Total pages in book: 102
Estimated words: 96600 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 483(@200wpm)___ 386(@250wpm)___ 322(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 96600 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 483(@200wpm)___ 386(@250wpm)___ 322(@300wpm)
I elbowed him.
“Be careful going home,” I said, standing on my tiptoes to hug him. “And don’t tell Mom and Dad about all this, okay? I want to break the news gently.”
He tilted his head. “I thought they knew you were with Matt.”
“Right, but they don’t know I’m with Matt.” I grimaced. “It’s going to take them a minute to accept the May/December thing.”
“Oh, god, don’t say that. It makes me sound old,” Matt protested.
Scott laughed. “We are old. Face it.”
“See you in the city,” Matt said with a finality that implied he would not, in fact, “face it.”
Scott headed out the door and Matt gestured to a little seating area in an alcove. “Do you want to hang back here? I’ll keep it as short as possible.”
“It’s your mom. Say goodbye as long as you want.” But I wondered why she didn’t want to say goodbye to me. Not that I was some big, special guest; I was her son’s brand-new girlfriend, who’d randomly tagged along.
Matt kissed my forehead. “I’ll send Alan back with coffee.”
“Sure.” I watched Matt disappear into the house and wandered to one of the spindly, probably antique chairs in the alcove and waited, patting my hands on my knees. Elizabeth wanted to speak to Matt alone. It was probably super paranoid of me to assume she wanted to talk to him about me, but it was where my insecure brain immediately went. I’d put in a poor performance. I hadn’t behaved myself. I hadn’t belonged.
And I hadn’t. Most people didn’t show up as guests to fancy parties and smoke weed on the lawn. Most people didn’t sneak off and give their boyfriends head before dinner or hide in someone else’s hedge maze to play orgasm denial games. And yes, Matt had initiated those things, but I should have held myself to a higher standard.
Fuck. I’d messed everything up. Elizabeth was probably threatening to cut Matt out of her will if he didn’t break up with me.
Calm down. You have no idea what she wants to tell him. Maybe it’s about his sister’s affair or something.
I glanced over at the doors. Maybe Scott hadn’t driven off, yet. Maybe he could talk me out of spiraling.
The front doors were heavier than I expected; Alan must have been ripped under his stuffy uniform. I only exerted my spaghetti arms enough to wriggle outside. There were two cars in the driveway, Matt’s and what I assumed was Scott’s, based on the “My other car is the Millennium Falcon” bumper sticker. But Scott wasn’t inside.
I frowned and started off on the sidewalk that ringed the circular drive, unsure of where he could have gone. Then, I heard voices near a cluster of immaculately manicured shrubs.
One was definitely my brother. I could tell from the exasperation when he said, “Believe me, it was great being the last to know!”
Wait, was Lauren here? Because it was a woman’s voice that answered. But Lauren being here would make no sense.
“We were never exclusive, Scott!”
“You were going to leave your husband for someone who wasn’t ‘exclusive’?” He cursed. “Who the fuck am I kidding? You were never going to leave him.”
“I’m sorry that things in my world aren’t as simple as packing up a one-bedroom apartment and fucking off! Do you know what people would think of me? I have commitments, not just to Jackson, but the foundation—”
A high, ringing whine filled my head.
The voice undeniably belonged to Catherine.
“I saw you were seated with my mother’s paramour…”
Conflicting feelings paralyzed me in my tracks. Was I going to vomit or scream? Because I was disgusted enough to do either. Scott had been having an affair with Catherine? And her child had tried to tell me. Gross, so gross.
On top of that, the way he’d reacted when he’d found out his best friend was fucking his sister, and the whole time, he’d been fucking his best friend’s sister?
His best friend’s married sister?
The audacity! The hypocrisy! The urge to launch myself through the topiary and punch my stupid brother right in his big, fat nose!
“I forgot that your life is so much more complicated than mine,” Scott snapped back. “Because I’m a peasant and you’re the goddamn queen of Manhattan!”
“Fine! If that’s how you want to describe it, fine. But I do have more to lose than you do! I’m not going to put my stability at risk—”
“You’re not going to put your wealth at risk!” Scott shouted over her.
“—because what? You love me?” She scoffed, as if it were the most ridiculous thing she’d ever heard.
“Oh, that is rapidly declining as a factor in my anger, believe me.” He huffed a sigh, and I could vividly picture the body language that went along with the sound. A hand through his hair, a scowl wrinkling his brow. “If you didn’t believe any of the things you said, why did you say them?”