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“You need somethin’, Daisy?”
Yes, to have my head examined.
“What will happen if Dalton drops your name during his interview with that law firm?” It’s not what I want to say. Not what I want to ask.
Who was that girl?
Did you fuck her?
Did you call her Daisy?
But I don’t ask any of those things because I’m afraid the answer is yes to all three.
“He’ll either get the internship on the spot or get escorted out of the building by security.” I can hear it in his tone, which one he hopes it will be. “It’s founding partner, and I have a complicated history.”
I toss him a look over my shoulder. He’s where I left him, standing in the doorway. Watching me. “Slept with his daughter, did you?”
“I don’t sleep with women,” he says, leaning his shoulder against the doorframe again. “I fuck them. And no—but Cap’n did.”
Cap’n. That’s what they all call his cousin, Patrick. I make a sound in the back of my throat, one that I hope sounds casual and not at all like I’m relieved.
“Tess and I are thinking of going for pancakes.” I set my glass down next to the one Conner’s latest conquest left behind. Seeing them side-by-side strikes me as funny for some reason. “Want to go?” I ask, finally turning around to look at him.
He looks like he wants to throw me out. Like he would if the job didn’t involve actually having to touch me. “No,” he says, giving his zipper a terse upward jerk. “I’ve got plans.”
“With Kaitlyn?” I don’t know why I say it. Probably because I’m jealous. I shouldn’t be. Have no right to be.
But I am.
Now he smirks at me. “Told ya, Daisy,” he says, threading his belt through its buckle. “I don’t do repeats.”
I nod my head. “That is what you said…” Forcing a smirk of my own onto my face, I cross the short distance between the desk and the doorway, trying not to think about what was happening in it before I interrupted. Stopping in front of him, I raise myself onto my toes, bringing my mouth as close to his ear as I can so I can whisper in it. “But I’m still hoping you’ll change your mind.”
I find Tess sitting in the same booth Conner was sitting at this afternoon when I met him for lunch.
“Where have you been?” she says, looking up at me while I slide into the seat across from her.
“Ran into an old friend from high school,” I say, completely leaving out the part where I practically walked in on Conner having sex with another woman.
“I am your old friend from high school,” she says, laughing at me. “Ohhh,” She raises an eyebrow at me. “You mean one of the pretty people.”
“They’re not all bad.” I feel this insane urge to defend myself. Defend what I let my mother turn me into. “Dalton went to Trinity on a scholarship. His father was a fireman who died in 9/11. His mom is a school teacher.”
For a second neither one of us says anything. But then her gaze lands on the ring on my finger, and I jerk my hand back, hiding it under the table just like I did this afternoon with Connor. “Jesus Christ, Henley, you are getting married.”
“Yes.” I wince a little. Saying it out loud makes me feel horrible. Makes what I did much more real. “Sort of.” I amend, hoping it buys me a little good grace.
“Sort of?” Her gaze bounces up and narrows on my face. “Define sort of.”
I hesitate, but only for second before I tell her everything. About Jeremy being gay. About us faking a relationship to please our families. About our plan to fake a marriage to secure his trust fund. His family is ultra conservative. His trust fund clearly states he must be married by the time he’s thirty, or he will receive nothing. As much as I love Jeremy, I know there’s no way he’d survived without his family’s money.
When I’m finished, Tess leans back in her seat, taking her drink with her. “Wow. Five years for 500 million.” She gives a low whistle. “That’s a hell of a payday,” she says, rattling the ice cube in her glass. “What’ll you do with that kind of money?”
Buy my freedom.
Instead of saying it, I just shrug.
“So why did you come back?” She sets her glass down on the table between us, shaking her head. “And don’t give me that I have a library internship bullshit story. I want the real reason.”