Page 79 of Cole

Mom: Don’t forget dinner at The Dunes for your father’s birthday tonight.

My mother’s timing was impeccable. I’d swear she had some kind of spyware on me, her timing was so good.

Eve shook her head. “Marcus says his brother never gets involved with anyone. Something happened there. I think he’s really serious about you.”

“Sure, ok, whatever you think. You didn’t see how he looked at me after.” I looked out the window, barely seeing the campus beyond the windows. Instead, I saw Cole’s face last night. The way he’d shut down. Shut me out. Slammed a door. Bang. I was just a spoiled little rich girl to him, playing at journalism, and I’d embarrassed myself.

He’d been pretty clear, and it hurt.

“We’ll see,” Eve said.

After a shitty day of classes I couldn’t concentrate through, I dressed up like a good little doll for dinner at The Dunes. Part country club, part identification tag for who was who in Hade Harbor, I hated the stuffy atmosphere. I hated the clothes my mother insisted that I wear to fit in there. Most of all, tonight when I walked in, I hated the fact that I’d been tricked into coming to dinner with Grant Elwick.

He was sitting talking to my father, while my mother mainlined white wine spritzers like her life depended on it.

“Isabelle!” my father boomed, getting to his feet with a lurch.

Grant stood up next to him. He didn’t have the same sway to his stance that my father did. Someone was laying off the booze to make a good impression. Gross.

“Isabelle, you look stunning, if I may say so.”

I gave him a tight smile as he shook my hand a second too long.

God, it was going to be a long night. I sat down at the only available seat, opposite Grant. My mother pointed to my glass to get it filled and I gulped it down. Tonight, a drink was just what I needed.

Half an hour later, the business talk had become so boring that drinking was the only way to lighten the leaden feeling in my belly.

This was it. This was going to be my life. Left behind in Hade Harbor, married to one of my father’s business partners, popping out kids and coming to The Dunes every day to order staff around and try to feel important.

I drank a little more, taking the sting off the sharp edges I felt inside me, like a piece of jagged glass was stuck in my heart.

“Isabelle, did you hear me?” my father’s voice broke through my foggy mind.

I looked up at him. He was standing beside me, my mother on his arm.

“Your mother has a migraine. I’m taking her home.”

“I will see Isabelle home,” Grant said, standing up to say goodbye and shake my father’s hand. Then, they were going, moving out of the dining room and leaving me alone.

Grant sat down and gave me an awkward smile.

“Alone at last.”

I nodded, swaying slightly in my seat. Crap, I’d drunk way too much, too quickly.

“So, tell me, Isabelle, since your parents are gone and we can just be ourselves. I know this setup isn’t something you’d probably have considered if it wasn’t for your father’s agenda.”

I shook my head.

Grant smiled. “I thought as much. Girls your age aren’t usually falling over themselves to get set up with an accountant.”

Plus, he was twice my age, something he didn’t seem to factor in at all. I just shrugged.

“But you see, I can be more than that to you. What is it you really want in life, Isabelle?”

I blinked at him. This wasn’t how I’d imagined a solo conversation with Grant would go.

“Tell me your wildest dreams. What is it you really want?”