Total pages in book: 130
Estimated words: 123579 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 618(@200wpm)___ 494(@250wpm)___ 412(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 123579 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 618(@200wpm)___ 494(@250wpm)___ 412(@300wpm)
“No, but he’s my father’s closest friend. Daddy was a huge part of building Bennett Enterprises, and he’s Uncle Martin’s right hand.” Yet another natural smile touches my lips. A tiny shrug lifts my bare shoulders. “His son, Walsh, and I grew up very close. Our families took vacations together. We went to the same schools here in New York. We were…well, it was nice.”
“You and Walsh ever…” Rip lifts and lowers his eyebrows suggestively.
So there are still some people who don’t know every detail of my life that’s been blared in tabloids and proclaimed on TMZ as gospel truth. I can’t decide if I’m pleased or insulted by Rip’s ignorance of my past with Walsh.
“Yeah, we dated a few years back.” A bitter pill lodges in my throat, but I force myself to swallow it and say the next words. “That was, of course, before he married his wife, Kerris.”
Rip glances at the card the hostess handed us when we entered, and scans the room until his eyes rest on a table near the stage. He points the card in that direction.
“Isn’t that them at our table?”
What did I do to deserve this? Who am I kidding? I’ve done a lot more to deserve much worse, but it seems like a particularly cruel punishment to seat me with Walsh and Kerris Bennett. I spent half my life certain that Walsh and I would marry, that we’d be the envy of all our friends and pretty much the civilized world. Instead, envy pinches my heart. They had twins not even two years ago, and Kerris’s petite frame shows a small baby bump. She’s pregnant again. Already? What are they, rabbits? It’s obscene to be that fertile.
And obscene to be that happy.
As I watch, Walsh presses his hand to Kerris’s back, seating her and dropping a kiss on her dark hair. Their eyes lock for an extra second, something passing between them that makes me feel like a Peeping Tom. Something that walls out everyone around them for those few moments.
It doesn’t hurt anymore, seeing them together, but a whole night of it could drive me to drunkenness and disorderly conduct, two offenses I’ve avoided for more than a year. There should be a token for that, like a sobriety coin or something. Though my sins have been anything but anonymous. I’m a pap’s field day. I know it, but can’t make myself care what they report. Most of it’s true, and all the fucks I had to give ran out years ago.
I can’t figure why I’d be at their table. My mother chairs this event. She wouldn’t torture me this way. Mother wouldn’t, but Daddy…
Speak and he shall appear. My father materializes in front of me, dapper, distinguished, and as handsome as the day my poor mother married him. The fairness of his hair swallows up the gray, and he looks not much older than in the wedding pictures I’ve seen from thirty-three years ago. The lines fanning out from the green eyes so like mine only deepen and add maturity to his appeal. Those eyes stare back at me with something very close to…tolerance. That’s about all Daddy has left for me these days. You can’t live the way I have, as publicly as I have (refer back to the fucks I ran out of years ago), and expect to remain Daddy’s little girl.
Yet I’d do anything for him. He knows it and exploits that weakness at every turn, and I see a turn coming. He glances speculatively between Rip and me.
“Hi, Daddy.” I loop my elbow through Rip’s. “Rip, this is Ernest Baston, my father. Daddy, you know Rip, right? He plays for the Jets.”
“Yes, of course. That was some pass on Sunday.” My father reaches for Rip’s hand and gives it a friendly shake before dismissing him with the look he reserves for people who can do nothing for him. “I could use your help tonight, Sofie. There’s a big fish here we need to reel in.”
This isn’t the first time he’s required my help persuading someone his company would be much better off under the Bennett Enterprises umbrella. I glance down at my cleavage, which is on display, making sure the girls are ready to earn their keep. When your father recruits your sixteen-year-old charms to persuade grown men, you get used to feeling like a commodity. No different from using my legs to sell shoes or my blond hair to sell shampoo. Only the payoff is Daddy’s approval. Much harder to come by than any check I’ve ever cashed.
“Your mother has seated Walsh at your table to help,” Daddy continues, his voice low as he grasps my elbow and walks me slowly toward the table, leaving Rip to trail behind just out of earshot. “So Walsh will be in one ear and you’ll be in the other.”