Give in to Me (Heart of Stone #3)(30)
Author: K.M. Scott

Clicking Send, I waited as I always did for a message back, but none came. It never surprised me but instead just added a tiny new layer of disappointment to everything else I’d felt for months. As I did occasionally, I added a text to Jordan in the hopes that she’d answer back. She never did anymore, but it was always worth a shot.

Hey you! I hope this finds you doing great. I’d love to hear what you’re up to these days. Nina.

When no text came back after twenty minutes, I stopped staring at the phone and covered my head with the sheet, preferring to hide away and hope that tomorrow would be a better day.

Not an hour after waking up, I knew my wish for a better day had been shot to hell. I’d barely gotten out of the shower and Daryl was knocking at my bedroom door like the house was burning down. I quickly tied a towel around me and threw open the door, a combination of irritation and dread coursing through me.

“What? What do you need from me now that requires the damn banging on my door before ten o’clock in the goddamned morning?” I barked at his shocked face.

“I just wanted to remind you about the Stone Foundation groundbreaking today. As the appointed representative of the foundation, you need to be there.”

I took a deep breath and adjusted the knot in my towel so I didn’t give Daryl a show right there in the hallway. “It doesn’t seem like poor form to you to have me attend a Stone Foundation function with Gage right at my elbow?”

I wanted to go to this groundbreaking of the newest Stone Foundation center in Poughkeepsie like I wanted someone to break off my right arm and beat me with it. Tristan’s family had established a foundation to help local food banks across the country when he was a small child, and since the plane crash, he’d been the representative of the foundation. With his disappearance, somehow I’d been chosen as the one person to attend functions, even if I stuck out like a sore thumb around all those well-dressed men and women there to ironically celebrate helping starving people each of whom could probably live an entire year on one of their fur coats.

Daryl twisted his face into an expression that told me he was considering what I’d said. “Fair enough. Maybe you should do this without him as the boyfriend, but he and West will still be there as your bodyguards.”

At least I didn’t have to perform my rendition of the whore of Babylon again. That was something.

“Fine. What time do I have to be ready?”

“The groundbreaking is at eleven, and the luncheon is at noon.”

“Do I have to attend both? I’m not really what people want at these kinds of things anyway.”

Nodding, Daryl agreed with me for the second time that morning. “No. I think you can leave after the groundbreaking ceremony.”

“Thanks. Do me a favor and tell everyone I’ll be ready to go in a little while,” I said quietly as I closed the door on Daryl and all the responsibilities of the world.

A half hour later, I’d transformed myself into the well-dressed representative of the Stone Foundation, complete with charcoal grey designer suit, black pumps, and hair up in a bun. Whenever I dressed like this, I felt like an actor in a costume. I wasn’t a suit kind of woman, especially these days when I spent more time in yoga pants than in anything else. However, this was what was expected, so this was what I wore.

I saw by the looks on my bodyguards’ faces that they were surprised by my look too, but unlike when Gage and I pretended to be together, I said nothing, preferring not to discuss the performance I had to give today. It seemed like I was constantly acting these days. If it wasn’t trying to convince the world that I’d moved on, it was trying to make everyone around me believe that I wasn’t falling apart a little more every day Tristan stayed away.

All this acting was exhausting.

Hiding behind big sunglasses, I smiled for the camera as a group of men in suits symbolically dug gold shovels into the ground for the new center, and then I quickly tried to escape the entire affair. As I stepped back into the shadows behind a tree and away from the throng of people who loved occasions like this mingling on the lawn, I ran into a woman and her son I’d noticed when I arrived. They were obviously out of place, dressed in clean but inexpensive clothes that looked nothing like what any of the other attendees wore, including myself. The mother appeared to be in her thirties, but I couldn’t be sure because her face was wrinkled far more than most women’s that age. Her dark blonde hair was brushed back into a barrette clipped at her nape, and she wore a navy blue pantsuit and black flats. The little boy couldn’t have been more than six or seven, and he wore dress clothes, which looked completely out of place on him.

I apologized for bumping into the woman and saw the hollow look in her pale blue eyes. Instantly, I knew what she was there for. She and her son were to be the day’s poster children for the success of the Stone Foundation. Cleaned up from what her life was in reality, she was there to act as much as I was.

Looking down at her son, I smiled. “What’s your name, little man?”

“Michael,” he said sweetly. “Michael Williams.”

“It’s nice to meet you, Michael. Are you having a good time?”

“Yeah. We’re going to have lunch soon,” he said with a grin, proudly showing off the space where his missing front tooth used to be.

I lifted my head and smiled at his mother. “Thank you for coming. The Stone Foundation appreciates it.”

She smiled at me and extended her hand to shake mine. “Thank you. I’m Gloria Williams. My son and I are thankful for all the help your foundation has given us. We’re getting back on our feet now, and it’s the help of the people with the Stone Foundation that’s made that possible.”

I didn’t know why, but I felt the need to tell her the truth about how much the foundation wasn’t mine. “It’s actually my fiancé’s family’s foundation. I’m sure he’d be happy to see that it was doing the work it was meant to.”

“Please tell him thank you for us.”

I smiled at the thought of telling Tristan anything. “I promise I will.”

A hand gently touched my shoulder, and I turned to tell Gage that I was fine and didn’t need to be rescued from this woman and her son. I knew he was just doing his job, but neither of these kind souls were a danger to me in any way. Ready to chase him away, I saw instead Karl Dreger standing there looking down at me, one eyebrow arched and making his expression sinister looking. His snakelike eyes peering out of his large head instantly terrified me.