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)
James had done it, I reminded myself. He hadn’t been born into this world, but he’d learned how to fit in. Look at him now—he fit in just as easily as Richard did, a man who’d been bred for this life. I could do it too. I may not have been to college, but I wasn’t dumb. I could subscribe to the magazines and read the books and learn to speak the same language as the folks around me.
Or could I?
I would always still feel like an outsider, I realized. It would always be me, country boy from McBride, Massachusetts, wearing a mask and trying to pass off as someone he wasn’t and could never hope to be. I’d always be on edge, always afraid of messing up and embarrassing James.
It was inevitable, honestly.
The thought of disappointing James in that way sent daggers through my heart. I pressed a hand to my chest, suddenly finding it difficult to breathe.
James would tell me he didn’t care, but for how long? At what point would he realize that I just didn’t fit in this world and never would? What if I decided college wasn’t for me? Would he be content on the arm of someone who barely made it through high school when everyone else in this world had multiple advanced degrees beside their name?
At what point would we be forced to face the truth: we didn’t belong together? I closed my eyes, letting out a breath. James mentioned having felt like he wasted years on Richard and that his window of finding the right man and settling down was closing. What if I was just another Richard?
What if I was just a waste of his time, a bad fit, and he never got the chance to live the life he’d always dreamed of because of me?
The thought was unbearable. Literally. I couldn’t be here any longer, this close to James but unable to reach out to him. Unable to touch him. My mere existence here was already a threat to his job—if Dick Sr. knew about me, James could lose his biggest client.
“Excuse me, sir,” someone said from behind me. “Is this yours?” A woman in a burgundy beaded gown held up my Red Sox bandana between two fingers. It was the last thing my dad had ever given me, bought at the last game we’d gone to together. I’d always carried it for good luck, and I’d needed it desperately when making my big appeal to James.
“Thanks,” I mumbled, taking it from her while noticing how faded and worn it looked against the dark inky black of the Armani tux jacket I wore. I shouldn’t have brought it. It was ridiculously out of place, practically light pink from all the times it had gone through the wash in the past decade. I shoved it deep in my pocket and set a mental reminder to retrieve it before leaving the tux back at the brownstone.
Because I couldn’t stay. It was clear to me now this wasn’t at all where I belonged. For both of our sakes, I needed to go. I gave myself another few minutes to stare at James and take him in, memorizing as much of him as possible. Knowing that once I left, I wouldn’t be coming back.
This world was what James had been striving to be a part of his whole life. He’d changed everything and worked his ass off to be a part of this: the big names and the fancy clothes, the blank canvases and metal flower sculptures. It was a world of doing and saying just the right thing, and I would never do or say the right thing.
If I stayed, I’d ruin everything he’d worked so hard for.
So I bolted without saying a single word. Like a chickenshit.
23
James
I realized three things as I stood there with Richard’s arm through mine as we listened to Dick Sr. regale several of his old crony contemporaries with the story of how he’d bought the most beautiful piece of property on the Cape for a complete steal because the family selling it had no idea of the property’s true worth.
First, I’d somehow allowed this man to control way too much of my life. After all, the only reason I was currently pretending to be dating Richard, instead of being off with my actual amazing boyfriend, was out of fear of ticking Dick Sr. off. And the only reason I was afraid of ticking Dick Sr. off was because I was worried he’d fire me and take his business somewhere else.
Second, I would never be good enough for Dick Sr. No matter how hard I worked, no matter how many deals I closed, no matter how much I feigned interest in his stupid hobbies or pushed myself to go above and beyond for the man, none of it mattered. I could cater to his every whim, I could marry his son and join the right clubs and get involved in the right charities and become a scion of New York society, and it still wouldn’t be enough. He would always want more, and he would always hang his book of business over my head to get it.