Everything for Us (The Bad Boys #3)(38)
Author: M. Leighton

The blow is crushing. The disappointment of reality sits on my chest like a five-hundred-pound gorilla. My suspicion was correct.

“Okay, thank you. I’ll be in touch with a date when you can open up my schedule.”

“Yes, ma’am.” I’m ready to hang up when Del stops me. “Marissa?”

“Yes?”

“Is everything okay? I mean, you can talk to me if you need to.”

I can tell her offer is genuine. If anything, I think her kindness actually hurts. It’s not that I’ve ever been mean to Deliane, but I’ve never treated her as anything more than an employee. A lowly one. I’ve never given her more thought than a go-between for all the people I know and the activities we’re involved in. She could’ve been automated for all the credit I gave her.

But now I see very clearly that she’s a real person, one much better than me. She’s extending an offer of help and comfort to someone who’s never given her more than the most basic of polite gestures. She’s rushing to the aid of someone who doesn’t merit her consideration.

“Thank you, Del. I might take you up on that,” I say, even though I know I won’t. She doesn’t deserve me unloading on her.

“You’ve got my cell. Call me anytime.”

“I appreciate that, Del. I’ll be in touch.”

After we disconnect, I let my phone drop to the carpet between my feet. I think back over the years since I graduated law school and passed the bar exam. I think of all the accounts my father has “brought me in on” or told me he’s “grooming me to take over.” Each one, for one reason or another, ended up being someone else’s baby while he moved me on to something else. Every meeting he ever asked me to attend was more an informal kind of meet-and-greet than anything with teeth, anything where we actually reviewed numbers or talked real business. What my father has been grooming me for is to be the wife of an important person. He’s taught me how to conduct myself in the company of some of the richest, most powerful people in the world. He’s taught me how to raise tons of money for causes that make us look like decent people, and he’s taught me how to throw a party with the best of them. But not once has he ever trusted me with something that’s actually important, that requires the knowledge I went to school for years to obtain.

Not. Once.

All along, he’s seen me as the wife of a politician, one he can carry in his hip pocket to use for favors and influence when he needs it. He’s raised and groomed a pawn, nothing more. And the realization is devastating.

All sorts of random memories come crashing down around me—my father asking me to sing for an Asian diplomat when I was a child; my father refusing to let me date any boys other than the sons of his influential friends; my father getting me into law school when I was still undecided on my major; my father introducing me to all the “right friends” in law school; my father asking me to wear a nearly transparent dress and “forget” my underwear when I went with him to dinner on an oil tycoon’s yacht. I was seventeen at the time. I didn’t object because I was always so happy when Daddy gave me attention, I didn’t care what it was he was asking me to do. It’s been that way all my life, anything to win Daddy’s approval, anything for a smile or a pat on the head. As far back as I can remember, I’ve been vying for his attention, begging for his love and doing anything to get the tiniest drop of it. I didn’t even realize how twisted it was or what a monster I was becoming. Like my father, I gave no thought to anyone but myself and saw everything and everyone as a means to an end. My end. My father’s end.

I’ve been the ultimate party favor since I was able to “perform.” A whore. Not always for money and not always using sex, but a whore nonetheless.

Like living a lifetime in a daze, I feel shell-shocked and bruised, bruised by the harsh light of reality.

Since the kidnapping, I’ve felt like a stranger in the world around me. Now I know why. It was a lie. All of it. One big lie.

Feeling claustrophobic, I slip on some slacks and heels and grab my purse. I need to focus on something real, something genuine. If not, I might shatter like a crystal goblet, explode into a shower of diamond-bright drops that hit the ground and disappear into nothingness.

Tears are streaming down my face as I climb into my car and race down the street, away from the familiar. My phone signals that another text has come in. I glance at it and my heart squeezes even tighter inside my chest.

Two words. From someone I’ll never be good enough for.

U ok?

I ignore it as my sobs fill the quiet interior of the car. Purposely, I think of Olivia. I owe her what little bit of goodness I might have inside me. I owe it to her to get the dangerous associations of her boyfriend’s family off the streets, to get her out of harm’s way if I can.

I guide the car to the jeweler that my family and most of the partners at the firm have always used to buy gems and settings that dazzle. I laugh bitterly as I pull into a spot outside the small, unassuming shop.

I’d always thought we were in the business of justice, albeit the corporate, financial kind. But that was never the case, I feel sure. I think on some level, I always suspected my father used influential people to get certain things, but I never wanted to see it. I never really wanted to see past the beautiful lie of the outside. I went along with it all. I let him use me in some of his manipulations. Because I was weak.

Like the jewelry my father purchased here, I was nothing more than a shiny bauble to dangle in front of just the right people. Without even realizing it, I was in the business of bedazzling people. And I learned from the best how to use something bright and shiny to distract others from what lies beneath. I’m nothing more than a diamond-encrusted space. I’m hollow on the inside. Full of nothingness. Empty.

Wiping my eyes, I drag myself from behind the wheel. A delicate bell signals my entrance to the store. An attendant greets me in the foyer. She calls me by name.

“Ms. Townsend, so nice to see you again. What can we help you find today?”

“Something emerald. For a friend.”

The shop is set up so that there are different foci in different areas. You can walk from room to room via adjoining doors, but if you know what you want, an attendant will simply take you to the room with the type of jewelry or stone you’re looking for. I know from past experiences that emeralds, rubies, and pearls are in the third room on the left, so I follow the girl down the long, wide hallway, glancing in at each luxuriously appointed room as we pass.