And here I was, less than a month before my twenty-sixth birthday, about to quadruple my net worth, pushing it up into the nine-figure range. Easily, I would be a billionaire before I turned thirty. I should have been flying high.
In truth, I felt like shit.
I hadn’t slept last night at all. Oh, I’d given it the old college try. I lay in bed for hours staring up at the ceiling, but I couldn’t stop thinking about her.
Especially that look in her eyes when she’d backed away from me at the car before she’d left with her dad. Betrayal. I knew that look. I’d worn that same look when I’d been betrayed. I knew how it felt inside. And I swore that I would never let anyone do it to me again. I also swore that I’d never let anyone in close enough for me to do it to.
I let April in, though. I reeled her right in and I didn’t let her get away. Even when I knew that she was starting to care too much. I could have ended it in Canada. And nominally, I had.
But I’d been incapable of letting her walk away. So I reeled her back in again and convinced myself that it was just sex for both of us. Even on my subconscious level, I was a rat bastard.
A rat bastard who was in love with her.
Contrary to my normal sociable behavior, I huddled in a corner, planted on a seat near the window, and sipped my third glass of champagne, hoping for a buzz to take the edge off. So much for abstaining from alcohol. It had been a good run while it lasted but no way was I going to get through this day sober.
Someone landed in the seat next to me with a heavy sigh. I could tell it was a woman and hoped it wasn’t yet another underwriter trying to pass me her hotel key surreptitiously. I didn’t even look or acknowledge my seatmate until she began to speak.
“Penny for your thoughts,” Mia said.
“My thoughts are worth at least thirty-five dollars a share.”
She laughed. “You okay?” And before I could answer that, she added, “Have you, by any chance, heard from April?”
Lead seemed to clog up my throat and a sliver of pain pierced my breastbone. I downed the last of the champagne in my flute, set it aside and leaned back to look at her.
Adam’s fiancée was a very pretty woman with light brown eyes that shone with intelligence. She was as smart as a whip, and I figured I’d have to be as careful with her as I usually was around her one true love. He had a way of figuring things out quickly.
“I haven’t heard from April. I don’t suppose she wants any reminder about her time at Draco these days.” Especially me, I thought with a dull ache in my chest.
Her lips thinned. “Can you pass me her number? I’d like to make sure she’s okay. She didn’t deserve that shit treatment, and it’s something I’m going to have to have words with Adam at some point after all this with the IPO dies down. The slut-shaming that goes on when a woman is sexual—and especially if she happens to enjoy sex—while a man gets the slaps on the back and the ‘atta boys.’ It’s just not fair.”
Alrighty then. I slid my eyes to the greenery out the window. Adam’s fiancée was also a rabid, sign-toting feminist. Okay, maybe not that bad. As far as I could tell, she hadn’t burned her bra, but issues like this brought out the Susan B. Anthony in her.
“Yeah, I’ll…see what I can do.”
Mia continued to stare at me. I grabbed her untouched flute of champagne and began to sip it. Fourth time might be the charm? Her eyes narrowed as she watched me.
“You’re worried about her.”
I clenched my jaw and released it. “Have you ever read The Scarlet Letter?” I asked.
Her brow rose at the abrupt change of subject. “Not recently. Everybody has to read that goddamn book in high school, though.”
“So you actually read it? You didn’t just get the cheat notes? I was homeschooled so I never read it.”
“I did actually read it. I never got cheats on books I had to read. I’m a nerd like that, even though I’m not a big fan of the classics. Why?”
“Who’s Dimmesdale?”
Now she was frowning. I could tell she was wondering what the hell was going through my head, but she humored me.
“If I remember correctly, he’s the guy who got Hester pregnant. He was the reverend of the town. But he kept silent and no one but Hester ever knew he was the father of the baby. So Hester had to endure all the shame and wear the letter. And those same townspeople who all spit on her held him up to be the model of a holy, pure man. He’s the epitome of a hypocrite.”
You’re Dimmesdale, April had said. She was right. My head ached. My chest was tight. And I felt like the lowest of the low, the weight of guilt pulling me down.