I stiffen. “He loves me,” I say on instinct. I believe every syllable. I never question it for a second, but I see the pity in his eyes again. He’s disbelieving…maybe that Connor can love anyone. But the joke is on Theodore Balentine. Connor is more than what he was. He learned to accept love into his life and to live by it, and that makes him a different man. It makes him a better one.
“You shift the pieces to suit yourself,” he explains. “Not many people can do that, and not many people want to play that game. I’m sure he values that aspect in you.”
The only person I’m questioning is Theo. Is he really as weak as he appears? If he’s aware that there’s a game at all—that people manipulate and deceive, that some of us choose to be snakes beneath the grass—then maybe he’s slithering too.
My bones harden, wary and cautious.
I think I’m mindfucking myself.
Or he’s mindfucking me.
Theo stands, the paper in his grasp. “I’ll give this to Mark and slander your name in the same breath, if that’s what you want.”
“It is.” My veins run cold.
He nods, and I watch him head to the glass door. He opens it, practically one foot outside before he pauses and turns his head to me.
“I want you to know,” he says, “that as uncomfortable as this all is…I hope we can be friends in the future.”
A rock lodges in my throat. Is he manipulating me? Why does it feel like he is? Maybe because it takes more than just words for me to trust people anymore. Friends. Those are hard to come by, even harder to believe are real.
“I’m not sure you possess the right qualities to ever be my friend,” I tell him, my voice colder than warm. All I want is loyalty, and part of me is as watchful of him as I’d be of a tornado’s funnel swirling in the sky.
He draws in a short breath, nods once, and exits the office.
I barely relax. My hands shake suddenly, and I busy my nerves by organizing Lo’s cluttered desk, alphabetizing his file folders in a neater stack. I try not to zero in on a certain memory, one that amplifies this situation, but it floods the hollow spaces of my mind.
My senior year of college, sometime after Spring Break in Cancun, Connor and I played Scrabble on my bed—our eyes bloodshot but neither of us could sleep. I didn’t want to be alone either, so I didn’t ask him to leave. We played the board game throughout the night. Lily’s sex addiction was just publicized a week prior, and our lives were changing faster than we could seize them.
Connor had less to lose from the onslaught of cameras, from the intrusiveness and bad press, but he had to make phone calls every day. I was trying to save my fashion company. He was trying to protect something else. At the time, I wasn’t sure who the calls were to or what they were about.
I remember forming a mediocre word with the wooden letters: Star. Too frazzled and spent to think well.
“How come you haven’t asked me?” Connor wondered, vaguely interested in his tiles. He focused solely on me.
“Your riddles are even more infuriating without sleep.” I was waiting for him to retort, you love my riddles.
Instead, he stayed serious. Not even a silhouette of a grin. “You’re not curious as to who I’ve been talking to?”
It had crossed my mind more than a few times. “It’s not my business,” I told him honestly. “Unless you’re cheating…” My eyes seared.
“No,” he said. “I would never cheat on you, Rose.”
I didn’t want to pry into personal parts of his life without his consent, just as I expected the same in return. We’d only been together for eight months, and it’d be a lie to say that I understood him completely. I only understood the real parts that he let me see.
He continued to ignore the board game. I couldn’t read his features. In hindsight, I think he was nervous to bring up a subject that we never discussed in depth.
I mentioned, “We haven’t even dated for an entire year. If it doesn’t affect me, you’re not obligated to tell me anything, Connor.” I wanted to know, but I wouldn’t force anything out of him. Not if it was personal. Not if it was so soul-bearing. I’d wait, just as I would’ve waited for Lily to open up about her sex addiction, even if it took her years to share with me.
He rested his forearm on his bent knee. “When we’re married, it could affect you.”
I snorted. “You’re delusional if you think I’d ever marry you, Richard.”
He almost grinned, but the truth weighed heavy on him. “Then in years, when we’re still together, it could still affect you.”
I swallowed hard.
“I want to tell you who I called. In case you’re ever pulled into this, I want to be completely, entirely, back-breakingly honest with you, Rose.”
I was scared. “Okay…”
He flipped a wooden tile between his fingers, mentally forming the precise words before he spoke them. “I’ve been locating all of my exes.”
My chest caved, but I let him talk before jumping to irrational conclusions.
“Only the guys I’ve been with,” he said in a short breath. His eyes flickered up to me, to gauge my reaction. I nodded, encouraging him to continue. “I paid them off, and they’ve signed a non-disclosure agreement. I couldn’t take the risk of any of them outing me to the media. It could make things more complicated with our relationship, and it could harm…” His reputation. Cobalt Inc. He wasn’t sure. I wasn’t sure. Connor barely expressed this part of his life with me back then, and he wasn’t ready to announce anything to the whole world. Not with unknown consequences hanging over his head.
So he did damage control and swept his past into dark corners.
I was glad he told me—that he’d even trust me with this information. It said more than enough. I would’ve supported his choices. “Okay,” I said more confidently.
He still hesitated. “One of them wouldn’t sign, no matter how much money I offered and no matter what I said.”
I froze. “Who?”
“Theodore Balentine.”
I remembered him. “What does he want?”
“Nothing,” Connor told me. “He said that he morally couldn’t do this to me. He didn’t want to slam me into a closet, even if I was the one shutting the door.” Connor shook his head repeatedly. He was pissed that a string was going to be left untied. “I just have to trust that he won’t say anything to the press.”
“If morality is his reasoning, he won’t.”
“People change,” Connor said, leaving me with those two haunting words before he returned to the board.
I have no idea if Theo has changed since then. It’s very likely corporate America has had some impact on him.
So even if I just acted like his boss…he silently holds all of the power.
17
CONNOR COBALT
Rose carries Jane on the crook of her hip around the kitchen, gathering a tray of mugs. The early start of Christmas morning is quiet with everyone still asleep at 8 a.m. and no time planned to wake. I enjoy this more than spending all day and night at my mother-in-law’s house, which was reserved for Christmas Eve.
I finish pouring pureed peaches into a pink bowl with a small spoon.
“There are three things you can never go without, Jane,” Rose says, setting six mugs along the wooden tray. “A great pair of heels, an outfit to your liking, and coffee. Or if you prefer hot tea, that will work too.”