Page 22 of Eye Candy

The mysterious blog! After Gerard had mentioned Chase’s blog, Lyssa and I had typed query after query into Google with no luck. He must have been writing it under another name.

“What’s the deal with this blog?” I asked, careful to appear disinterested even though I was very, very interested.

“He started it after you went to Europe. He publishes anonymously, but of course, we all know it’s him. I tried to warn Fiona—you remember Fiona? She’s Michael Durbois’s daughter—well, she went on a date with him last year even though I told her not to. Chase has his father’s head of hair and, more importantly, majority shares in the Sanford Group, so Fiona is willing to overlook the fact that he’s a huge buzzkill.”

Affront climbed my spine. “I don’t think he’s a buzzkill.”

“You don’t need to lie.” Sonya patted my hand. “As long as you know that the woman who finally lets Chase lock her down will spend the rest of her life faking partnered orgasms. I don’t know about this firsthand”—she anticipated my question—“but I read a few of his blogs, and it’s clear to me the man fucks like a puritan.”

Sonya and I were onverydifferent pages. It was true that Chase had a rigidity to him, but I found that hot. It made me want to press his buttons. He had the air of someone very tightlywound who desperately needed to let loose. ‘Do you need a reminder to eat your favorite meal?’ he’d asked at the apartment.

“Is that what all of his posts are about?” I asked Sonya. “Sex?”

“Oh no. It’s an ethics column for men.The Moral Fix. Men write in with their problems and Chase writes back. Because he’s a good boy who always does the right thing. Yawn.”

Horror swept over me, cold as an icy cocktail.Sweet Brigitte Bardot. No wonder my Summer thing hadn’t worked on him, the man was a professional stick in the mud! Trying to scam an ethics blogger was like trying to shortchange a mathematician.

“That’s what Chase does for a living?” I said, unable to fully hide my horror.

Sonya looked at me strangely. “He doesn’t need to make a living, Teddy.” She saidlivinglike I would saygonorrhea. “He’s a Sanford. But yes, his blog and his little game shop take up most of his time.”

“So…” I said slowly, “Chase spends all day lecturing people who write to him for help about what he thinks they should have done. Is that right? People who I can only assume don’t have trust funds or generational wealth?”

She shrugged. “I guess.”

I was too stunned to answer her. This information shook me to my core.

People who idealized a moral high ground at the expense of everything else, who said they would never do this or never do that, (a) didn’t really know what those things entailed and (b) had never looked at their accounts and seen only overdraft and debt. They didn’t understand that it was a different set of rules to pull yourself up by your bootstraps when you weren’t a cishet man, or didn’t have a safety net of familial wealth. It was harder to be taken seriously, harder to protect your personal safety, harder to establish trust and get opportunities… Everything was much, much harder. I knew this firsthand, and I still had a lot of privilege as a white, straight-sized, conventionally attractive woman.

Pearl-clutching, ‘I would never,’ or ‘you should just…’ peopleinfuriated me. Because what they meant was ‘I’d rather not,’ and then they never experienced a circumstance that made them reevaluate. For example, three weeks ago, I would have said I’d never commit identity fraud, and look at me now!

Proving that karma really was what they called her, a deep voice cut in.

“Hope I’m not interrupting.”

CHAPTER 11

CAROLINE

“Chase!”Sonya greeted warmly, as if she hadn’t been talking shit about him seconds ago.

Despite myself, I liked Sonya. She was an outrageous gossip and privileged beyond measure, but at least she made zero effort to pretend she was anything else.

“Hello, Sonya.” Chase kissed her cheek, a real kiss, not an air one. “Teddy.”

The way he said my fake name dripped with disapproval, reminding me of what Gerard had asked me to do.

My account balance may have the decimal point on the wrong side of the zeros, and I may lie more than a mediocre man on a dating app, but if there was one thing I knew how to do, it was bombshell mode.

I raked my eyes over Chase, being as obvious as I was lascivious. I looked at him the way people always looked at me—although admittedly I was usually onstage for that express purpose. But I didn’t let that stop my eye fucking.

Chase was wearing his rich-boy sweater again, the sleevesrolled to show the golden hair on his forearms. His one concession to the costume theme was a peaked newsboy cap. Paired with his usual glasses, he looked like he’d just come in from slinging newspapers on the corner, but we all knew that in the 1920s, Chase Sanford would have been hobnobbing with the Rockefellers instead of hawking news.

Those forearms were a vision though.

Zap, zapwent Mike’s flyswatter in my head.

“Nice to see you, Chase. What have you been doing with yourself since I last saw you?”