I spent fifteen minutes reading through and mercilessly deleting every email in my inbox.
It didn’t make me feel any better.
I started making my daily rounds of gossip and fashion blogs—two things I had very little interest in, but had started reading about in an effort to educate myself. Since I started working at the club, I’d spent more time than I cared to think about reading reviews of different lipstick brands. It could be pretty overwhelming, but I figured there was a steep learning curve, and the only way it would become less confusing was if I kept plugging away.
And of course, because the universe hated me, the first website I opened had Carter’s face plastered all over it.
The headline screamed, “CAROLINA RAMOS STEPS OUT WITH INFAMOUS PLAYBOY CARTER SUTTON! BUY HER DRESS HERE!”
Infamous playboy?
I clicked on the link. Carolina Ramos was apparently a model of some sort, and she and Carter had been spotted at an art opening on Saturday night, climbing into a limo together.
That was the same day I’d woken up in his bed. I swallowed hard, fighting against the sudden lump in my throat. There was no reason for me to be surprised. We hadn’t made each other any promises. He was young and handsome and wealthy—of course he was keeping his options open. I would be doing exactly the same thing, if I had options.
I opened a new tab and typed “Carter Sutton playboy” into the search bar. The long list of results didn’t reassure me. I clicked on the first link. “Carter Sutton at it again: fourth girl in two weeks????” I clicked the back button and opened the next link. “Carter Sutton still delicious, seen flirting with Amber Reynolds at Nobu.” The third link: “Tina Lafayette spills all about hot night with Carter Sutton!”
It was one thing to know, intellectually, that you were nothing, just a convenient diversion. It was another thing entirely to have it spelled out for you in 48-point font.
Of course I meant nothing to Carter. Why would I? I was just another disposable woman, not even famous enough for the tabloids to pay attention to. He was nice to me, sure. His mother had probably raised him right. But niceness didn’t mean anything. Most people were nice, for the most part. It was the default state for social animals: don’t smack the monkey beside you, and it won’t smack you back.
None of my rationalizations made it hurt any less.
I should have stopped there. I should have closed the browser and read a magazine, gone outside, done anything to distract myself, but I was determined to find something that would let me hate him. I needed to hate him. It was the only thing that would make me feel better. I didn’t think it would be very hard. He went to a sex club for fun in his spare time; surely he’d done something morally repellent that would make me lose all interest in him. Tax evasion, exploitation of workers, human trafficking.
But the more I looked, the more I regretted it. He hadn’t done anything horrible, and worse, he’d done so many things that were good. He was the lowest-paid executive at his company. He had donated 50% of his income to charity in the last fiscal year. He volunteered—oh God—as a Big Brother to a kid from the Bronx. He was, in short, a prince among men, and as I read article after article describing the many noble things that he’d done, I realized that he wasn’t just a pretty face. There was more to him than the womanizing smeared all over the tabloids. He was a good person, the kind of man that I couldn’t help but admire.
I really wanted to be able to hate him.
I was still sitting there, staring blankly at my computer screen, when my doorbell buzzed. I sighed, and didn’t move. I didn’t feel like talking to anyone. It was probably just the mailman; he could leave whatever it was with the retired lady who lived on the first floor and was always home to collect everyone’s mail.#p#分页标题#e#
But the buzzing didn’t stop. It kept going, insistent, until I finally gave up and hauled myself off the couch. If there wasn’t some kind of emergency, I was going to be really annoyed.
I shuffled down the six flights of stairs to the building’s foyer. Someone was standing in the vestibule, a tall person, a man wearing a long overcoat—
Oh God.
I hauled open the door. Of course Carter had come to see me, when I was still in my pajamas and hadn’t even brushed my teeth yet. He came into the main lobby, shaking snow off his coat. I didn’t even know it had started snowing.
“How did you know where I live?” I asked, the first words that spilled out of my mouth when I opened it. I sounded suspicious, even to myself. Well, I was suspicious.