He leans down to kiss my cheek before whispering in my ear, “Don’t worry about it. They just want the best for me. I doubt anybody would meet their standards right off the bat.”
Is that supposed to make me feel better?
“Paxton! Son, come over here.” Mr. Cleary waves him over from where he’s standing in front of a fireplace that takes up half the wall and, of course, is decorated with the heads of several species of animals.
Paxton shoots me a concerned look, but I wave it off.
“Go ahead,” I encourage, even as I shake inside.
I knew he would have to leave me alone eventually, but this soon? We’ve only been here maybe twenty minutes.
Standing with Mr. Cleary is another older man, and on his arm is a beautiful girl who can’t be much older than me.
And when Paxton approaches, her thoughts are written all over her face.
It would be one thing if her smile hardened. If her eyes narrowed. If she came off as some villainess from a movie of the week. I could hate her or at least pity her for having ideas about him. Clearly, he’s in her sights.
But she doesn’t look at him like a conquest, like she wants to mount his head above her fireplace.
No. She looks at him with longing. Her breath catches a little. She stands up straighter.
And when I see Mr. Cleary put an arm around Paxton’s shoulders and then his other hand on the girl’s shoulder, I know exactly what’s happening here.
And something tells me I know what they were fighting about the other day too. It was just as much about her as it was about me.
“Don’t they look nice together?” I didn’t notice Charlotte sneaking up next to me until just now. “They would make beautiful babies, wouldn’t they?”
“Yes, I bet they would.”
I won’t let her get the best of me. I can’t. Because she wants me to get upset. She wants me to feel insignificant. I might not have experience here in Texas, but I have all the experience in the world when it comes to catty women who think it’s their job to be gatekeepers, to keep outsiders where they belong.
I turn to her with a wide smile. “It’s a shame though. Paxton was just telling me the other day how he’s not interested in having babies just for the sake of having them.”
Her brows come together. “Well, men do say these things, but it isn’t always up to them, is it?” She winks like I’m in on the joke with her. “We women have our ways.”
Yes, because it’s so amusing, tricking a man into being a father when he doesn’t really want to be. Meanwhile, Blondie over there is making eyes at Paxton. There is absolutely no way of misinterpreting what she’s got in mind. It’s pretty obvious from Mr. Cleary’s body language and the way he laughs like a Texan Santa Claus that he has something in mind too. He wants this girl to be his daughter-in-law.
“Her daddy owns the second-biggest oil company in the southern half of the country,” Charlotte murmurs before slinking off to spread her evil someplace else.
All I can do is watch with a sinking heart as Paxton makes conversation with this girl who is so into him that she’s ready to hire a preacher on the spot.
I’m not going to leave. I’m not going to give Charlotte the satisfaction of knowing she drove me out.
I will, however, attempt to find a powder room or someplace else where I can be alone for a minute. All I see around me are curious, scornful eyes. There are more than a few whispers, and the word northerner is thrown around as I make my way through the crowd. How on earth do any of these people know who I am when Paxton has hardly introduced me to any of them?
Word spreads, and clearly, there’s been quite a bit of gossip in the twenty minutes since I arrived.
There’s a six-tier birthday cake in the dining room, on a table that looks like it could fit fifty people with no trouble. That’s just one of the many things I observe as I search for a powder room, getting more lost all the time.
“Excuse me.” I manage to catch the attention of a server, who points me in the right direction. I swear, this place should come with a map upon entry.
Powder room? It’s bigger than my bedroom. There’s even a sofa in it, one which I take advantage of with a grateful sigh. I’m wearing the same stilettos I wore on our first date, hoping to even out our heights a little, and my feet are already killing me.
What am I even doing here? I could kill Paxton right now for not warning me of this party in advance. I should’ve stayed at his house for the night, should’ve pretended to be sick or too sore from the horseback-riding incident.
This isn’t my world, and I’ll never belong in it. Not that I particularly want to either. But there’s something about having those differences and that perceived inadequacy thrown in my face that’s particularly painful.
There’s a gentle knock on the door.
“Kitty? Are you in there?”
“Yes.” I can’t pretend to not be here. Not only would that be childish, but it might also take Paxton the rest of the night to find me if he searches every room of the mansion.
“Can I come in? Or are you …”
I can’t help but snicker as I get up and unlock the door. “Welcome to my powder room,” I murmur before sitting down again.
He crouches in front of me, taking my hands in his. “I was worried when I couldn’t find you. Are you okay? There are so many people here. It’s a little overwhelming.”
It amazes me, the sincerity written all over his face. The concern, the worry. Like he genuinely has no idea.
“No offense, but I had a hard time, watching you and the girl your father wants you to marry standing together like that. Maybe that makes me petty, but I can’t help it. It was sort of a slap in the face.”
“That isn’t what that was about.”
“Listen, Charlotte explained it to me. I know that girl is who your father wants you to be with. I overheard enough of your fight the other day to know it’s true. And that’s fine; he’s allowed to feel the way he feels. But you didn’t bother bringing me with you when he called for you. You didn’t have to leave me behind.”
He frowns deeply, searching my face. “You told me to go over to him. You said it was okay.”
“Only because I didn’t want you to embarrass him. But you didn’t have to leave me on my own. You could have brought me to him, introduced me. Something. When Charlotte—”
He rolls his eyes. “Charlotte. She might as well have horns growing out of her head, that one. She’s not exactly the sweetest person.”
“No kidding. I had no idea.”
“She is not the sort of person I want to be with.” He kisses the backs of my hands. “Neither is Lana Jones, the girl you saw me with. She means nothing to me. None of these girls do. All they care about is keeping their money in the family, growing their wealth, popping out kids, and bossing their staff around. None of that interests me, and I would hope you knew that by now.”
“Paxton, you don’t strike me as the sort of person who could be accused of being naive. Don’t take it the wrong way, please, but that’s how you sound right now.”
“Nobody tells me how to live my life. I do what I want. I spend time with who I want to spend time with, who I like. That’s all there is to it.”