My stomach growls as I head inside the hotel, so I make a quick pit stop at the restaurant. I haven’t had anything to eat besides the pastry I had with Val earlier, and I’m famished. A quick glance at the menu, and I order some dinner and a nice wine to pair with it.
It arrives soon enough and I settle into my chair for a quiet meal.
Unfortunately, it’s ruined a couple minutes later by a squeal and a woman pushing back to chair in front of me to slide in.
“Oh my, Lindsay,” Mrs. Dupree exclaims.
The diamonds in her necklace catch the light as she moves, matching the twinkle in her blue eyes perfectly. She’s dressed in the typical tweed outfit that’s popular with Stepford wives. Her blonde hair is styled perfectly, and the Botox is doing a wonderful job of making her look younger than her sixty-something years.
For a brief second, I wonder if I’m staring at my future. Shit could blow up in my life and I could find myself marrying some rich CEO. Maybe quit my job and become the perfect housewife.
Hell would freeze over before I would ever let that reality take shape, though.
“Hello, Mrs. Dupree,” I say politely.
“I can’t believe I ran into you, dear. It’s been so long since I’ve seen you around.”
Honestly, I blame myself. Usually, I eat outside the hotel to avoid the high-end clientele it usually draws in. They’re people who have known me all my life and are always interested in pulling me for a conversation. I’ve tried my hardest to stay away from their crowd. I don’t attend a lot of social functions, and I don’t have a lot of rich friends either.
“How have you been?” the enthusiastic woman questions.
“Good. Busy,” I reply monotonously.
“That’s nice. Honestly when I heard you were going to law school, I couldn’t believe it. And now look at you, a prosecutor and a successful one at that. Your father must be so proud.”
I smile, feeling my cheeks stretch almost painfully with the movement.
“Yes, he is. So proud,” I mutter.
I still remember the moment I decided to go to law school. I was tired of being dismissed as some spoiled pretty girl living off her family’s money. People looked at me and decided they already knew me before I ever opened my mouth.
So I chose law. Not because it was easy, but because I wanted something no one could take from me. I wanted to prove to the world and to myself that I was capable of building something on my own.
What I hate most is how women are constantly expected to justify their worth. If we’re beautiful, people assume we can’t be intelligent. If we’re ambitious, they say we’re cold. We are always forced to prove we can be more than one thing at a time.
But I am.
Lindsay Beaumont is beauty and brains.
Mrs. Dupree must see that she’s losing me because she quickly speaks up before I do.
“Speaking of your father, my husband, Sid, you remember him, right?” she plows on without waiting for an answer. “He’s been trying to get in touch with your father’s office. Apparently, his company’s planning on building a center and he needs to sign off on some permissions from the mayor’s office. But it’s taking forever.”
“Riveting,” I say dryly.
“I was wondering if you could talk to your father. Try to speed things up for him?”
A part of me wants to tell her to fuck off. But I was raised better than that. And I am better than that. So I settle for a little white lie instead.
“I’ll see what I can do, Mrs. Dupree.”
“Fabulous,” she states, clapping her hands together. The smell of Chanel No. 5 wafts over at me with the movement. She gets to her feet with a wide smile. “It was really nice to see you, Lindsay.”
“You too.”
Thankfully, she leaves and I’m left to continue my meal in peace. What Mrs. Dupree doesn’t know is that I haven’t spoken to my father in weeks. And I have no plans to do so anytime soon. And even if I was speaking to him, no way in hell would I pass along such a message. She can go through the proper channels and take the necessary steps like everyone else.
Interactions like that fortify my decision to take a step back from this world. There are succubi everywhere I turn, hoping to get a taste of my soul.
