Page 44 of Shadow Sabotage
Her face turned serious. “I get it now. You moved here to be with him.”
“Kind of.” I took another bite.
“Is that why you went to college in New York? To be close to him?”
“Yeah.” Only one other person had ever asked me that question—my mother. She’d thrown it in my face as a guilt trip for years after I’d admitted it. To her, that meant he’d won. That I’d chosen him over her. And that was unforgivable.
Claire studied me. “Sucks that you moved there to be with him and he left. Did he have a job transfer or something?”
“Nosy,” I murmured, shaking my head.
Guilt flashed on her face. “Oh. Sorry. I have a habit of that. I’m not trying to be intrusive.”
“It’s okay. It’s just… I don’t normally talk about them.”
“Why not?” Her eyes were full of curiosity, but as I stared into them, I realized that it wasn’t the kind that made me uncomfortable. It wasn’t her prying for information she could leverage.
She was just trying to be a friend.
I blew out a breath. “My parents are somewhat well-known. It’s always been our policy to keep family drama to ourselves.” Especially in New York.
“Oh.” Her eyes widened. “Gotcha. I should have known, considering where you grew up. Again, I’m sorry. I won’t ask any personal questions.”
“No, it’s okay.” I realized at that moment that I trusted Claire more than I’d trusted anyone in a very long time.
She was the most refreshing person I’d met in years. She didn’t play games, and she wasn’t constantly looking for an edge or leverage to propel herself up. She was simply herself. Unapologetically, refreshingly herself. A smart and sassy woman who didn’t force herself to fit into someone else’s box. Because of it, she was breaking down all my walls, coaxing me past my boundaries.
Normally, if someone tried that, I’d resent it. Build my walls higher, thicker. That’s what the Westons did. We prized security, privacy, excellence, and self-discipline. Not friendship. Not intimacy. Certainly not love.
But Claire Hawkins was making me wonder what it might be like to live by a different set of values.
Chapter Fifteen
Claire
Despite his initial hesitation,Vance polished off the last of his hot dog. And while he did, he talked.
He told me about his family. How his mom was a New York socialite who had fallen in love with his dad, an FBI agent with a radically different life than she’d ever known. How she’d gotten pregnant, they’d married, and then everything had fallen apart.
“Mom loved the thrill of dating someone with such an exciting job,” he explained. “But reality sunk in after they got married.”
“What happened?”
He shrugged. “Her life changed, but his didn’t. For him, the job came first. Always. ‘No distractions.’ That was his motto, and it didn’t change just because he had a ring on his finger.”
I winced. “Man. That really sucks.”
“Yeah. And a part-time relationship wasn’t sexy anymore when she was stuck at home taking care of a baby she didn’t really want. So she split.”
He said the words casually, but I knew there had to be pain behind them.
“So that’s when you moved to Maine?”
He nodded. “My grandparents had a summer house there. We moved in with them and never left. It was a completely different scene than New York, but Mom loved it. She made a whole new set of friends and traded the nightlife for tea parties and spa retreats. Up there, having a kid was an asset, not a hindrance.”
“That’s good, I guess?”
He snorted. “I think I liked it better in New York, where she was ignoring me. Having someone value you only as a way to make themselves look good sucks in a different way.”
