“What?” Miss Gore sat back and let out a laugh. “You’re an idiot.”
“First off, I don’t think any of this is funny and secondly—”
“Yes. You’re an idiot.” Miss Gore shot to her feet, planting her hands on her hips. “Let me guess. Bridget started explaining to you why she agreed to do this, but you heard only what your sensitive male ears wanted to hear and jumped to conclusions? Because I didn’t pay Bridget a dime for doing this.”
“That’s not—”
“I did offer to pay her—to pay off her student loans, to be exact. I thought that would be a better incentive,” Miss Gore said. “And after dealing with you for less than a month, I figured we needed to pay the poor girl.”
Wow. Chad set the bottle down. “Well, that’s unnecessary.”
“But Bridget refused the money, which forced me to take more drastic steps. Trust me, I’m not proud of what I did, but Bridget has done nothing wrong. I gave her no choice in this.”
Chad thrust his fingers through his hair and turned, breathing in deeply. “She turned down the money?”
“Yes.”
“And you forced her to do this?”
“Yes,” she replied. “But whatever happened between you had nothing to do with me. That was all you two.”
Chad closed his eyes as a rush of mixed-up emotions hammered inside him. He didn’t know what to think. Relief poured through him, but so did anger—mostly at himself. Miss Gore was right. His overinflated ego had gotten the best of him.
“It’s not too late.”
He faced her. “Yeah, I think it’s too late.”
“Why?”
“How can anything come from a relationship that started off because someone was forced into it?”
Miss Gore threw her hands up. “Look, you’ve spent your whole life never accepting responsibility for anything you do. It’s always everyone else’s fault. But here is the one chance for you to realize you had something to do with this. And do I need to remind you that you had a relationship with her before I stepped in? I just helped it along.”
“Helped it?”
She nodded, smiling. “Do you love her?”
“I…”
“It’s an easy question, Chad. Do you love her?”
The answer was easy. His heart already knew what his mouth didn’t want to say. For some reason, he thought about the damn playground, saw his life going round and round but never really ending up anywhere—or with anyone. It was time to get off the merry-go-round.
“If you do,” she said firmly, “you will find a way to fix this.”
Chad stared at his publicist/babysitter/daughter of Satan. “Jesus, woman, I do not envy the man you end up with.”
Miss Gore’s smile was pure evil. “Neither do I.”
Chapter Twenty-two
It was only an hour into the Winter Fund-raiser Gala, and her face hurt from all the smiling and her feet were killing her from avoiding Robert and Madison.
Really not fair for Madison, but she had Chase with her, and besides, the fact that he looked so much like Chad was a little bit disturbing. Plus he immediately wanted to know what the hell crawled up Chad’s ass since Christmas.
It hurt to even think about answering that, and she knew she would have to eventually once Miss Gore gave up on the idea of Chad coming around. Their very real breakup of their very fake relationship would go public soon.
Bridget tried not to think about that as she greeted guests and kept track of the caterers. She was pretty sure one of them was high as a kite. She was torn between asking the kid to leave and finding out where he hid his stash.
Director Bernstein approached her with a warm smile and clasped her hands in his. “The Gala is amazing, Miss Rodgers. You and Miss Daniels have outdone yourselves this year.”
“Thank you. I hope we can have the same turnout next year.”
The skin around his eyes crinkled. “Well, as long as that boyfriend of yours is around, I’m sure we will.”
Bridget blinked slowly. “Come again?”
Patting her on the shoulder, he laughed softly. “There’s no need for pretense. I know Mr. Gamble asked me to keep his donation a secret, but I’m sure he had to have shared his act of generosity with you.”
Her stomach dropped.
“Because of him, the volunteer department will see another year, probably two.” Director Bernstein squeezed her shoulder, but she really didn’t feel it. “I shouldn’t have been so quick to cut him out. After all that he has done for the Institute, he should be here.”
“Uh…” Bridget had no idea what to say.
The director gave her another squeeze. “Enjoy yourself tonight. You deserve it. And please pass along my gratitude to Mr. Gamble.”
Bridget nodded dumbly and watched Director Bernstein rejoin his wife. Several moments passed before it fully sank in.
Chad had made the last donation that might not have saved the department all on its own, but it had saved her job and was what had gotten her reinvited to her own event. Hope and confusion battled it out for top contender for what she was feeling right now. Obviously, he’d done this before he’d found out she had been conned into being his girlfriend. Right?
Dodging guests, she found Madison with Chase. “Did you know?” she blurted out.
Madison’s eyes widened. “Did I know what?”