13. Renee

We’re on our third gala of the week. We’ve already saved the children and cancer patients, so the beneficiaries of tonight’s charity are the turtles.

How lucky for them. I’m sure they’re just overwhelmed with everyone’s generosity.

Tonight, I’m at a table with Deacon, his parents, a couple who are three martinis deep already, and a man named Jessup who has told us twenty times if he’s told us once that he’s “independently wealthy.” He’s old enough to be my father and has more than once tried to take a gander down the front of my gown.

I look at Deacon. He has a fresh glass of wine in front of him and I’m dying for a sip to make my brain go blank. Instead, I push my chair back and stand. “Excuse me.”

The dark and quiet of the hallway is a relief after the mayhem and constant fireworks of photographers’ bulbs inside the main ballroom. I lean against a wall, close my eyes, and breathe.

This isn’t so bad, says one voice in my head.

Do it for your baby, says another.

I’m running out of coping mechanisms at this point, but there’s nothing to do but persevere. At least it’s quiet in here. At least in here, no one is bothering me.

I sigh and peel myself off the wall, then step into the bathroom. It’s tiled with a lush green like a little jungle oasis. I don’t have to pee, but I wash my hands, splash some cool water on my neck, and stare into the mirror for a while.

The woman staring back at me is borderline unrecognizable. Earrings and necklaces and rings galore. Hair artfully piled on top of my head. A lavender gown that sweeps the floor.

I hate this version of me. I ran so, so far to get away from this version of me.

And yet here I am again.

Same as I always was.

With another sigh—I’m really exercising those sighing muscles lately—I slip back out of the bathroom and back into the nightmare.

I’m winding between tables when I see Deacon with a venomous look on his face. What’s he so pissed off about? I wonder.

Then I follow his gaze and I get my answer.

Weston is lounging in my seat, looking like a million bucks in a maroon tuxedo with an arm slung back behind the chair.

He turns when he sees me and flashes a dazzling smile. “Renee! We were just singing your praises.”

“Mm. I’m sure you were.” I glance around the table. Deacon looks constipated, the martini couple look mesmerized, Jessup looks like he wants Weston to sign his forehead in Sharpie right here and now, and my parents are nowhere to be found.

“You look ravishing,” he adds. His eyes rake over me once, flirting with the edge of being indecent but staying on the right side of it—just barely. I feel my thighs press together instinctively.

“If you’re fishing for a return compliment, keep fishing,” I snap.

“Can’t a guy admire beauty without an ulterior motive?”

“‘A guy’ can. You can’t.”

Across the table, Deacon is being sucked into a conversation with a greasy politician-looking type. He keeps casting glances back our way, his sneer permanently etched into his face. He isn’t any happier about this intrusion than I am.

“It’s weird to see you in your natural habitat,” Weston remarks.

I scowl and fold my arms over my chest. “What makes you the expert on my natural habitat?”

Standing, he holds out a hand. “Let me show you.”

I keep my arms folded. “No way.”

“One dance, Princess P. It won’t kill you.”

“It might.”

His eyebrows drift up on his forehead, but his smirk never dims. “If you don”t, people are going to start gawking and whispering. I have a feeling that gossip in this circle is a lot more of a problem than it is in mine.”

He”s right and we both know it. I can”t afford to bring bad attention to myself or Deacon by refusing.

”I”m doing this under duress,” I warn him.

”Noted.” He grins and holds out his hand. ”Shall we?”

Weston leads me to the dance floor, his hand hot on my exposed lower back the whole time. It takes everything I have not to cringe away—or to turn into that touch.

“You really do look beautiful,” he murmurs as he takes up dancing position, that hand staying planted on my skin.

“And you look determined to make a scene.”

“No scenes, I swear. Just a conversation.” His eyes gleam in the chandelier light.

“What’s there to talk about? You’ve made it pretty clear where you stand.”

“I might’ve been a little… hasty,” he concedes in a rasp.

We bump into another couple accidentally and I quickly apologize. “‘Hasty’? You destroyed my reputation, kicked me out of my living situation, and got me arrested. That’s more than ‘hasty,’ Weston. That’s fucking evil.”

I try to rip my hands out of his grasp, but he holds on tight. “I know about everything,” he says, a hint of desperation creeping into his voice. “The trust fund. Deacon. Why you left your family, all of it. I want to fix this shit, P. I never meant for it to all go down like this. I wish it hadn’t.”

“Yeah, well, if wishes were fishes, we’d all eat well,” I hiss. “What’s the point of coming here to embarrass me and tell me some hypothetical stuff you’d like to have happen?”

“The point is to get you to let me fix it.”

I snort. “You’re the one who broke it.”

“Exactly. Exactly. So let me make it better. You don’t need your dad and you sure as fuck don’t need that pompous clown who thinks you’re gonna marry him. You?—”

“Stop.”

This time, when I tear my hands away, I do it successfully. That same couple looks over in shock when we mess up the flow of the dance floor, but I don’t give a shit.

“Stop,” I say again, tears studding in my eyes. “You can’t just barge back in here and make promises you have no way of delivering on. I don’t want to hear your bullshit. I’ve heard enough of it for a lifetime, thank you very much. So please, for the love of God, just leave me alone.”

He stands there quietly for a moment. The band changes songs and the other dancers decide to just swerve around us. But he doesn’t move, doesn’t blink, doesn’t breathe, and neither do I.

His mouth opens and I brace myself for how bad it’s gonna hurt to hear him give up on me. That’s what I wanted, yeah, and that’s what I asked for, but that won’t stop it from stinging in a way that won’t ever really go away.

Then he says the last thing I expected.

“No.”

Before I can answer, a bell rings and a voice rings out from the stage. “Dinner is about to be served. Please find your seats.”

I turn and march away. I can feel him shadowing me and when I arrive at my table, what should I see but a pair of catering staff arranging an extra place setting right next to me?

“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me,” I rasp under my breath.

Weston doesn’t even look in my direction when he sits down to my left. He immediately engages Jessup in conversation again. I do the same with the extremely drunk woman to my right, talking about her jewelry heirlooms. We maintain that icy not-so-distance throughout salads.

But right when the empty salad bowls are being cleared, I feel something: Weston’s hand on my thigh.

I splutter on a sip of water and knock it away. He finds me again immediately. His fingers tug up the fabric of my dress, inch by inch, and no matter how hard I try to dig my nails into his wrist, he doesn’t give up.

“You alright, sweetheart?” asks the drunk woman’s equally drunk husband.

“Peachy,” I say with a forced grin. Beneath the table, Weston’s hand reaches the hem of my dress and slides beneath it.

“You’re sweating, dear.”

“Is it not hot in here?” I laugh. I dab at my forehead with my napkin. “I’ve always run warm, unfortunately.”

Across the table, my parents and Deacon are deep in conversation. They all seem satisfied that Weston and I are ignoring each other. If only they knew what was happening just six inches below their line of sight.

I’m pretty damn sure I’ve drawn blood by now, but Weston shows no signs of stopping. His fingers trace higher up the inner curve of my thigh until he finds the edge of my underwear. Or, rather, what would be the edge of my underwear, if my mother hadn’t insisted on me not showing any visible panty lines in this gown tonight. So instead of fabric, he meets nothing by the throbbing lips of my vagina.

I choke on a bite of pork chop. The drunk man pounds me on the back until I can pull myself back together. I feel my mother’s eyes searing into me, but she says nothing.

“You sure you’re okay?” the man asks.

“Yeah, yeah, totally fine. Just went down the wrong way. So sorry.” My face is beet red.

Weston goes higher. He passes over my clit once. I bite the inside of my cheek as hard as I can to keep from crying out. Surely he won’t?—

Nope, he does. As the drunk woman orders another martini and tells me about her great-great-aunt who gave her the jade brooch she’s wearing, Weston slides a finger into my wetness. At the same time, his thumb starts to stroke my aching clit. Slow, steady circles.

I’m on fire inside and out. I start to wriggle in my seat and my hands clamped on his wrist are pulling him closer to me now instead of shoving him away.

Oh, right there, I want to moan. Right there, right there, right?—

I jerk myself away just before I finish, upending a glass of water in the process. Across the table, six angry eyes glare at me. My mother, my father, my fiancé, all skewering me with disgust as I make a scene yet again. If only they knew the true extent of it.

“B-bathroom,” I stammer.

As I turn to leave, I’m vaguely aware of Weston raising his fingers to his lips, licking them clean, and saying, “Some tastes just stay with you, don’t they?”

I run faster.

Back in the green jungle bathroom, I look like a mess. My hair is mussed, my cheeks blazing red, and my entire collarbone is splotchy with shame.

I almost just did that. I almost just let a bad boy hockey player finger me to orgasm in the middle of a charity gala, with my parents and my fiancé sitting no more than a couple yards away.

What the hell is wrong with me?

“You can’t do this, Nay,” I whisper to my reflection. “This is your life now. There’s no going back. No stealing little tastes of the way things used to be. You have to tell Weston ‘no’ and you have to fucking mean it.”

My breath heaves for a long time before it finally simmers back down. “You have to mean it,” I say again weakly. “At the very least, you have to try.”