Total pages in book: 121
Estimated words: 115198 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 576(@200wpm)___ 461(@250wpm)___ 384(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 115198 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 576(@200wpm)___ 461(@250wpm)___ 384(@300wpm)
“She does.”
“She seems like a sweet girl, darling.”
“She is.” I sip my wine. “Maybe you could ease up on her?”
Mom laughs. “Oh, I will. Eventually. That’s part of the deal, you know? Grandma Lottie scared the living hell out of me, now I get to do it.”
“Granny Lottie didn’t have a mean bone in her body.”
“To you,” she intones. “It’s possible to have varying experiences with people. Your sister would probably tell a very different story of your father than would you or your brothers.”
She’ll get no argument from me. Four siblings and we’ve all handled the fallout in our own ways. Alex turned into a desperate yes-man. Jake is the sunshine clown who looks for a joke to get out of every tense moment. And I’m the chronic overthinker who internalizes everything. No wonder I can’t make sense of my feelings today. We watch Jake as he animatedly tells a story. Anna says something that seems to refute whatever he’s saying and the two play-argue, pointing at each other. With a smile, Jamie sets his hand on her back, leaning in—
I’m moving before I fully register it, shouldering my way through the crowd, passing family and acquaintances and business associates of my father’s without engaging before coming up behind Anna so close that Jamie immediately withdraws his hand from her skin.
Skin that I hadn’t yet touched in that dress.
Anna startles when she feels me behind her. She turns, finding me standing barely inches away from her back. “West.”
Wrapping a hand around her hip, I nod to my brother, then to Anna’s ex. “Jake. Jamie.” I bend, kissing her shoulder. “Wife.”
My little brother smirks. “Liam.”
But when I look down at her, her brown eyes blaze up at me. And it’s only when she excuses herself and walks away, marching straight out of the tent that I finally register the unnamed cocktail of anguish that’s been churning in me all day.
It is the comfort of having an ally. It is the powerlessness of infatuation. It is the terrifying beginning of more.
Twenty-Three
ANNA
Ughhhhhhh.
What a gross, gross feeling. I have become West’s emotional rag doll.
Let me be clear: I am incredibly proud of myself. In the past week I’ve spent with this mess of a man, I’ve learned that I am capable of more than I ever imagined. I can mostly hide my horror when people around me discuss buying giant swaths of land for tax write-offs. I can make a single vodka soda last three hours. I can have my butt massaged without giggling, and I can wear a satin gown like a motherfucking boss.
But one thing I cannot do, even if I’m being paid handsomely, is allow myself to be emotionally manipulated.
My mom left when I was five—ostensibly just to “take a break” and “find herself”—and the games she played over the next nine years really fucked us up. She would call every few months and tell Dad she missed him and wanted to come home to us, and then remember that she was above it all and leave again. She would send postcards out of the blue with nothing but the words Thinking of you, but never remember our birthdays. She refused to sign divorce papers until I was fourteen and my father finally filed for abandonment. I saw the way she manipulated him, and as an adult, I can spot a mind-fuck a mile away.
See, West? You aren’t the only one with fucked-up family dynamics.
But his family, whew, it is fucked up. And if he thinks he’s going to find a gently placating and toxically enabling woman in me like he has in his mother, he is mistaken.
I will not be the toy to West’s anxious cat, even if he is paying me. I will fake-kiss him and smile at parties and wear every hideously expensive gown Vivi picked out for me, but I will not let my emotions become part of the game. And seeing the way he freaked out this afternoon, the cool distance he forced between us—fine. I can handle that. I fully support him deciding he needs to focus on the Weston detritus and on cooling whatever lusty, real, or vulnerable thing we have brewing. But what I am unwilling to do is be jerked back to his side the minute I talk to someone else.
Outside the tent, the night air is humid and thick; it feels like a storm is rolling in and man, if I didn’t think they’d make the people who work here clean it up, I’d hope for it to settle right over us. This party is gorgeous, but we’re on a perfect island in the middle of the ocean, a lush, protected jewel of land, and these fuckers have carted more junk here than I could fit in my entire apartment. I’d love to see how their props hold up in a downpour.