He laughed. “Usually, believe it or not, I’m the one people ask permission from. Anyway, I’m not even drunk. This beer? It’s the only pint you’ve served me tonight, and it’s full. I don’t come here to get pissed, Aurora. I come here because of you.”
I paused, my eyes glued to his pint. He was telling the truth. I knew because I served him every night. It occurred to me that he was the exact opposite of Mal—the fancy clothes, the properness, the sobriety. Maybe he was what I needed to rid my mind of lingering thoughts of the Irish poet.
Which meant Callum was also the exact opposite of my father.
Which meant that for the sake of my sanity, I should at least give him a chance.
He was my redo. My second chance. My redemption.
“So? Would you give me one date?” he begged. “I promise to prove to be wonderfully unstable, with a dash of incompetence, and provide you with plenty of unpredictability.”
“Fine.” I rolled my eyes with a giddy smile.
“Ha!” He slapped the bar in triumph. “It was the unstable bit that did it, wasn’t it?” He settled himself back down, pushing his beer away like he finally could, like it revolted him. “Always gets the ladies,” he said.
I take a deep breath, meeting Callum’s eyes in the ballroom. “I’m sure you’re about to tell me all about the whores and the dicks,” I say, his erection throbbing between my legs through his cigar pants and my dress.
For the record: Callum lied that night at the bar. Not one bone in his entire body is messy, risky, or uncalculated. As for the birthmark? His skin is as unmarred as a blank new sheet of paper.
Callum Brooks is attractive in a Nantucket-summer-house, two-point-five-children, Polo-shirts-and-golf-tournaments kind of way, with his pulled-up white socks, sandy blond hair, impressive height, and runner’s body. Summer, my best friend, likes to joke that he looks like David Duke’s dream candidate.
He looks into my eyes. “I’m a serial monogamist, thirty-two, and have been dating you for almost a year. Commitment doesn’t scare me, Rory. If I have it my way, you’ll move in with me tomorrow morning.”
I unbutton his blazer and loosen his tie, just to do something with my hands. I like Callum, too, but a year is still early in our relationship.
It took you twenty-four hours to promise Mal your forever, says the voice in my head.
I was also new to dick and non-self-induced orgasms. I proceed to make excuses for my eighteen-year-old self.
Callum ushers me to our table. We sit down next to a bunch of suits from accounting and marketing, who munch on their first-course ceviche and talk about hedge funds and newly popular beach towns that are driving people out of the Hamptons. Callum slides into the conversation effortlessly, sticking to his club soda—as he does, still without a drop of alcohol. I focus on my colleagues, trying to put the man in the VIP area behind me.
As I said before, it’s not Mal. And, okay, fine. Let’s humor the craziest part of my brain and say that it is him—so what? He didn’t see me. And I’m not going to approach him, either. He’s probably in town for a few days. Mal’s extremely devoted to his family, his farm, his country. I knew that when I met him. That man wouldn’t move to America. Not even for a girl.
Especially not for a girl.
Definitely not this girl.
As for money? He doesn’t care for it. Never did.
I nibble on a breadstick, down two glasses of wine, and find myself engrossed in a heated conversation, which has taken a turn from beach houses to the best public restrooms in Manhattan (Crate and Barrel on the corner of Houston and Broadway is in the lead), when Whitney, Ryner’s bitch-from-hell assistant, sashays over to our table, her hips swinging like a pendulum. Her short, platinum bob is cut with a precision that implies her hairdresser uses a ruler. She is wearing some sort of BDSM gown made of leather stripes that cover her nipples and midriff, and not much more. She cocks her head, pouting her scarlet lips.
Everyone stops talking, because Whitney knows how to keep a secret like I know how to stay away from carbs. Exhibit: breadsticks and wine.
“Aurora,” she purrs, parking a manicured hand on her waist.
Everyone calls me Rory, but Whitney calls me Aurora. I made the mistake of expressing my dislike for my name once during a pop