Total pages in book: 92
Estimated words: 85565 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 428(@200wpm)___ 342(@250wpm)___ 285(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 85565 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 428(@200wpm)___ 342(@250wpm)___ 285(@300wpm)
“Are you a fan of modern art?” Martha asked as we strolled slowly past an exhibit of large square canvases. They were all blank which I would have thought was some sort of mistake, but they were also hanging in a museum, so there must have been something to them I just wasn’t seeing or was too ignorant to figure out.
“Um…” I looked at the empty canvases, not sure how to respond. Thankfully I didn’t need to as apparently Martha was a huge fan and took great pleasure in narrating what we were looking at.
I probably would have found it interesting if I hadn’t been so wound up, terrified she might ask me a question or to offer my own opinion on any of the pieces. It wasn’t that I didn’t like art, I just that I didn’t know the language of it, certainly not the way she did.
So I nodded and hmmmed and tried to mimic her expressions until she was pulled away by another couple and I was finally left on my own again. I breathed a sigh of relief. Not that Martha had been anything other than delightful and easygoing, but I hadn’t been able to shake the feeling that I was still an outsider and at any moment I’d be unmasked and sent home from the ball.
Feeling adrift and out of place, I started to make my way back down the ramps, scanning the crowd below for a sign of James, wanting to ground myself with his presence. The moment my eyes fell on him, I felt my shoulders ease and my chest loosen. He cut a striking figure, even from a distance, and all I could think was that he was mine. I couldn’t wait to get him naked again. I wondered if he’d be interested in bailing on the party early and heading home to enjoy our own gala in bed.
Grinning at the thought of it, I picked up speed, anxious to reach him. But before I’d even made it around the next turn, another man approached him and slipped an arm around his waist. I froze, my stomach dropping. Even from here it was obvious who the other man was: Richard.
James deftly slipped from his grasp, but he didn’t manage to put much distance between them. They still stood uncomfortably close, heads tilted toward each other in what looked like an intimate conversation.
I didn’t want to feel jealous, but I couldn’t help it. Richard was handsome and charming and knew James far better than I did. The two of them had a history together—a long one that involved a shared brownstone and family vacations. James had told me he was over his ex, but it was obvious there were still lingering feelings between the two. I started moving faster, wanting to reach James and slip my hand into his, needing the reassurance of his touch.
I was only a dozen feet away when an older man approached the couple and greeted them with a dazzling white smile. He looked like Richard, but a few decades older, and I immediately realized that this had to be Dick Sr.
AKA the asshole who’d just bought my family’s legacy out from underneath me.
My hands clenched into fists, my cheeks burning hot as anger flared through me. I wanted to deck the man, and I even found myself moving toward him to do just that when I forced myself to stop. What the hell was I thinking? This may be the man who’d fucked up my future, but he was also James’s biggest client. And this was a New York City gala, not some country bar accustomed to a good old-fashioned brawl every now and again.
If I laid a finger on Dick Sr., I’d get arrested. James would lose his largest client and his position at the firm. And that would definitely be the end of our relationship. While this may not be a world I was comfortable in, it was clearly James’s world. These people meant something to him, and he’d spent most of his life trying to fit into this wealthy, elite community. I’d be damned if I was going to be the one to ruin his reputation among all of these people.
I took a deep breath and then another, forcing my shoulders to relax. I was still only yards away from James, but I might as well have been in another world. I watched as another couple joined the group, and James said something witty, causing everyone else to laugh. Richard slid his arm into his, and James did nothing to pull away.
They looked perfect together. Both tall and stunning and completely at ease among the silver platters of food I couldn’t even name and the art I couldn’t appreciate and the wealth I couldn’t come close to comprehending. Snippets of conversations filtered around me from various groups, talk of the stock market and foreign-trading desks and federal fiscal policy. A language of money and privilege I could never hope to speak.