Chapter Twelve
Lila
Seven came sooner than I expected.
It hadn’t been a pleasant day, and Adam’s unexpected visit that morning had been the highlight, a quick moment where I’d forgotten for a while just how sad my reality had become in the last few months. How I savored that.
Adam was still the boyish, handsome, and determined guy I remembered.
That fact dominated my thoughts as I worked my way through three clients and another seventy thousand dollars off my debt.
Maybe it hadn’t all been just a passing phase, a girlish crush on a teenage boy.
God, I had been so ridiculous back then, so convinced I’d find a knight in shining armor one day who’d take me away from all my problems and treat me like a princess.
At one point, I’d even told myself Adam was that person.
What a fool I’d been to believe any of that.
The last half year had wiped away any vestige of chivalrous fantasy. No hero on a trusty steed would come to rescue me. I had to do that myself.
Still, it would be nice to catch up with someone like Adam…
I leaned across the sink and examined my lipstick.
I’d picked a matte red to go with the black, draped dress that had come the day before in a new shipment from the online fashion rental company.
It hugged my body without showing too much cleavage, but it would have never worked for most of the agency’s clients.
I would have normally sent it back but felt grateful to have a place to wear it—even just to dinner with an old friend.
That’s what he is, Lila. Just a friend. Don’t forget that.
I braced my hands on either side of the sink and repeated those words out loud. He was a friend, nothing more. Friends went out for drinks and dinner all the time. Friends had long chats, especially after years away from each other. Friends spent time together.
So why had I obsessed over every smudge of my makeup, every thread of my dress, every curl in my hair?
I was still fiddling with my lipstick when the doorbell rang about ten minutes later.
A pulse of anticipation ran up my neck. I knew Adam stood on the other side of the door; the moment I’d looked forward to all day had finally arrived.
This wasn’t a date, only a dinner to catch up, but the butterflies in my stomach weren’t fooled.
“Hi there,” I said, opening the front door as casually as possible.
I held a gray crocodile clutch in one hand, and I’d added my best pair of strappy nude heels to the outfit, the ones that made me appear two inches taller.
I stepped across the threshold and shut the door behind me before he got a good look inside the house.
“Hi.” He smiled. “All ready for dinner?”
“I’m famished.”
And I was. None of the clients that day had allowed me to eat—a first. Not even appointment number three, who licked thick, dark chocolate sauce off my stomach after I’d artfully painted it between a silky apricot-colored bralette and matching panties.
My refrigerator didn’t have much inside it either, except for a few wilting boxes of takeout, some condiments, and a decent bottle of wine I’d found on sale at Publix a few weeks before.
“We have a reservation at Café L’Roque,” Adam said as he escorted me from the front steps to the crunchy gravel on the driveway. His Bentley awaited us.
I stopped short of the car. “We do?”
He nodded.
“Impressive. Café L’Roque is always busy on weekends during the season, and people can hardly get in there.”
“That true?” he asked as he walked to the passenger side of the sedan. “They didn’t seem to mind accommodating me.”
I heard the pride in his voice as we got into the car, and even saw a hint of it on his face.
I had to admit, he deserved to feel good about his place in the world, especially considering all I remembered about him.
Adam’s childhood and teenage years had been horrible to say the least, spent bouncing around foster homes in Palm Beach County, attending four different elementary schools, two middle schools, and two high schools as he moved from place to place.
When he arrived at our house that fateful winter break, his dad was in jail for armed robbery and his mother hadn’t seen him in five years.
I remembered how that stood out to me, the idea of losing contact with both parents before the age of sixteen.
Too bad I hadn’t known at the time what was in store for myself—he might have been able to give me some advice.
But I also didn’t know what he’d think if he knew the truth. The old Adam, the younger boy I had believed I loved, always seemed to have me on a pedestal above all others. He might not react very well to how far I’d fallen off it.
Adam dropped the Bentley off at the valet stand and helped me up the stairs to the restaurant.
Café L’Roque was a Palm Beach staple, a bastion of fine dining in the center of town that celebrated having one of the most extensive caviar menus on the island, and a wine list from the best vineyards in Europe.
A hostess with a clipped Eastern European accent and a dress tight enough to show off her unnatural breasts led us to a table in the far back of the room, a U-shaped booth that offered views of the entire dining room.
We passed two senators, a congressman, and a B-list actress on our way to the seats.
My breath caught in my throat. Just a year earlier, I would have thought nothing of mingling with the cream of Palm Beach society, because I had been one of them.
Now, that life felt so far away.
“Will this do?” Adam asked after the hostess left our table. As he spoke, a back waiter filled our glasses with sparkling Perrier.
“It’s the best table in the room.”
Adam grunted. “I like having the best, Lila.”
“I can see that.”
He fixed his eyes on me. “Thank you for coming tonight. It’s a special night for both of us.”
“Special, huh?” I gave him an amused smile, relaxing more in his presence. I liked being around him, and I had almost forgotten how to feel that way about anything.
“Well, we are old friends. And we’ve been through a lot.”
“You’re right.”
“Might as well celebrate surviving.”
My stomach lurched. “I’d say time has been kinder to you than it has been to me, Adam.”
“Nonsense.” He drank some of his water. “I thought you were gorgeous when we were kids, Lila, and I still think that. Time has been better to you than you think.”
“Thanks,” I replied, but I couldn’t shake the shame I felt.
I appreciated the compliment and knew he was referring to my looks.
But that was the superficial, not who I was inside.
The girl inside felt raw and naked and betrayed.
Earlier that day, I’d allowed a construction magnate from Miami to watch me take a bath, calling me all kinds of derogatory Spanish names as I washed myself with a loofah and body wash that smelled like cotton candy.
It had been one of the slowest baths of my life, and then I’d watched him jerk off into a towel.
Even though he hadn’t touched me, I’d felt violated.
When I’d emerged from the room, I’d felt pruny, annoyed, and wondered how much longer my arrangement would exclude sex with a client.
The last few had come close to demanding it.
And a small but growing voice in the back of my head told me I wouldn’t be able to get away much longer without having to submit.
What would that make me if I did? What would that say about my character?
If only the house would sell. The nightmare would be over.
Don’t think about that right now, Lila.
“What are you in the mood for?” I asked, pushing away my shame. “The last time I ate here, I had the rack of lamb.”
That had been almost two years earlier.
“Lamb sounds wonderful.” Adam opened his menu. “And so does steak.”
I studied my own leather-encased menu, which listed the evening’s appetizers and entrees in French and English, along with suggested wine pairings.
Deciding on mundane tasks like what to eat would certainly take the edge off my anticipation about the night.
The fact was, I didn’t know what to say to Adam after all these years, especially now that we were together again.
After a few minutes, we ordered sauvignon blanc from France, escargot to begin, and entrees of duck and pork tenderloin.
“To old friendship.” Adam raised his glass, and I followed him.
“And to success,” I added. It sounded like the right thing to add.
We clinked glasses and he stared at me over his glass as he drank the first taste of the wine. I didn’t know what I saw behind his eyes.
“So.” I looked away and pretended to concentrate on the tables before us, filling up with some of Palm Beach’s most connected and powerful people.
I saw Mitzy Reese at a corner table looking fresh from a new round of Botox and Luke Rothschild at the hostess stand, checking in with his fiancée, Natalie, for a dinner reservation.
Another pang of regret pushed through me, and that time, I couldn’t hold it back.
I was faking it. Faking everything—acting okay, pretending I was the same privileged socialite I’d been months before. I didn’t recognize that woman anymore.
I cleared my throat, feeling myself faltering. “Tell me more about InstaPost.” I moved my gaze back to Adam, who hadn’t stopped staring at me. “How did it all begin?”
“You know I always liked to read, and I liked school, so in a way developing a media company like this made sense.” He replaced his glass on the table.
“Preston and I were assigned to the same base after we finished basic training. He became my best friend, my only friend. He was there that day, too…When…” He closed his eyes, shook his head, and reopened them.
“Never mind. You don’t want to hear this. No one does.”
“I do,” I insisted. “Whatever it is…I want to know.”