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It doesn’t feel like long enough.
My dad blamed his inability to earn a living on us. I won’t go into details, but he took it out on us in the worst ways, even more severe than making me fight my own brother. Maybe it left a scar on me. Who knows. Perhaps it made me cold in certain ways. Maybe it made me into the sort of man who’d insult an angel like you by calling you a user.
I bite down, his words pulsing into me, flooding me with unfair hope.
I wish there were more I could say than sorry. But I am. So much.
No, Miss Mystery… I’m sorry. I shouldn’t assume you’re the same as everybody else.
But how are you supposed to know the difference? How can you ever trust anybody?
Clearly, though, he trusts Kennedy… Or maybe it doesn’t go that deep. Perhaps it’s more to do with lust and want than trust.
You seem different, he texts back. What about you? How was your childhood?
I stare at the first sentence in his message, the one telling me I seem different.
I’m about to ask how, fishing for offerings that will drive home how unique this is, but then I feel somebody standing over me.
It’s Aurora.
Her lips are twisted in a fury, her eyes blazing. She’s never looked at me like that before.
“What the hell is going on?” she almost yells, causing several people to look over at us.
“What?” I say, voice fluttering.
She shows me her phone.
It’s a photo.
Weston and me walking toward my apartment.
Holding hands.
With a headline that reads, Weston Wyatt Plays the Field… Who is Lovebird Number Two?
CHAPTER 15
Weston
I’m sitting outside her office now, Alice texts as I ride the elevator down toward the underground parking lot. She’s in there with a bunch of higher-ups. She sounds really pissed. I’m worried I’m going to lose my job.
I want to tell her she won’t, but I remember what Aurora said about how Alice and I should be careful.
Walking the streets hand-in-hand isn’t careful.
There’s nothing Aurora can do to me. So even if I never work again due to a PR fallout – which seems unlikely anyway – I’d be fine.
I’ve got enough money to last several lifetimes. And so will my woman once I properly make her mine.
Try to relax. I’ll be there soon.
You’re coming in?
Aurora texted me. I guess she wants to find out what’s going on.
My heart is pounding, but no heavier than it has been since Alice and I started texting again.
These past three days have been like a unique form of torture, constantly picking up my phone, telling myself to give into my desire to text her, to be close to her… and all the while knowing there’s still a chance I’m right.
She’s a user.
But even as the thought enters my head, I hate myself for it.
What sort of monster am I, thinking of my woman in those terms?
I’m not sure how not to worry, Alice texts as I stride across the parking lot to my car. She’s really freaking out. She’s always been so nice to me, sort of maternal. But this is bad. I think she’s going to fire me.
She can’t fire you for holding hands with a man.
But she can because I’m affecting her PR strategy. It’s not as simple as holding hands.
I pause at my car, looking down at her words, knowing she’s right.
Nothing about this is simple.
I won’t let her fire you, I text.
My woman’s response comes immediately, with as much fieriness as before. It makes me think again of our future, of Alice charging into school to confront another parent after a fight, of her leaping into the fray if some douchebag did something nasty to one of our kids.
It makes me think of all the possibilities in our star-bright future.
I don’t want you to do me any special favors.
I know I should get driving, but I need to respond to my woman.
I could call her, but that would mean she’d be sitting outside Aurora’s office, talking with the man who got her into this mess, to begin with.
Why did I have to hold her hand on the way to her apartment?
At the same time, the question seems absurd. It seems ridiculous that I can’t do something as simple as holding her hand.
Considering who she is, the future mother of my children. My future wife.
My current and future everything.
This is a step to you doing your dream job, I type quickly. I don’t want you to lose it. And you’re supporting your sister.
The truth is, I wouldn’t allow my woman to become homeless or for her situation to deteriorate. Even if it were a case of giving her a reasonable stipend, I would provide for her.
Even if she said she wanted nothing to do with me – even if this is as one-sided as I fear – there’s no world in which Alice becomes destitute, not when I can do something about it.
