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Later that day,having showered and eaten cereal dry because I was out of milk, I tried to do my work for that evening. Everything was mostly done. We were raising money for children with cancer. It was a worthy cause, and I was glad to help the elderly socialite do it. She’d been nice enough, but when I talked to her, it felt like I might be looking at my own future and I didn’t love the preview.
Sure, she was rich. She had a big apartment in the city with views of Central Park. Pretty furniture. Nice clothes. Four ex-husbands that made her roll her eyes when she talked about them. But no family around. No one to really talk to. People had moved on, and while maybe she was happy with her own constant company, I wasn’t sure that I could be.
She’d never indicated to me that she wasn’t happy.
I just wasn’t sure I could be her and not be miserable all the time. What did that mean? I wasn’t sure. Maybe I could find one husband that I could love for always, like Layla and Zeke. Maybe Bridget and I could share an apartment?
How is the dating life going?I sent the text to Bridget as I thought of her. I had suggested that she start looking for Australian surfers. She’d told me there weren’t that many of them hanging around in Hong Kong on the trading floors.
Bridget didn’t reach out much anymore. Was that because of me? Did my family just not want me around?
Was I making a nuisance of myself?
And how was it that Max’s sweat smelled so good? We’d sat together in the car, and it was like I couldn’t get the scent out of my head. I sighed. He had probably experienced the opposite with me. I had been pretty rank by the time I got home. I shook my head.Time to concentrate.
I needed to do my makeup and get on with this.
Was just going to text you. Bridget answered me.Fuck that woman.
I stared at the response. That didn’t make a lot of sense, considering what I had asked her. What woman?
I’m going to fly back to New York and kick her so hard, her head spins.
I stared at the text. Well, that was violent, which was not like Bridget at all.Whose butt are you going to kick?I texted.
There was a long pause before she answered me.Amanda Hill.
Fuck. What had Amanda done? I’d just encountered her that morning in the gym, so I figured I’d get twenty-four hours before she posted about me. Hell, between then and now, some heiress could have fallen over drunk, kicked over a tray, and landed funny on the street. That would have taken her attention off me faster than anything else.
What had she done?
Ignore it if you haven’t seen it.
I set down the phone and walked over to my computer, ignoring what was probably good advice from my sister.According to my father, who I was surprised could remember it, our birth order was Bridget, then me, and then Layla. She’d sometimes acted like my big sister, having breathed the air of the green Earth thirty seconds before I did.
But I needed to know what Amanda had done before I faced the event that evening. My reputation literally dictated my job. I’d yelled at her, and that was stupid. How big a hole had I dug with my fury?
Amanda looked at the camera. She wore gray, which looked good with her blonde hair and gray eyes. The woman always knew how to dress herself. Truth was I knew almost nothing about her. I’d never learned her background. I didn’t know if Amanda was even her real name. Did she pay all her bills from advertising from her social media accounts, or did she have some other source of income that I knew nothing about?
“Well, what a morning I had.” She smiled at the camera. “I know that I promised you that today we would talk about who wore what and who shouldn’t have worn what they did at the gala two nights ago. I mean…it shouldn’t be so hard to track down designers, but I digress.”
I rolled my eyes. It wouldn’t be hard if she knew the right people. There was some happiness to be found in the fact that I could have gotten to those designers immediately.
Not that it mattered.
“This morning, I was at the gym where I had the unfortunate luck to run into Hope Radford. That’s right—my second favorite Redhead was at the gym.” She smiled, and there was pure joy in it. “Layla, if you are seeing this, you are still my favorite, darling. New York isn’t the same without you here, Redhead.”
I rolled my eyes. Layla would never see this. She was deep in baby happiness and being loved by the man of her dreams. If the knowledge of my sister’s happiness caused me the smallestamount of jealousy, then I was just going to add it to the growing list of all the things I didn’t like about myself.
“So, anyway, I saw Hope. Can I just say thank god she was at the gym? She looks like hell. I mean…if I didn’t know she was Layla’s sister, I wouldn’t believe it. Not. Pretty. Right. Now.” She shook her head. “I know. I know. You’re going to leave me comments telling me that I shouldn’t say things like that about our fellow females. Girl Power. But seriously, yes, she looked like hell. She was there arguing with Max Broadley. Maybe it’s a good thing he kicked her out of his restaurant? It would be wise if she stayed away from such fatty foods for a while.”
I gasped and turned off the computer. Had she just called me fat and ugly? My ears rang. My phone buzzed and I was sure it was Bridget, but I ignored her because I had to think. I rushed to the mirror and stared at myself. I didn’t look much different than I usually did. Granted, I had been at the gym, but I’d worn cute workout clothes.
Did I look like hell?
Fuck.I had to get out of this headspace. Maybe there would be a time when it wouldn’t matter. When women could be raised to not care what people said about them physically. Maybe women would stop saying such things. Maybe men would. Maybe there were people out there who didn’t care. I wasn’t one of them.
It was pathetic and I’d add it to the ever growing list of my worst traits, but Ididcare. I had to care. Being pretty was part of my public persona.
