Total pages in book: 130
Estimated words: 121723 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 609(@200wpm)___ 487(@250wpm)___ 406(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 121723 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 609(@200wpm)___ 487(@250wpm)___ 406(@300wpm)
“What do you say?” Ian asked.
Hopefully to Marist, my smile didn’t look as evil as it felt. “That sounds good. I’m in.”
I wore the gray dress Macalister had bought me, and when Ian arrived at my house to pick me up, his eyes nearly fell out of his head.
“Wow.” His lustful gaze stroked over my cleavage. “You look amazing.” He wasn’t subtle either, and I could see he was thinking his night had just improved big time.
“Thanks.” I snatched my clutch off the table and slid my phone into it. “I’m ready.”
When we came down the front steps outside, he went to the driver’s side of his BMW, not bothering to open my door. It irked me. I liked chivalry and gentlemen and all the things. I was a sucker for romances and the big, grand gesture at the end. It was part of the reason I’d put everything out there with Tate in my catastrophe of a speech, and why I’d confessed my feelings to Macalister so quickly.
I wanted to live large and love big.
That was the plan for tonight too. I’d nearly died three weeks ago, and if I had . . . would Damon Lynch have come to my funeral? Or was I really nothing to him? I needed this town to know the truth. DuBois’s book dropped in three days, and it would shine a light on the dark, dirty corners of Cape Hill, but I wanted a fucking neon sign over Damon.
I’d find a way to confront him in front of the cameras and hit him where it’d do the most damage tonight. Like Macalister, he cared about one thing above all else—his precious reputation.
As he drove, Ian dominated the conversation, not letting me get more than a sentence in here or there. He was twenty-nine and had a super impressive life, according to him. There was a line between cockiness and confidence, and he fell hard into the first category. I longed for a man I could sit in silence with, not a boy who humble-bragged the entire car ride into Boston.
A man like that wants to own you.
I scowled. Macalister had said he wanted me, but he’d also told me he wasn’t capable of loving me, and other than a bunch of mind-blowing orgasms, the only thing he’d given me was heartache. And yet I couldn’t quell the stupid excitement in my body at seeing him again. Maybe it was just to see the look on his face when he saw I was wearing the dress he’d given me, and showed him what he’d lost.
After we’d gone through security, we were funneled with the rest of the guests into the main ballroom of the Plaza, where round dining tables were decorated with alternating blue and red tablecloths. At the front of the room was a stage with a blue curtain backdrop and evenly spaced lighting cast up on it like columns. American flags hung in stands at either side, and the podium in the middle was wrapped with Damon’s campaign logo.
“Bar?” Ian asked me, turning to look at the line that had formed with people waiting to get their drinks. It was cocktail hour, but we’d arrived late because he’d been late picking me up and it had taken him forever to find a satisfactory parking space. His car was nice, but it wasn’t so nice it required being an asshole and angling it in two spots at the top of the parking garage.
I definitely needed a drink, not just for courage for what I planned to do, but to survive the night. I was already dreading the Uber ride back home since I’d decided I wouldn’t be leaving with Ian. I nodded toward the bar. “Yeah.”
While we waited in the line, I had a small reprieve. The husband and wife in front of us were big donors, and my ‘friend-not-date’ spent his time talking at them rather than me. I scanned the ballroom in search of one Hale man and found another instead.
Vance wore a stone blue suit and tie, paired with a powder blue dress shirt, and he stood near the stage, talking to a group of people while he fiddled with the water bottle in his hands. He was so different from his dominating father and brother. He’d always acted as little more than a fuck boy, but I’d seen and heard enough to know there was more to his story than he let on.
I still needed to chew his ass out about giving Ian my number, though. He fucking knew better.
Damon was all the way on the other side of the room, thick with people. It was going to be hard to get close to him, but as soon as dinner was over, I’d strike.
When Ian didn’t tip the bartender, I dropped a few dollars into the jar and collected my lemon drop martini but made it only a few steps before my body locked up, forgetting the man before me was no longer its owner.