Impulsively, I lean in and kiss his cheek. “Thank you. It’s a pleasure to meet you. Both of you.”
I find that it’s hard to turn away from the smiling, happy couple. In my life, in my world, I don’t come across very many genuine people. I find that I’d very much like to, though. My parents’ marriage was more like a delicate, exquisite piece of blown glass. On the outside, it was perfect and shiny, the weaknesses only visible from the inside. They were never big on displays of affection, so I sort of always just assumed that they loved each other. They both said as much. But being able to actually see the love between two people, to be able to feel the glow of their happiness like warmth from a fire . . . that’s the kind of love I want. Not the cool, cultured kind I was groomed to have. The messy, wild kind that I’m only just now dreaming of.
When Tag has helped me up into the Chiara Jeep, which we brought because we had to go get it from the half-finished cabin where we spent the night, I impulsively kiss him, too, only his I deliver on his perfectly firm-yet-soft mouth.
“What was that for?” he asks when I lean back.
“For bringing me. I had fun today.”
“I liked seeing you happy,” he says simply before shutting my door. I don’t know what to make of that, or if I should make anything of it at all. Some small part of my heart wants to, though. It wants to believe that, against all odds, this could be something more. That we could be something more.
The problem is, I’ve never been a gambler and I’m not sure I even know where to start.
EIGHTEEN
Tag
I’m distracted all through dinner, even with Weatherly by my side. The call that I got while Weatherly was in the shower only added to the distraction that she, herself, provides. The information that my associate gave me was a game-changer. Is a game-changer. My question is: How does it change the game? How far am I willing to go? It’s questions like those that have taken my head out of the conversation when William O’Neal summons it back to the table.
“Would you like to weigh in, Tag? Or don’t you have any reason to follow the stock market?” He’s wearing a smirk that makes me want to jump across the expanse of polished wood and strangle the shit out of him.
Stromberg adds to it with his pathetic attempt at covering his laugh with a cough. It’s fine if they want to get their kicks at my expense. We’ll see how that works out for them in the end.
I let a smile play over my lips. It’s easy to keep my cool when I know what I know.
“I dabble,” is my only response.
“What else do you ‘dabble’ in, other than dirt?” Weatherly’s father asks. He’s making very little effort to hide his contempt. In fact, I don’t know why he bothers.
“A little of this, little of that, but you’re not really interested in my answers, are you?”
“Pardon me?” William O’Neal asks, his smug expression turning to one of thinly veiled anger, as if to say he’s affronted that I’d dare take a tone with him.
“Let’s be honest. You’re looking for ways to reveal me for the ignorant commoner that you think me to be, exposing my ‘real self’ to Weatherly so she’ll see the error of her ways and run into the arms of your handpicked man. Isn’t that about right?”
There’s an eerie absence of sound, like the whole wealthy world is holding their breath as they wait for my inevitable social beheading.
He surprises me with his candidness. “I’d be lying if I said that results like those wouldn’t please me. It’s no secret that I want what’s best for my little girl. And as much as you obviously have to offer society,” he says, his lips twitching over his droll comment, “I feel that she could do better.”
“So pairing her with a man twice her age who wants her as a trophy wife and business arrangement is what you deem ‘best’ for your only child?”
“Pairing her with someone who has the means and the knowledge to care for her for the rest of her life is what’s best for her.”
“Regardless of how she feels.”
“Weatherly is young and impetuous. She’ll thank me for this one day.”
It infuriates me how he degrades her right in front of her, as if she has no feelings at all. I don’t know how she turned out so well with this asshole for a father.
“And what if she never does? What if she blames you instead?”