Page 30 of On the Line

“James, dear, there you are,”my mother coos, clearly putting on a show for appearance’s sake. “You remember the Lanchesters? They were at your cousin Nicky’s wedding.”

So was every other upper-crust family in this stupid city.

I keep my bitterness to myself and smile sweetly.

“Of course,” I answer. “A pleasure to see you again.”

The conversation drones on and I keep my smile casually fixed while I pretend to listen. It comes naturally, I’ve had a lifetime of these events to practice.

Eventually, I find the perfect lull in the conversation to excuse myself, now in dire need of champagne. Walking deeper into the gardens, I take one of the small hedged paths, decorated with low-hanging string lights for theevent. It leads to another clearing and I freeze when the first group of people I see is Zachary’s parents.

Shit.

His mother, a petite redhead with her statement pearls dripping from her neck and wrists, notices me first. Her face brightens as she waves me over. My blood turns to ice when I realize who has their back turned to me.

The golden boy himself.

“Jamie sweetie, happy birthday,” Zachary’s mother sing-songs when I approach her, giving me a kiss on each cheek, although her lips never actually come close to my face. “You look gorgeous, is the pink new?”

I flash her a bright smile, pointedly ignoring her son standing beside me. “Thank you, Mrs. Garret—no I’ve had this color for a while now …” I trail off, my mind reeling from the effort to act so casually, when inside my body has flung itself into fight or flight mode.

“Oh well,” she replies with a small wave of the hand, laughing warmly. “It looks great, very …edgy.” Looking over to her son, his perfectly coiffed blonde hair brushed off his face, she adds, “Don’t you agree, Zachary darling?”

“Jamie is a vision as usual, Mother,” he drawls, and I finally look over to him. His smirk makes my skin crawl. He wraps his arm around my waist, and tugs me a little too forcefully into his side as he kisses me on the cheek. I freeze up but don’t resist it, too well-trained to show any cracks in my mask in front of his parents.

“Anyway, we’ll leave you two lovebirds to it. Henry here is hungry,” she says with a laugh as if that’s the most outlandish thing her husband has ever told her. He huffs out a small grunt but says nothing, clearly used to having his wife do all the chit-chatting.

“Let’s talk more later,” I say, although I’d rather throw myself into traffic than spend more time with them.

“Of course, of course. You two be good now,” she replies while she and Henry walk away.

Waiting for them to be out of earshot, I rip myself out of Zachary’s embrace.

“What the hell are you doing here?” I hiss.

“It’s my girlfriend’s birthday party,” he says flatly, looking anywhere but at me while he slides his hands into the pockets of his beige trousers, pompous as ever. “You should have known I’d be here.”

Inside, I’m fuming but I keep my voice low. “You’ve been ignoring my calls for three days.”

He slides his unimpressed gaze my way. “So?”

I didn’t know I had more anger left to spill. “So?!” I whisper-yell.

Telling him that we’re through right then and there is on the tip of my tongue. But Zachary is a loose cannon and the small possibility of him making a scene makes me chew on my words and swallow hard. “I don’t have time for you right now.”

I try to storm off but Zachary catches the end of my gauzy sleeve and I hear a rip. Surprised by the sound, I look down at my arm. It’s a small rip, barely noticeable but it dawns on me then that the old James would have cared about the dress.

But this James doesn't.

All I care about is getting away from Zachary. My gaze slams into his, but I say nothing, pulling myself away from him. I guess there’s enough defiance in my eyes that when I turn around and leave, he lets me go without any more of a fight.

I stomp further into the gardens, not really lookingwhere I’m going until I finally stop near a marble statue of Venus, catching my breath and trying to slow my heartbeat down.

I freeze when I hear someone laugh behind me.

I know that laugh.

“Looks like the princessdoeslike keeping secrets after all.”

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