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“Maybe you need someone to do that. Keep you from screwing up your life. After all, you know you need the help. That’s why you hired your pretend girlfriend. No, wait, I think I read fiancée.”
I swear, you say something once and it’s suddenly etched in stone. “She’s not a pretend girlfriend.”
“So she’s your girlfriend, then? Interesting.”
She’s goading me. I know she is. And it works. Because I’m pissed off. I hate being manipulated for the pleasures of a dead man and I hate even more my mother seems to be helping that whim for reasons she’s not going to tell me. I’d fucking shout where she and the rest of them can stick it—the board, Jenson—if the family company wasn’t at stake. And yeah, I want my heirloom, too.
“You know she’s not that at all. I don’t do girlfriends.”
“Pity.”
“My life isn’t your life, Faye.”
She taps her long, tastefully manicured nails against the bar. “I know. But—”
“There are no buts.”
“Ryder, I want your life to be fulfilling. And maybe that’s why I’m taking an interest. I know you can do your work and live your life the way you want, but one day you might wake up and regret it.”
“That’s my choice.” I also don’t think her motives are that altruistic.
She’s not out to destroy me or hurt me, I know that. But she likes control. And she’s up to something.
“Elliot’s very pretty, don’t you think?”
“Are you trying to set me up with her? She’s not my type. Pretty or plain, it’s got nothing to do with me.”
I’m lying, but I’m so riled I don’t want my mother adding the element of matchmaking to her damn plans. Because no doubt she’ll have some dour and boring heiress lined up somewhere for me.
“I’m not about to change. Not for you, and certainly not for some woman I hired.”
My mother stares at me, her mouth snapping shut and her gaze shoots just past my shoulder.
My heart sinks like it’s suddenly morphed into lead.
I turn.
Elliot’s staring at me, too, but it’s hurt and vulnerability that flash in her face and it slashes into me.
“I think,” she says, “that’s my cue to leave.”
And she does just that.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Elliot
My eyes burn.
“Asshole. Asshat. Bastard.”
A litany of insults tumble from me as I stalk out of the restaurant and basically hijack a cab from a rich asshole man who just hailed it.
I don’t know if he’s an asshole, but he’s definitely rich from the cut of his suit, and he’s a man, so he’s probably an asshole.
When I get back to SoHo, I bypass my office and head straight to my apartment, stripping down and donning pajamas.
As coping mechanisms go, it’s that or down a bottle of booze and I don’t really think the repercussions of the latter will make me feel good the next day. I try to do some work, but honestly, right now? I can’t.
