmatic reasoning makes me feel better. Probably because he’s asking me out out of pure necessity and not pity. The fact that he called Paigeradioactivedidn’t hurt either. “Where?”
“Seriously?” He sounds surprised, like he didn’t expect me to say yes. “Wow—okay.Ummm,it’s the annual Veteran charity art gala. The one in Boston.”
I know it.
My parents go every year.
My father sips ridiculously expensive scotch while he watches my mother run around and buy anything and everything that tickles her fancy.
“That’s tonight,” I say with a frown. My mother asked me to attend with her and my father last week and I turnedher down. Facing a room full of people—the majority of who were at my wedding—alone, is not my idea of a good time.
“I know it’s short notice,” he says, words bunched together like he’s pushing them out of his mouth in a rush. “I just don’t know who else to ask. Gwen said?—”
“So my sisterdidput you up to this?”
“No,” he insists again. “She just mentioned that you might be ready to get back out there after?—”
“After my rebound fling with the tattooed bartender?” I don’t know what I’m doing. Why I’m making this so difficult. I should be grateful, shouldn’t I? After everything that’s happened and everything I did, I should be grateful that someone like Curtis Horne doesn’t think I’m just as radioactive as my skanky, narcissistic cousin. I should be grateful but I’m not.
What Iamis angry.
“Millie…” He says my name softly, almost like he feels sorry for me. “No one blames you for that. No one thinks any less of you. What happened wasn’t your fault.”
He’s wrong.
Everything that happened was my fault.
Dean didn’t force me into anything. He didn’t push me off the cliff.
I jumped.
And even knowing what I know now, after everything that happened and how everything played out, I’d do it again because jumping with Dean Mercer was the only time in my life I’ve ever felt likeme—even if the landing killed me.
“I’ll fly in with my parents,” I tell him, before I can give myself a chance to think it through. Am I ready for this? Probably not, but there’s only one way to find out. “It’s being held at the Hawthorne Boston this year, correct?”
“Yeah—yes.” Curt stumbles over himself for a momentbefore he clears his throat again—something I’m coming to recognize as a nervous tic. “I didn’t mean to offend you, Millie. This isn’t on Gwen,” he insists quietly. “When I mentioned I didn’t have a date, she mentioned having dinner with you last night and that you seemed to be over… everything that happened. Asking you was my idea.”
We had a good time but we established from the start that it wasn’t a big deal…
“It’s fine,” I tell him, pressing my tone into a polite, pleasant cadence. “Gwen was right—I’m ready to get out and to put the whole episode behind me. Meet you in the hotel lobby at eight?”
“Yes.” Sounding relieved, I can practically hear Curt nod his head. “Eight sounds perfect. I’m looking forward to seeing you, Millie.”
“Mmm…” I make a non-committal sound in the back of my throat. “See you tonight,” I say, hanging up the phone before I burst into tears.
FORTY-SIX
“Mr. Mercer?”
Looking up from my desk, I find Natalia, my brand-new assistant, standing in the open doorway to my office. It’s a small space—reception area barely big enough for a desk and a few chairs and an interior office that isn’t much bigger—in a newly renovated building. The rent is ridiculous and I’m probably going to regret signing the lease but after two years of running my business from my phone and using rent-by-the-hour conference space to meet with clients, it was either take the leap or give up and sell out to Jase Bright. Besides, it came furnished and there’s a private bathroom with a shower so if I lose everything, I can always move in here and sleep on my desk.
“Whatis it, Natalia?” She’s a nice kid—hard worker. In her sophomore year at NYU, I stole her from a summer internship at one of the big firms in the financial district. She’d dropped an entire tray of to-go coffee on the sidewalk in front of my building and started crying hysterically about how she was going to get fired. While helping her clean it up, I calmed her down enough to realize that you can’t really get fired from a job that isn’t even paying you. I hired her on the spot and while I’m still not sure it was a smart move on her part, I can’t say I regret it. Having her around to keep me organized and on task has been a game changer.
