Grace nodded. “He was probably curious, wanted to see if you’d forgiven him.”
Lunch had been fine. Polite and professional. Had he really expected anything else?
“And he probably didn’t give any thought to how you’d feel about it,” Grace continued. “I’m sure he’s like most men—too focused on themselves to worry about anyone else.”
Selfish was exactly what my father was. When I was little and he didn’t turn up when he said he would, I would pretend to my mom it was no big deal. I remember understanding he made her cry, a lot, and that she’d cry more if I was disappointed. So I learned early to mask my hurt and upset. But it was soon replaced by anger and frustration I wasn’t so good at covering up.
I looked up from my glass to find Grace poised with a top up. “I’d be surprised if he was trying to sabotage your career,” she said as the wine glugged into my glass. “I’m sure he could have stopped you from getting a job on Wall Street very easily if that’s what he’d wanted to do. Did he tell Max to fire you?”
I shook my head. “I don’t think so. Just said he didn’t want me working on the account because he wanted to keep the personal and professional separate.”
Maybe Grace was right and it had been less about my father trying to ruin me and more about him protecting himself. Tears welled in my eyes. I covered my face with my free hand in some kind of futile effort to stop them from falling.
If I wasn’t so embarrassed by the fact my father hadn’t wanted me working on the account just like he hadn’t wanted me when I was born, things might be different. A regular client requesting a team change would have been bruising but I’d have gotten over it. My father requesting I didn’t work on his account if we were on good terms may have been bearable, but it was the Max element that made it so humiliating. Somehow, having told him about my father, having confided in him, I found his decision to accept my father’s wishes without question rusted the knife, made the cut deeper.
I’d wanted to work for Max King for as long as I could remember and I’d ruined it by sleeping with him.
“It’s such a betrayal,” I managed to choke out.
The cushions beside me dipped and I moved my hand as Grace took my wine from me. She grinned. “I’m sorry. I can’t have you spill red wine over this beautiful couch. Let it out, have a good cry, but don’t hold red wine while you’re doing it.”
I laughed, her concern over her couch breaking me out of my misery. “You’re right. This couch is too good to spoil for a man. You pretend you don’t like the finer things in life, my friend, but you can’t help generations of breeding.”
She took a sip of the wine she’d just taken from me. “I know. However hard I try, I can’t help reverting back to type. I have such good taste.”
I laughed. “You do. However much you fight it, you’re always going to be a Park Avenue princess.”
“There, you see? At least I can make you laugh with my ridiculous life choices.” Grace shifted, sitting cross-legged on the couch facing me, giving me her full attention. “Speaking of ridiculous choices, tell me about the resigning thing.”
“Max had a decision to make. He knew how I felt about my father and he didn’t hesitate to pick him over me.” I shook my head. “If he’d just been my boss, if I hadn’t told him how my father had abandoned me, I might have been able to swallow getting kicked off the JD Stanley account. But the way he so easily chose business over me was just too much.” It was as if he’d drawn a line in the sand and said my feelings would never be more important than his job.
“I didn’t realize it was that serious between you two,” she said.
“It’s not serious.” Perhaps it had become more serious than I’d realized.
“But serious enough that you want him to pick you over his job,” Grace said. I didn’t reply. I didn’t know what to say. “What did he give as an excuse?” Grace asked.
“He just said that the client can pick the team.”
Grace winced.
“Don’t you dare say he’s right.” He wasn’t right, was he? “It would be different if Max and I weren’t fucking, but we are. Were. I’m not just his employee.” I wasn’t sure what we were to each other and I supposed it didn’t matter anymore. But he’d owed me something. Some kind of loyalty. Hadn’t he?
“I’m not sure you’d be quite this upset—so upset you handed in your notice—if it were just ‘fucking’. You say it’s not serious but it sounds like it is from your perspective. Do you have feelings for him?”
I scraped my hair back from my face as if it would help me see more clearly. Did I have feelings for him? “I feel like I want to punch him in the face; does that count?” I asked as Grace rubbed my back.
But I didn’t want to punch Max, not really. I wasn’t angry. I felt broken, as if I’d taken a right hook to my stomach. Somewhere along the road, I’d let him in, enjoyed being with him—I’d been happy, and not just when we had sex. I couldn’t remember a time when that had been true of any of my other relationships. My father had ensured I grew up heartbroken, the scars of our relationship creating a barrier between me and other men. No one had ever broken through. No one except Max. It had just been sex—amazing sex—and then somewhere along the line, as he’d revealed himself to me, I’d been forced to do the same. He’d opened me up and I’d let myself care.
“I think maybe you feel more for him than you’re admitting to yourself,” Grace said.
Of course I had feelings for him.
Max was the only experience I’d had of being with a man where I’d not worked out how or when we would end before anything started. I knew I would leave my college boyfriend when we graduated. I knew the guy I saw occasionally at Berkeley would never leave Northern California and I’d never stay. I always saw the end before anything began. And that suited me. It meant I didn’t get attached, didn’t have any false expectations. With Max, I’d never seen the end and so I felt cheated of all the time we could have had together in the future. My expectations of him, of us, had been too high because they hadn’t had limits.
I wanted so desperately for Max to have told my father if he didn’t want me working on the account, Max didn’t want his business. Finally, I wanted a man to put me first. Ahead of money, ahead of business. I wanted Max to stand up and claim me as my father never had.
I understood now my heart was closed to any happy futures. Shut down. Every man who came after this would always have limits.
I stood in Grace’s closet, surrounded by her designer wardrobe I’d been pilfering since I arrived a little over a week ago. She might not wear them often, but she sure had a lot of beautiful clothes. I couldn’t avoid going back to Manhattan any longer. I figured there was no running into Max if I went back on a Saturday. I needed to go back to my apartment.
“This is Gucci,” I yelled from her bedroom, pulling out a black pencil skirt.
“Jesus, your voice carries three blocks. I think I prefer you mute.”
I hadn’t had much to say for the first few days of my stay at Grace’s. It was as if the pain of walking away from my life had stolen my words. But after my third day in bed Grace had literally pulled me into the sitting room and forced me to watch TV and join in commentary on episode after episode of Real Housewives. Things got a little better after that and I was able to contain my gloom. But it was still there, lurking, waiting for me to be on my own so it could take over.