by Lisa Lace
“Don’t be stupid, Ethan. You attract the gold-diggers because you don’t want to commit. If you wanted a real, down-to-earth girl, you’d be able to find one.”
“And then bring her to my penthouse and watch New York corrupt her? My life isn’t as simple as it used to be.”
“You might be a billionaire, but you work each day and come home each night just like everyone else. How complicated is that?”
“I guess it’s hard for you to understand.”
Jennifer frowns at me. “You think I don’t understand ‘complicated?’ My kid’s dad ran off before I’d even given birth. When I started dating again, I was a single mom with trust issues. I know what complicated is. What’s complicated about Ethan Steele? Ditch the Italian chick, and you’re completely available. You could have whoever you want. Maybe you could forget the PR strategies and actually fall in love.”
“I think my time for love has passed.”
“Pfft. Come off it, Ethan. Are you telling me you’ve never been in love? Ever?”
She wears the white dress that I’ve tried so hard to capture in paint on countless rainy Sundays.
It’s not formal enough for a prom, but Lily doesn’t care. She’s wearing a pair of white wedge sandals and has worked crystal flower clips into her hair. Her eyes are brushed lightly with a dusky purple eyeshadow, her mascara-covered lashes long and dark. She has a gaze that won’t let me go.
The only other makeup she wears is a light, sheer gloss on her lips. She hasn’t hidden a single freckle. Her hair is loose to her shoulders, a natural, warm blonde. The chiffon dress floats from her hips and elbows. She looks like an ethereal creature from a fairy tale.
The other girls must have spent hundreds of dollars on their floor-length gowns and jewelry. Their hair is professionally styled into elaborate designs. They look expensive, but that’s all. I see them sneering at Lily, who looks like she’s wandered in from Coachella, but her beauty is incomparable.
I couldn’t afford a limousine, so we meet on the steps at the front of the school. I bought my suit from the thrift store. It doesn’t fit well; the sleeves end about three inches from my wrists, and the bow tie is too loose, hanging like a wilted flower. Yet when Lily sees me, her smile is pure delight. “Hello, handsome!”
“Lily, you look beautiful.”
No limo. All I have is a corsage. White, like her dress, with pink ribbons. It’s her favorite color.
I slide it onto her wrist, and she looks like she’s about to burst from happiness. I hold my arm out to her, and we enter.
At first, I feel awkward on the dance floor. I’m older than these high school kids, but soon, all I see is Lily.
We dance until midnight. When the last love song has played, we head to the hotel I’ve booked. I’ve saved for months to pay for it, but I want it to be perfect.
The door clicks shut behind us, and we’re alone.
Lily is standing there in her floating dress with something new in her eyes. I see her now, more as a woman than a teenager. She is headstrong and full of life, and I know I should walk away instead of leading her on when I know the plans I’m making.
Instead, I step closer and take her by the shoulders. “Is this what you want, Lily?”
She replies with a kiss, and I don’t doubt myself anymore. I pick her up in my arms. She wraps her legs around me; this time not a playful hello, but a beckoning.
I shrug, nonchalant. “No. I’ve never been in love.”
Lily
I call Ethan for the thousandth time and it goes straight to voicemail again. I try once more, and this time an automated voice tells me this number is no longer in service.
My heart sinks, and panic sets in.
Where is he?
This morning, I went to the place where he rents a room, and they told me that he doesn’t live there anymore.
It doesn’t make sense. Ethan wouldn’t just leave.
I wonder if he’s in trouble. Maybe he couldn’t afford his rent—but he’d tell me if that was true, wouldn’t he? He knows that my family’s door is always open to him. After his mom died, he was always staying at our place. None of us liked to think of him alone in a stranger’s home.
I’ve been everywhere I can think of to find him: Rumsey Park, Molly’s Café, where we go when it’s too cold out to wander around Payson—even his mom’s grave. I can’t find him.
For the last two hours, I haven’t been able to stop crying. I’m terrified that something has happened to him. This isn’t like Ethan.
I go to the police station. They ask me questions about Ethan. The woman police officer’s face is condescending when she tells me that a missing person doesn’t end his lease and pack his bags. “Sorry, sweetie,” she says. “It sounds like he’s moved on.”
I add the finishing touches to the sculpture—a bust of a woman, her hands trailing across her face. I’m not sure whether she looks seductive or lost, but I’ve sculpted something in her expression that came from my own.
Wiping my hands on my T-shirt, I switch off the light to my living room. The bust is on a turntable set-up on some dust sheets, right in the middle of my space. I can’t afford an art studio, so this is where I work. There is modeling plaster everywhere. My eyes wander to the thin crack snaking up the inside wall, and I wonder whether the plaster could fill it.
It’s nine at night, and it’s time I finish working. The people downstairs complain when I work the turntable too late; my foot on the pedal sounds like I’m dancing with lead shoes, apparently.
I head into my tiny kitchen, switch on the light, and smile when Biscuit comes running toward me, purring. She knows it’s time for dinner.
I set some food down for her and look inside my tiny under-counter refrigerator. Empty, apart from a splash of milk and a handful of chili peppers that Chloe grew on her balcony. She swears they cleanse the chi or something like that.
“Looks like I need to get some groceries, Biscuit. You’re a lucky girl, you know that? I never forget to get food for you.”
I open my top cupboard and pull out a box of cookies. I change into my favorite pajama shorts—the ones with the cartoon paint splotches—and an oversized knit sweater.
Cross-legged on my bed, I’m about to turn on the TV when my phone beeps. “Oh, look, Biscuit—it’s Destiny calling.”
I look down at the screen and laugh when I read the message.
—I was waiting to see if you’d send the first message. Hello, soulmate.
“The guts on this guy!”
I almost call Chloe to laugh with her at the scammer’s opening message. Instead, I grin and begin to eagerly type back. Chloe will die laughing when I show her these.
—Forgive me, but I’m having trouble believing that you’re Vincent Oswald.
—Why?
I shake my head in disbelief, my thumb skimming the keys.
—What would a billionaire be doing on a dating app like Destiny?
—Research.
Laughing, I consider that this scammer has put some serious thought into his backstory. Vincent Oswald getting the dirt on Ethan Steele by checking out his dating app. That’s pure gold.
I throw my cell to the end of my mattress and switch on the TV. It’s playing an infomercial for some gadget that cuts the perfect carrot. I’m bored out of my skull.
Bored enough that when my cell buzzes again, I grin and decide to engage.
—Still don’t believe me?
—If you’re Vincent Oswald, prove it.
A minute passes without a response, and I think I’ve got him on the rocks. I roll my eyes. Then my cell vibrates once more.
“This is going to be good, Biscuit. What do you think the proof is? Some stock photo image of a pile of money? Some Wikipedia facts about where Oswald was born?”
I open the message, and there’s an image attached. Clicking it full-screen, I’m not sure how to react. Instinctively, I laugh—this has got to be Photoshopped—and then I lean forward and examin
e the picture more closely. “What the heck?”
It’s a photograph of Vincent Oswald, the Vincent Oswald, holding up a piece of paper with my name handwritten on it: Hello, Lily Miller.
Too easy to fake. The Vincent in the picture is wearing the same tailored suit that he wears in almost every photo shoot. The backdrop is a generic, stark white. This photo could have come from anywhere, and almost anybody could Photoshop in a piece of paper.
I challenge him.
—Vincent Oswald wears a suit even when he’s at home? Wow, what a bore! Pajamas or I call fake.
Mere moments later, a picture arrives. There he is, raven-haired and stormy-eyed, wearing nothing but a pair of long pajama pants and no shirt. I bite down on my lip; I’ve never seen photos of Vincent Oswald like that before.
Then again, how hard is it to copy and paste Vincent Oswald’s head onto some model’s body? I mean, that has to be a model, with abs like that.
My phone pings with a follow-up message.
—And you didn’t even buy me a drink.
I laugh from shock. This scammer is seriously committed to the hoax. Challenging him is fun. I wonder if his Photoshop pictures can keep up with my demands. If he takes a second too long, I’ll know for sure it is all lies.
—I want a picture with a banana on your head.
I’m filled with gleeful anticipation as I wait for the fake Vincent’s response. I’m having fun now, thinking of the most ridiculous pose I can, imagining the scammer desperately searching for a picture of a banana.
The response is almost instantaneous. I open the picture, and for the first time, I feel a flicker of doubt that this is a hoax. There is Vincent Oswald, shirtless, with a banana on his head.
—Cross-eyed.
This is turning into a bizarre game of Simon Says, but he delivers. In my inbox is an image of Vincent Oswald in his pajama pants, with a banana on his head and eyes crossed. I would have thought that the scammer was using the same image and just adding to it, but Vincent’s pose was slightly different in each picture; the lighting changed, the banana turned ninety degrees on his head.
My hand slowly covers my open mouth, and I shake my head. “It can’t be.”
—I’m hoping about now that you’re not from the New York Insider. Not my best angle.
Either this was the fastest-fingered scammer in the history of internet hoaxes, or the real Vincent Oswald has a sense of humor.
—I filled in the same security profile as you did. Have I satisfied your doubts?
My hands are shaking now as I reply.
—I don’t know what to think.
—I guess there’s only one way I can prove myself once and for all, isn’t there? Let me take you to dinner.
Ethan
“This champagne is warm.”
“What do you expect, Lorina? It’s being stored in a car.”
“A limousine, Ethan. And what’s the point in paying for a luxury car if you don’t get the luxury of a cold drink?” She knocks pointedly against the window separating us from the driver, as though it’s his fault the champagne isn’t chilled.
“I’m sure there’ll be plenty to drink inside.”
“I’m trying to calm my nerves, Ethan. There are going to be cameras everywhere. This could turn into something big for me.”
“Mm-hmm.”
She scowls and casts me a disdainful glare. “Oh yes, I forget. You don’t give a damn about my career.”
“You’re my guest to a charity banquet. It’s hardly the cover of Vogue.”
“You’re incredibly callous, Ethan. Everybody who’s anybody will be there tonight. I could get noticed.”
Maybe someone will take you off my hands. “Let’s hope.”
“What’s the charity again?”
“Stepping Stones.”
“Never heard of them.”
“They donate to kids from impoverished families to help them get an education and healthcare.”
“Like anybody cares. I bet there’s going to be zero press coverage. It’s not even one of the major charities.”
“That’s not the point of the night, Lorina. We’re raising money for a good cause.”
“You tell yourself that, Ethan. This is just another PR move for you, too.”
I clench my jaw and turn away from her. I don’t talk to Lorina about the donations I regularly make to similar charities. She’d be horrified that I was giving money away to children instead of investing in her “career.”
We arrive at Belton Hall and step out of the limousine. Lorina moves frustratingly slow toward the front steps, soaking up every camera flash like a dying plant in need of sunlight.
She looks the part, all right. She’s dressed to the nines in a slinky bodycon dress made of champagne lace. Her lips are a slash of red, her eyes thick with makeup, making her blinks slow. Every now and then, her eyelids stick together. I can almost hear the sound of them snapping apart again.
It repulses me.
I close my eyes to drown out my irritation, and the image of a freckled girl in a flowing white dress crosses my mind. I open them again, and I’m at the great entrance of Belton Hall, surrounded by women wearing gowns fancier than the prom-night garb that seemed so lavish eleven years ago.
We are checked off the guest list and step inside.
Lorina is right, everybody who is anybody is here. Politicians, celebrities, businessmen—events like these are for the one percent. If you don’t have a million in your bank account, don’t bother.
I turn to Lorina. I almost start to tell her about how I used to sneak into places like this when I was young—I vividly remember a midnight swim at a golf course—but I hold my tongue. Those anecdotes are too precious to waste on a woman who doesn’t know me.
She’s beaming now that she’s in her element.
“If you hadn’t invited me tonight, I would have died, Ethan. I feel sorry for everyone who didn’t make the cut.” She looks back over her shoulder at me as she shrugs smugly. “Sucks to be poor and ugly.”
A waiter offers me a glass of champagne, and I accept, making a point to hand a crystal glass to Lorina too. She takes it from me, and then stands with it slightly raised, dead still, as if someone was photographing her as the dazzling debutante at her first ball. I look around. Nobody is taking her picture. She’s hoping somebody will.
“Ethan!”
I turn and smile broadly. It’s Benjamin Harris, one of my first big clients. He shakes my hand warmly. “How are you, old friend?”
“Benjamin! Very well, thank you. Have you met Miss Lorina Valencia?”
He kisses her hand and plays at awe. “You are a vision, Miss Valencia. What a delight to have you with us this evening.”
Lorina slowly turns to me, and a smug smile creeps onto her face. It vanishes when Benjamin withdraws his attention from her and turns it back to me.
“Your old college friend is here tonight. Oswald. Yes, Vincent Oswald. You’re acquaintances, aren’t you?”
I speak through gritted teeth and a forced smile. “Our paths have crossed before.”
“He’s a good person to know in your industry. I understand he does very well.”
“Yes, he does.”
“It’s been a pleasure to see you again, Ethan. I believe my wife is waiting for me to enter the dining hall. Perhaps I’ll catch you again after the meal.”
“Of course. Nice talking to you, Benjamin.”
After he leaves, I turn back to Lorina, scowling. “That snake is here.”
“Who?”
“Vincent Oswald.”
I see a spark of recollection in her eyes. Her finger traces the rim of her champagne flute. “Ah, yes. I’ve seen his picture. He smiles. He’s handsome.”
“He dated Beverly Ritchie, you know.” I throw in the comment and enjoy seeing Lorina’s face grow jealous. Beverly Ritchie is the current “it-girl” in the fashion world.
“Handsome, but an idiot, then.” She casts me a scathing glar
e. “Seems to be an occupational hazard.”
I’m going to end things with Lorina. The thought gives me the strength to bite back a smart-ass response. She might be a public relations dream, but she’s my personal nightmare, and this farce of a relationship has exhausted me.
“Enjoy it while it lasts.” I mutter under my breath so she can’t hear me.
We head into the banquet hall, and I’m on high alert. Somewhere among the crowd is Vincent. I scan the faces around me, looking for his devious eyes and self-satisfied grin.
I spot him on the other side of the hall. He seems to be here alone, but undeterred. He looks up and catches my eye. That smirk grows on his face, making my blood boil. He raises his glass in my direction tauntingly. I turn away.
We eat a delicious, lavish meal, accompanied by a live string quartet. I make decisive, strategic small talk with the businessmen at my table. Lorina flirts shamelessly with every male who looks her way. I don’t care. I’m done with her antics and self-centered charade.
Dinner ends, and we file out into another hall, as a different orchestra strikes up. “Ethan, shall we dance?”
“Not right now.”
Lorina scowls at me and picks herself up defiantly. Seconds later, she’s whirling across the dance floor with a stranger, staring daggers at me every time the music brings her toward my table. I ignore her.
The next time I look up, it’s because I hear a chair being pulled out. It’s Vincent. He casually takes a seat beside me.
“Vincent.”
“Ethan.” He raises his eyebrows. “I’m surprised to see you here tonight. I’d have thought you’d be too busy trying to steal my clients. You’re usually so prompt with payback.”
“I know you’re losing money on Bates. Take him. Waste your own time.”
I lift my eyes to look at him. It’s been a while since Vincent and I have been face-to-face. He’s as enigmatic as I remember. All around, eyes are drawn to him. He’s hardly aged a day since we first met at Columbia.