Page 16

Unless she has been cut off.

But that begs the question, Why? A form of punishment? A knot forms in my stomach. She did a lot of crazy stuff way back when and suffered none of the consequences.

Not willing to skip down memory lane again, I move swiftly on.

Scenario 5: Pure coincidence.

No such thing.

Next question: What could go wrong?

Fuck if I know, I think, minimizing the page and moving to the internet at a sudden thought.

Clara Fairfax Forbes. I type her name into the search bar.

No Instagram account. No Facebook presence. No sign of social media whatsoever under that name. I find this weird, given that she used to have and use them all regularly. Her phone was always glued to her hand. It seemed as though she couldn’t fart without telling her followers and posting a selfie back then.

And there was a time I used to stalk her socials. After. After Mom lost her job. Fuck that. After Clara got Mom fired. Back then, I sold it to myself as keeping an eye on the woman who wrecked my life. The truth is that creeping on her ’gram from my tiny dorm room became a compulsion. I watched her vacation and date and use #blessed every other fucking post. I forced myself to check in on her, not through jealousy or hatred. It was more like punishment for allowing myself to be sucked in.

I won’t say I used these feelings as fuel, but I won’t deny it either. But maybe if I’d concentrated more on myself in those early days, I might’ve achieved my goals sooner. Lifted my mother from her sore knees earlier. Not that she had to wait too much longer.

The four of us founding members were barely out of college when we took the company to seed stage. First thing I did was hire someone to wash my mother’s floors.

Shut it down. There is no peace living in the past.

As I scroll through the pages, I see Clara does have some internet footprint. A few tags in old social media posts. An obscure mention in a newspaper article about women’s rights. And her name as a footnote in an Architectural Digest feature about her stepmother’s kitchen refit.

Maybe as she’s gotten older, she’s become more private. Which wouldn’t work in terms of—

My phone begins to dance against the French oak as Hannah’s name flashes on the screen.

“What are you up to, Troy Boy?” she asks in a tellingly bored tone.

“Oh, you know. Living the dream. Bedding starlets. Bathing in champagne. Stubbing my fucking toe on unfinished floor tiling.” Totally not thinking about kissing women I have no business kissing.

“I told you to move out while the contractors are in,” she says with a soft laugh. “Get a hotel suite or something.”

“Nope, I like my place.” I fucking love it. “Where else would I get a view of Fifty-Six Leonard—”

“You’ll miss the view of the Jenga Tower?” She scoffs.

“Fifty-Sixth Leonard and One World from one terrace and the Hudson from another. Plus, I don’t know whether I told you,” I say, giving in to a smile as I hook my elbow over the back of my chair, “but I have an outdoor shower on yet another amazing terrace.”

“Yeah, yeah,” she mutters, “your ugly nineties outdoor shower. Hugo says he fully expects to see it on Pornhub one day with some Spice Girl wannabe getting pounded in it.”

“Nice,” I reply. You know who I’d like to not bang in my outdoor shower? Clara Forbes. Why am I thinking of her again?

“Come on—the pun! Wannabe?” she demands.

I force myself to tune back in. Wannabe what? Fuck if I know. “Y’all just jealous.”

“No one is jealous of your outdoor shower, dude.”

“Lies.”

“Also, y’all? You didn’t live in the South long enough to earn the use of that term.”

“Shows what y’all know,” I drawl.