Page 51 of Tipping Point

“Ollie and Sophia, though, they’re the real deal.”

“Are they?” He cocks his head at me. “Are they truly? Your man Ollie makes sixty million dollars a year, and that excludes his endorsements and sponsorship deals. For that kind of money, she has to be okay with it.”

“You think Sophia’s a gold digger?”

“My father wasn’t rich. He had only himself and his passion, and she couldn’t love him and live with it. There was no incentive.”

I’m angry now.

“You think the wives and girlfriends hang around for the money?”

“I think,” he says tentatively, “that if you earn what we earn, there are always women willing to accept the risks.”

It takes my breath away, the embarrassment. This is what he thinks of me.

“That’s not true,” I breathe. I want to defend myself and how I feel about him, but if this is how he looks at women, at me, I can’t navigate that. “Women aren’t toys.”

“You misunderstand,” he says harshly. “I never said they were. They’re beautiful and smart and they make their own decisions, and if they choose to be with us, that’s them taking control of their own lives, weighing up the risks that they’re comfortable with. The choice is always in their hands. I am just not willing to ask that from someone, especially someone I actually care about.”

I throw my hands up in frustration and lean back to snatch my backpack, but he takes me by the arm and turns me towards him.

“If there is a chance that you are right,” he says softly, his voice a deep murmur, “even if I believed it was true, I still could never be with someone that way.”

He’s trying to be factual, but his face is open and raw and uncertain.

“Why?” I am trying to understand.

He makes to speak but stops himself. There is a line he cannot cross.

I grab my backpack and sling it over my shoulder, open the door, and get out. I feel like I want to cry, and I could never do that in front of him, show him he hurt me.

He doesn’t stop me, and I close the door quietly.

I nod at the valet as I shoulder my way past him.

In my room, I fling my backpack onto the bed and fall down next to it with a sigh.

I am fighting tears, but I refuse to cry.

I wish I was back home. I wish I never took this job.

I wish I knew why he would make it so clear that he wants me, but that he would never love me.

I wish. I wish. I wish.

* * *

CAMILLE

We’re at a palace. The steps that lead up to the foyer was draped in a red carpet with lanterns flanking the sides, casting a golden glow over the milling guests. Valets dressed in tuxedos drive away a fleet of luxury cars as the guests ascend the stairs.

At the foyer door, they give everyone a mask. For the women, it’s a black lacy thing that covers the top half of our faces. For the men, it’s the famous half face white mask that covers the right side of their face, leaving the left side and their mouths open.

Nothing to hinder the liters of champagne going down tonight.

Jay and Evan and Bruce are all bunched together uncomfortably on one side of the foyer.

Evan is panning the crowd, the red light on his camera blinking, and Jay, used to my direction by now, is taking close-up shots of the guests, the glamorous gowns, the glittering diamonds.

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